Truths about Global Warming and its Dangerous Effects Today
What happens when too much carbon dioxide gets omitted into the earth's atmosphere? The condition global warming occurs. Global warming is the rising of temperatures due to chemicals called "greenhouse gases" such as carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane. The atmospheric phenomenon of allowing the sun's radiant energy to pass through and then trapping the earth's re-irradiated energy is known "greenhouse effect". (Fisher 19) A natural greenhouse effect helps to keep the earth's average temperature at a comfortable 59 degrees fahrenheit.
Every year our climate is continually changing and becoming warmer. Most of the human activities are causing some greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide to build up in the atmosphere. Human activities is the leading contributor to the build up of greenhouse gases. Human activities such as when people burn more fossil fuels for energy, they add more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. When the trees at the forest are cut down to make way for agriculture. Nitrous oxide had increase too where they use fertilizers. Such activities we use to perform is increasing year to year, many of them doubling and tripling. It is a case of the amount of gases the earth produces naturally versus the amount of gases produced manually by us. Other human activities such as smoke from factory chimneys and exhaust from cars contain carbon dioxide that increases the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. But unfortunately due of producing more harmful greenhouses gases being placed into the earth's atmosphere, instead of temperature being constant, it's rising. One of these is El Nino event of 1997-1998, the strongest event of El Nino of the century.
The earth's rising of temperature will cause danger that are harmful to all human beings. With the increased warming of the earth that could lead to catastrophic events that could endanger living things on our planet. One event is major drought all around the world. In 1999, the US experienced one of the most major droughts ever recorded, Maryland, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Delaware faced their driest growing season on record. (PIRG Global Warming Organization) With the warming of the earth, the water on the ground would quickly evaporate causing the rivers and lakes to quickly dry up. This would lead to crops dying from lack of rain, which will lead to food prices to go up, which would lead to people dying from hunger, if they do not have enough money to pay for the food.
Another event that would occur from global warming is the drastic rise of sea level. As the earth warms up, the polar ice caps will start to melt. This would put immense amounts of water into earth's oceans. There is a possibility to all cities along the coast would be flooded from the rise in sea level(Wyman 18). Global warming would also cause extreme weather. The Pacific Northwest experienced its second wettest year on record. Nevada, California, and Iowa all experienced deadly floods. Followed by hurricane Mitch, the most deadliest in 200 years and followed by hurricane Andrew. And thunderstorms would be more powerful that they have ever been. Tornadoes would be stronger than they normally would. Too much heat is also a huge factor in the health of humans, especially the elderly. Incidents such as heat strokes and diseases increase drastically. Two major heat waves in Chicago in 1995 and Dallas in 1998 killed more than 600 people. The heat makes it possible for mosquitoes and other insects to transmit diseases. In the 1990's Malaria occurred in Michigan, Texas, Florida, Georgia, California, and New York.(PIRG Global Warming Organization) There is only way to stop global warming before it become a treat. This way is to stop emitting the greenhouse gases that causes global warming.
President Bush proposed a program to slowly cut the rate in growth of those greenhouse gases. Over the next decade by providing companies with incentives, focusing on developing, alternative sources of energy and finding technologies to reduce pollution. Saying to all companies to find a new technology to produce energy in a more efficient and cleaner manner.(Houston Chronicle, February2002)
Nowadays world's greenhouse gases are increasing rapidly and they will not only continue to do so but they will increase more and more in the next few decades, and as we burn more trees in the forest, and as we increase the usage of these greenhouse gases, if we allow this to happen, it will double the change of the atmosphere and change the entire world.
We need to stop putting so much pollution into the air. Cleaning up our power plants by setting tighter limits on all power plant pollution including carbon dioxide, the major cause of global warming. Hold sport utility vehicles, pick up trucks and minivans to same air pollution standards as cars. No matter what there will always be a little bit of carbon dioxide omitted into the atmosphere, if we could just limit all the coal and fossil fuels that we burn there will not be so much greenhouse gases and it would keep all that from happening.
If we do not act to reduce our emissions of these heat trapping gases, according to Jan Ten Bruggercate's article from the panel that it is predicted by the Joint Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research that global temperature could rise 2 to 6 degrees Fahrenheit in the next 100 years. Just a few degrees difference in the global average temperature can mean a major climate change. Right now, the conventional wisdom holds that the earth is warming up, and it is our fault because wee have been dumping pollution into the air that increases the greenhouse gases into our atmosphere that blocks the heat to escape into the atmosphere. Global warming is not like turning on a heater, we can't just turn it off afterwards the warms too fast for comfort. Once we emit greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, most of them will remain there for decades, continuing to trap heat. If we wait until the consequences became obvious, it could be too late to do much about them. We can act now to ensure against the risk of disruptive future warming, by reducing our greenhouse emissions today. There are many practical options that could not only cut these emissions but also save money and reduce air pollution.
The future of earth's climate is in the hands of human. With simple measures, we as people of this earth, cannot seal our fate in rising temperatures, but rather we must change our views completely. It is scary of how much we have abused and taken advantage of this earth. I am troubled that my children will suffer because of our lack of concern, knowledge, and greed. We have to stop thinking of the natural world as something that we can exploit, and start thinking of it as something that is crucial to our very existence. We must take responsibilities for our home. We have but one earth, one chance.
Article name: Truths about Global Warming and its Dangerous Effects Today essay, research paper, dissertation