Global Warming : A Hot Topic Worldwide For Over A Decade

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

As a result, it is no surprise scientists have estimated that in the last two hundred years the global temperature has risen by 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit. Maybe that does not sound like much, but consider this: it only took four degrees to bring us out of the last Ice Age. Experts agree that global warming is one of the greatest—if not the greatest—challenge facing all of humanity.

The Global Warming theory has become increasingly popular over the past few years. Citizens of the world are being encouraged to be more environmentally conscious by others including politicians, celebrities, and world organizations. The problem with the theory lies in the fact that it has become more and more controversial as it gains publicity and attention. The basic concept behind this theory is that the earth was made with a balance of “greenhouse gasses”. These gasses are naturally occurring within the atmosphere and they essentially make the planet habitable by keeping it warm.

Global warming is a term used to describe the slow change in Earth’s overall temperature. This topic recently started being heavily recorded and studied by scientists. Politics started including it around the 1990’s. The boost of greenhouse gases caused by human burning of fossil fuels, industrial farming, and deforestation activities are what people tend to blame for

Global Warming has silently crept into our society today because of big business, lack of technology, and greed. And now with a new generation of citizens who understand what we have been doing to our earth have to stand up and do what is right. Global Warming refers to the increase in the earth’s average temperature induced by human activity. Most discussions on Global Warming today show similarities between an increase in global temperature and the increase in carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane, and chlorofluorocarbons in the atmosphere. Human activity increases the amount of these gases in the atmosphere and, as a result of the greenhouse effect, increases

Global warming is defined “as an increase in the average temperature of global surface air and oceans since about 1950” (White). The global warming controversy is an ongoing dispute with two main sides; one stating that the direct cause to global warming is through people’s daily activities and the burning of fossil fuels, while other people all around the world refuse to believe that human contributions are the main cause, saying that the earth is going through a natural stage of climatic change, thereby resulting in increasing temperatures in the earth’s atmosphere. Rising temperatures and in increase in greenhouse gases shown through the carbon cycle, demonstrate how the greenhouse effect is incorporated into both views on global warming. Over the past 50 years, experts in this field world-wide have been having an unaccountable amount of disputes over global warming, favoring in either of these positions of human causation or natural climatic change.

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

Global warming is a huge concern in society that is only growing bigger because people either are not well informed about it, or they are not concerned about it. Some think that it will just go away and others still believe that it doesn’t exist, even though there is hundreds if not thousands of pieces of evidence that supports otherwise. One of the biggest pieces of evidence that proves global warming is real is the effect that photosynthesis has on global warming.

Scientists who believe in global warming say that global warming is the result of carbon dioxide and other air pollutants collecting in the atmosphere like a thickening blanket, trapping the sun’s heat which causes the earth to heat up. In fact, according to Amber Jenkins, site editor for "Global Warming: Vital Signs of the Planet," meteorologists at NASA (National Aeronautics & Space Administration) have reported that “Earth is the hottest it has been in at least 400 years, and possibly even the last 2,000 years. Studies indicate that the average global temperature has increased by approximately 0.5-1.0°F (0.3-0.6°C) over the last century” (Jenkins).

Global warming has become a world wide issue and an issue that is causing great controversy. It is an increase in the earth's atmospheric and oceanic temperatures widely predicted to occur due to an increase in the greenhouse effect resulting especially from pollution (Dictionary). Global warming is a natural process, but because of increase in certain activities this process is taking a faster and more dangerous route creating global problems. Global warming was first theorized in 1894 by Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier a French mathematician, who noticed the earth was gradually increasing in temperature. He came to the conclusion that the earth’s atmosphere was trapping solar radiation caused by the sun and reflecting this radiation back to

Most scientists agree that planet’s temperature has risen 0.5 degree Celsius since 1900 and will continue to increase at an increasing rate. As a result, the world is getting warmer. The year 1990 was the hottest year in the last century.

The issue of global warming should be on the list of our top priorities. Studies show that the average of global temperatures have risen since the Industrial Revolution began. Since the Industrial Revolution, human emissions has quadrupled the frequency of certain heat extremes and many scientists have warned that a failure to bring greenhouse gases under control could eventually lead to a 62-fold increase in extreme heat blasts (Gillis Justin A17). Most of the increase is due to human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation. These activities contribute to a build-up in carbon dioxide and other gases in Earth’s atmosphere. The Earth’s atmosphere is made of gases like nitrogen, carbon dioxide and oxygen. These gases act as a blanket that covers and gives us warmth, but once these gases such as carbon dioxide absorbs heat, but does not release it back into space in which causes the increase in global temperature. This is called the greenhouse effect because it only traps heat but does not release it.

The other theory is that there has not been a significant rise in temperature at all. Land-based weather stations measured a temperature increase of 0.45°C in the last 100 years. This increase could very well just be a normal variation. Also, the instruments used to measure these temperatures were not advanced technology. They also did not take many factors into account. Land-based measurements showed that 1997 was the warmest year ever recorded. However, satellites and weather balloons recorded temperatures that show that 1997 was the seventh coolest year recorded. This records began in 1978. Temperature records that are land-based are too few and they are not spaced evenly. They are not accurate enough. Also, they only record temperatures on land. Only 30% of the Earth is land. 70% of the Earth is left unaccounted for. This type of measurements has many discrepancies.

To begin with, the major cause of global warming is the green house gases like carbon dioxide, methane which is present in the air and the major source of carbon dioxide is power plants because in these power plants there is large amount of carbon dioxide is produced from burning of fossil fuels for the production of electricity. Then, about twenty percent of carbon dioxide emitted in the atmosphere comes from burning of gasoline in the engines of the vehicles. Buildings, both commercial and residential represent a larger source of global warming pollution than cars and trucks.

Although some believe that Global Warming has been created due to manmade pollutants, I believe that Global Warming is a natural process that has been accelerated due to the excess emissions of pollutants from nature and manmade devices into the atmosphere. The world has been said to be on a cycle of global warming and cooling, this process can neither be stopped nor prevented, but it can be accelerated with the addition of non-natural emissions from automobiles and factories; because this is a natural process, even if constraints were to be put on the amount of pollutants released into the air global warming could not be prevented—it could only be slowed. When the inevitable happens and global warming occurs, there are many