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Essay on How Should We Respond to Global Warming?

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How Should We Respond to Global Warming?

A few days ago, while basking in the warmth of winter, a friend asked me about Global Warming and what exactly the problems were with a rise in temperature. He seemed to have no problem with a 75 degree day in the middle of March and wanted to know what all the fuss is about. I tried to answer his question by concisely summing up the evidence for global warming and the potential hazards of an increase in global temperature–surprisingly, I could not think of a decent response.

You see, I didn’t quite know how to respond to my friend’s forthright inquiry about the state of the Earth’s weather systems, because I really don’t have a clue what is happening or is going to happen. By studying the …show more content…

Currently, the interrelation of feedbacks from all the possible variables adds too many chaotic complexities to provide a definitive answer, and models used to project climate are subject to a number of criticisms. Naturally, anthropogenic influence on climate change figures to be at the crux of the debate, and the dividing lines of opposing interest groups are sharply drawn. Policymakers are in a difficult situation. They have to weigh regulations that have a potentially harmful effect economically (Kyoto Protocol), against the possibility–given scientific error–of disastrous climate change. As a result, scientists confront the daunting task of separating the human effects on climate from the background noise caused by natural climate forcings.

The interaction of a seemingly infinite number of variables inflicts difficulties in distinguishing climate trends. Although we are well aware of rising temperatures and sea-level, pinpointing the causes of these fluctuations is arduous work. Factors such as El Nino, the orbital positions of the Earth, volcanic eruptions, topography, sunlight variations, respiration, and circulations of ocean currents all contribute to a system scientists are just beginning to understand. Variations in the Earth’s climate can often be explained by any number of these variables. However, the last two decades have yielded unprecedented increases in recorded temperatures. All sixteen of the warmest years since 1860 have occurred in the

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