A Brief Note On Environmental Policy And Politics

Consider the following information: Every time we use fossil fuels, we release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Fuel must be burned to extract oil from the ground and process it; and then more fuel must be burned just to transport the fuel to where we buy it! Scientists believe that it is carbon dioxide emissions that are responsible for climate change, specifically the global warming effect.

In the last 100 years, the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has increased, causing the Earth to warm by an average of 0.6 degrees celsius, largely a result of burning fossil fuels for energy, transportation, and land use changes increased for food production. The basic science is straightforward and climate researchers have shown that gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and others can trap heat in the Earth’s atmosphere, causing a phenomenon known as the greenhouse effect. Human activities such as industry, transport, energy generation and deforestation all produce these greenhouse gases. In the last 20 years, concern has grown that global warming is inevitable and now considered most probably caused by man-made increases in

The rapidly increasing amount of carbon dioxide may be one of the factors that cause climate change. As Hillman states, “Concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are increasing, and have done so since the Industrial Revolution.” An atmospheric CO2 concentration, research shows that there is a dramatic increase from 280 parts per million (ppm) in 1750 to 373 ppm in 2002, a rise of the third. Furthermore, the linear chart demonstrated the trend of annual global CO2

As western society has been aggressively expanding, the consumption of materials has followed suit. This leads to a negative effect on the environment. To curb the decay of the planet, it is important for humans to have a handle on how much we consume. One consequence of consumption is the emissions produced by our vehicles. It is crucial to develop a government policy that most effectively controls and reduces the amount of these emissions we give off. While the government has introduced many subsidization policies, the most efficient policy the government could enact is to raise the taxes on gas.

We need to find out what cause Global Warming. From the scientists research results, we can see that carbon dioxide pollution from the increase of industry and transportation is a major cause of global warming. These two causes are connected with the growth in the world population. As the population grows the necessity for food and other products increase, therefore industry must grow to keep up with the demand. The increase in transportation is directly due to the growing population and the need for jobs and the growing congestion on our highways.

Whether climate change occurred by human activities or naturally accruing phenomenon is a debatable issue. However, it may safely be said releasing carbon dioxide is one of the main reasons for climate change. Human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels from using transportation and maintaining agriculture are major contributions of greenhouse gases emissions, which lead to climate change. They can be solved by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Cars and truck account for 20% of all U.S. global warming emissions, where more than 24 pounds per gallon of carbon dioxide and other global warming gases come right out of the car’s tailpipe (“Union of Concerned scientists”). This frightening statistic is part of the reason why the federal government has put in place many policies and incentives such as the Clean Air Act, The National Program for greenhouse gas emissions, Catalytic Converter Federal Laws, and incentives of $12,000 in California to get people to upgrade to more fuel-efficient cars. With such programs and incentives put in places, it is also important that car companies such as Toyota and Ford also take action to further cut pollution rates. They have done so by

The authors reveal the “desperate delusion that alternative fuels can solve the ecological catastrophe that is the private car”. Corn-based ethanol produces more CO2 than oil-based petrol “if all the energy used in the growth phase is properly accounted for”. Corn-as-fuel also takes up five times more land than corn-as-food. Using hydrogen or electricity to power US cars would need more dirty coal as an energy source. Either that or an area as large as the state of Massachusetts for solar panels, or New York State for wind turbines, or 200 new nuclear energy plants. (Mugyenyi and Engler, 2010, p.106-113) “There is no such thing as a green car,” the authors conclude. “Unsustainable” would barely describe the car’s environmental failure if the rest of the world were to adopt US patterns of car ownership and driving behavior (Mugyenyi and Engler, 2010, p.114).

. In unit 2 we learned that climate change is caused by CO2 (Carbon Dioxide).This layer of greenhouse gas is trapped into the atmosphere and increases the thickness of the layer. As a result it rises the Earth’s temperature warmer and causes climate change. The CO2 is caused by human activities such as pollutions and burning fossil fuel. The risk of climate change is extremely high such as loss of the major ice sheets and sudden changes in the

Global warming causes the water level to rise which causes more of a problem. It can cause fresh water to be contaminated with salt changing the ecosystem completely.

Global warming has been a controversial topic for years and some have even denied its existence; however, as more studies are being published every day in regards to our changing climate, it is hard to ignore this growing issue and how humans contribute to it. The term greenhouse gases refers to the group of gases that are primarily responsible for global warming and chief among these gases is carbon dioxide. Rising carbon dioxide levels can be attributed to a combination of burning fossil fuels such as coal, natural gas, and petroleum as well as deforestation in general ( Source A). To slow the effects of global warming, it is important for leaders in our society to consider their greenhouse gas emissions, especially carbon dioxide, and make

Every year, almost 7 billion tons of carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere by human activity. That is the equivalent of 107,700,000 jet airplanes being in the air at once! This harrowing figure is the main cause of global warming, and has been increasing for the last 50 years. Global warming is caused by the increase of greenhouse gasses, carbon dioxide and methane primarily, in the earth's upper atmosphere directly caused by human burning of fossil fuels, industrial, farming, and deforestation activities. Global warming is defined as an increase in the average temperature of the earth's atmosphere (especially a sustained increase that causes climatic

• Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a greenhouse gas that warms the atmosphere. • Since pre-industrial times, atmospheric CO2 concentrations have increased from about 280 parts per million (ppm) to over 380 ppm. Current concentrations of CO2 and other greenhouse gases are unprecedented in at least the last 650,000 years, based on records from gas bubbles trapped in polar ice. • Independent measurements demonstrate that the increased CO2 in the atmosphere comes

Carbon dioxide is the greenhouse gas naturally found in the atmosphere. Since the advent of the Industrial Revolution in the 1700s, humans have devised many inventions that burn fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gases, which, along with other human activities such as clearing land for agriculture or urban settlements, help some of these greenhouse gases accumulate in the atmosphere that in turn trap more heat radiation in the atmosphere causing the Earth’s climate to become warmer than it would naturally (Mastrandrea). This unnatural phenomenon is termed global warming by scientists and they blame it for an increase in the Earth’s surface temperature of about 0.6°C (about 1°F) over the last 100 years (Mastrandrea).

Greenhouse gases come from such mainstays of modern life as electrical power plants, automobiles, and heavy industry. Growing consumption of fuel by less efficient cars and light trucks suggests that motor vehicles may soon overtake industry as the largest source of gases suspected of causing global warming by effectively creating a greenhouse around the Earth. Many people do not want to decrease their standard of living by reducing their consumption of fossil fuels. These people do not realize that if they reduce their consumption, there will be a reduction in the amount of greenhouse gases. If this does not happen and global warming continues, the long-term effects may be catastrophic.