Our commitment is to offset Greenhouse gases emitted by human activities - from the simple act of drive a car to the most sophisticated industrial process - recovering degraded riparian areas. The trees absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, as well contribute to the soil, water and the biological diversity conservation.

The Greenhouse effect

Is a natural phenomenon and necessary to life on our planet. The Greenhouse effect keeps the earth’s average temperature in 33˚ Celsius, which allow the presence of water on its liquid state and consequently, the life development as we know. If these gases simple did not exist the average temperature would fall to 18˚ Celsius below zero, turning the majority of the earth’s existence unfeasible.

Ilustração do efeito normal

The Earth receives energy emitted by the as radiation. Part of this radiation is reflected by the atmosphere and returns to the space. From the remaining energy, which crosses the atmosphere, part is absorbed by the Earth and part is reflected as infrared radiation. This radiation crosses again the atmosphere bearing the space, however, a portion of it is blocked and reflected again to the Earth, mainly by the molecules of the gases that holds the physic propriety of reflecting infrared radiations, the Greenhouse Gases. The greater its concentration in the atmosphere, the greater will be the amount of infrared radiation retained in the planet.

The main greenhouse gases are:

CO2 - Carbon dioxide

CH4 - Methane

N2O - Nitrous oxide

PFCs - Perfluorocarbons

HFCs - Hydrofluorocarbons

SF6 - Sulphur hexafluoride

When the Greenhouse effect becames global warming ?

In the last sixty years the amount of carbon dioxide emitted to the atmosphere by humankind, mainly due to the increase of fossil fuel usage, Ilustração do efeito estufa increased the concentration of this gas in the atmosphere from 280 ppm (particles per million), in the pre-industrial era, to 365 ppm in 1995 (KEELING & WHORF, 1998). Nowadays the atmospheric carbon concentration is in 379 ppm, according to the lasts measures done in the Mauna Loa Station, in Hawaii (Martins, 2004).

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), foresaw in 1996, that the global CO2 emissions could increase from 7,4 GtC/year (2007 figures), to around 26 GtC if emission reduction measures are not to be adopted.

The alarm sounded when the IPCC reports were published in the first semester of 2007. The document foresees that the planet’s average temperature increases around 1.8ºC and 4ºC until the end of this century. An increase of 2ºC in the globe’s mean temperature from 1980 to 1990 could mean the vanishment of 30% of the planets species.

The water and food scarcity and the diseases propagation are, as well, eminent menaces, as the increase of storms, floods and erosion process in most parts of the globe, and at the same time, other regions could suffer from intense droughts. According to a research done by the Brazilian National Institute of Spatial Research (INPE), included in a WWF report, an area from 30% to 60% of the Amazon Forest can be turned into Savanna if that region becomes warmer and dryer. The desertification process can arise into the loss of up to 50% of the agricultural lands in the Latin America, according to the IPCC. The extreme temperatures can, as well melt the glaciers and increase the ocean level between 20 cm and 60 cm until the end of the century, according to the IPPC forecasts, which could cause the entire cities submersion.

The major Greenhouse gases (GHG) emission sources are:

- Use of fossil fuels (gasoline, coal, natural gas) in the industrial process and the transportation, as cars, trucks and planes. A fossil fuel is the result of the biomass storage over million years. When extracted and burnt, it releases the carbon that was stored, in much smaller fraction of time, than the time that it takes to became a mineral. In this mean time, the carbon gets trapped in the atmosphere in gas form.

- Cut down and burnt trees, specially deriving from agriculture practices. In this process, the carbon stored in the trees biomes (wood) is released in form of CO2. The deforestation of the Amazon Forest, is responsible of 2/3 of the Brazilian CO2 emissions. According to the IPCC, 550 millions tons of carbonic gas emissions could be avoided if the deforestation process were to be reduced in the South and Central Americas.

- Electricity utilization in industrial process, electronics and household

- Non reutilization or recycling of materials and products, which makes necessary the raw material from the nature and a new production, transportation and commercialization process'.

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