Global Warming: An Ethical Issue Essay

The Anthropocene is an era increasingly defined as, current and beginning with homo sapiens becoming the dominant force upon Earth’s ecosystems, geology, and climate. Human activity has had and continues to have a measured effect, in major extinction events. Scientists believe this will increase in severity as a consequence of climate change (Thomas et al., 2004; Root et al., 2003). Minter (2012) discusses the traditional westernised desire humans have towards manipulating and controlling the environment. As humans strive to become ‘masters of nature’, we threaten the integrity of the organic systems we live off. Putting a low collective value on our ethical responsibilities with respect to our consumer behaviour could very well lay the flagstones on the path to our own extinction on this planet.

There has been a rise in average temperature by 1 degrees Fahrenheit over the last 100 years. This rise to due to the human effect on the Earth.

“A Letter from the Future” by Richard Heinberg describes to readers of a not too distant future (2101) an Earth in which its resources have been squandered and is facing an irreversible environmental meltdown caused by human’s greediness and mismanagement. Heinberg writes from the future to try and educate past civilization on what is happening in the future and how if their actions don’t change in how they treat their natural resources their future will irrefutably be destroyed for all mankind. Heinberg wrote this letter in order to explain just how dangerously high our current use of resources are and how it will impact the future.

Global warming is caused by several things. One of these is the release of carbon dioxide into the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere by using energy generated from burning fossil fuels.

Just like millions of people, I used to believe climate change was a hoax. It wasn’t until last year when my perspective completely changed after completing an ethics course in which we discussed the controversial topic. Based on scientific evidence discussed in my class, I am now aware that climate change can cause a host of problems, such as rising carbon dioxide levels, warmer and colder temperatures, as well as acidic and rising sea levels.

There are various human and natural causes of global warming. All these causes contribute to the amount of greenhouse gases which are the major cause of warming of the earth atmosphere. Human activities like deforestation, burning of fossil fuels, emissions from manufacturing industries, emissions of greenhouse gases like CO2, CFCs, NO2 and halocarbons which is a group of gases containing fluorine, chlorine and bromine. Burning of fossil fuels like petroleum, coal, etc. release carbon which combines with oxygen in the air to form carbon dioxide which is a

The first definable cause of global warming is because human activities. In the past few decades the population of the world has increased rapidly. This has certainly triggered to increase pollution and ultimately effecting in the rise of earth's temperature. The major contributors of the climate change

Detail research of the option available to take the decision and the outcomes of that decision is the seven-step decision-making model. After selecting the information that is analyze, decision makers will team up by presenting personal data about the information. Any decision making model used will start with analyzing the problem that makes a

Global Warming is caused by various things. However the main causes is by human activities such as burning of fossil fuels, land clearing, agriculture, increased volumes of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases are believed to be the primary sources of global warming in the past five decades. It has been recently predicted by global warming scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate that the average temperatures of the globe could possibly increase between 1.4℃ and 5.8℃ by the year 2100. This temperature rise can and will possibly affect planet Earth in many different ways.

Global warming has many causes contributing to its rapid growth in the last few decades. “A NASA satellite has been mapping the changing amounts of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere. In an image derived from data collected in October 2014, swirls of CO2 emitted by burning fossil fuels in the Northern Hemisphere are clearly visible” (National Geographic). This quote shows that the Northern Hemisphere is more polluted than the Southern Hemisphere, which shows a direct correlation of carbon emissions and other greenhouse gases in highly populated areas with many factories. Also, the other greenhouse gases such as water vapor, methane, and nitrous oxide are becoming more and more common in the atmosphere. Many greenhouse gases are overlooked and people usually just classify it as Carbon Dioxide, but really there are other gases such as methane which is 84 times more potent than Carbon Dioxide. It is just less common. With all these gases in the atmosphere, they start to heat up the Earth. “Global warming occurs when carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases collect in the atmosphere and absorb sunlight and solar radiation

and droplets that are produced by nature, in this case it would be ashes from volcanic eruptions.

greenhouse effect is a process by which thermal radiation from a planetary surface is absorbed by atmospheric greenhouse gases, and is re-radiated in all directions. Since part of this re-radiation is back towards the surface, energy is transferred to the surface and the lower atmosphere. As a result, the temperature there is higher than it would be if direct heating by solar radiation were the only warming mechanism.

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).

The number one cause of global warming is the large amount of greenhouse gases being released into our atmosphere on a daily basis. So, as the amount of greenhouse gases being released into the atmosphere increases, global warming increases. You may be asking how greenhouse gases are associated with the increase of global warming. Greenhouse gases include water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and ozone. These are all formed through the process of burning fossil fuels. Methane traps the sun 's heat in the earth 's atmosphere with the help of the other greenhouse gases through a naturally occurring process known as the greenhouse effect. During the day, the sun shines through the atmosphere. Earth 's surface warms up in the sunlight. At night, Earth 's surface cools, releasing the heat back into the air. But scientists have noticed a high increase in the amount of greenhouse gases being

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration Goddard Institute for Space Studies (2014) states that “global surface temperature in 2013 was +0.6°C (~1.1°F) warmer than the 1951-1980 base period average, thus the seventh warmest year in the GISS analysis.” Global warming has always been correlated by the increasing amount of greenhouse gases, which carbon dioxide is notoriously known for, in the Earth’s atmosphere.