Industrial emissions enhance the Greenhouse Effect and contribute to Global Warming.

Our planet has been gradually heating up since the end of the last Ice Age, 10,000 years ago. But the last century has seen that incremental increase double and the consequences could be devastating.

All the warmest days on record have occurred during the last decade and experts are now predicting that temperatures are set to increase by as much as six degrees centigrade during the next century - a rise that could herald devastating consequences.

The terms 'global warming' and 'greenhouse effect' hit the headlines in the 1980s, when environmental scientists working in Hawaii found that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere had increased by eight per cent between 1959 and 1983. The scientists determined that harmful gases from cars, industry and farming were actually the root of our planet's woes.

But the terms ‘global warming’ and the ‘greenhouse effect’ actually refer to natural processes that are essential to life on Earth. As the sun warms the earth, certain gases in the atmosphere act like the glass of a greenhouse - trapping heat and keeping the planet warm enough to support life. Without them we'd be plunged down to minus 18 degrees centigrade, so problems only occur when subtle changes in the environment upset the balance of these processes.

Increased concentrations of water vapour, CFCs, methane and carbon dioxide are actually harming our environment. Collectively known as 'greenhouse gases', intensified amounts of these gases effectively insulate the Earth and prevent heat from escaping. This is causing global temperatures to rise to alarming levels.