The Pros And Cons Of Global Warming

Climate change is one of today’s most hotly debated topic. Scientists for many decades have made supposed claims that current energy creation and reliance on fossil fuels will lead to inevitable changes to the planet. Today, climate change denial is still a popular to most of the world despite the mounds of evidence to support that it exists. The climate change issue suffers from being mismanaged by various parties through focusing on the wrong issues and the lack of true commitment from the general public, according to Sandra Steingraber.

(Woodard, 2007, p.40). Based on these facts, the proponents of this line of thought argue that forces of nature are the major causes of climate change and not human activities as reiterated by most environmentalists and scientists.

In order to examine and combat global warming, Senator Bernie Sanders and Barbara Boxer introduced the Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act of 2007 on Jan 15th, 2007. The act was proposed to increase performance abilities for electricity generation and motor vehicles with the choice in emissions “cap and trade” system. Unfortunately, the bill failed to pass committee in 2013. (Environmental Defense Fund, 2007)

It’s deceitful to characterize the basic facts of climate change as debatable or unsettled. Year after year, humans extract billions of tons of carbon from the bowels of the earth and blast it into the atmosphere. We need to stop indulging the questioning of humanity’s culpability.

Many people believe that climate change is not real because there is not enough proof to say that greenhouse gases or man-made problems have caused climate changes. Our 45th President, Donald Trump believes that climate change is a “hoax”, “Donald Trump and other officials -- including some of his picks for top environment and energy posts in the federal government -- often deny or doubt the scientific reality that humans are causing the Earth to warm,” because our planet is billions of years old. Since our planet is very old, throughout the earth history temperatures have often been warmer than now and CO2 levels have often been higher, more than ten times as high as it is today. “Many retired climate scientists dedicated to disentangling myth from fact, asserts bluntly that there is no proof that CO2 is the main driver of global warming” and a large body of scientific research suggests that the sun is responsible for the greater share of climate change during the past hundred

Many false and inaccurate claims arise when it comes to the opposing views on climate change. Individuals will argue

Even if we stopped all of these gasses emitted into the atmosphere tomorrow, we would still see a rise in planetary temperatures of 1.1 degrees Celsius, which is twice the warming experienced over the past century. (Marshall, 2) The IPCC predicts a global temperature rise of between 1.4 degrees and 5.8 degrees by 2100. A global warming episode 250 million years ago wiped out 95 percent of all species on earth. It took a rise in average global temperature of only 6 degrees to trigger this catastrophe. The IPCC?s current worst-case scenario is 5.8 degrees. One can scarcely imagine a more somber warning. (Marshall, 2) If we do not take immediate action to cut down on emissions of greenhouse gasses, we will in effect condemn our children and grandchildren and all other generations to follow to a permanently impoverished and more threatening world dominated by extreme weather and ecological collapse. But who cares about the generations to follow us? One may ask. Well, it has been speculated that low concentrations of toxins into the atmosphere may be the cause for some learning disabilities among children in America. How would you feel if your family was know for being stupid and all generations that follow even dumber, and the reason for such stupidity rested on your shoulders, because you were too lazy and ignorant to realize the

Although, governments have taken steps towards an eco-friendlier world; such efforts will not make an impact fast enough to reverse the damage already done to this planet. A perfect example of how these steps are meaningless is that in December, nearly 200 countries met in order find an agreement that reduces the damage being done to our planet. However, according to Margo Oge, the former director of the Office of Transportation and Air Quality of the Environmental Protection Agency, she stated that back in the United States, the Congressional Republicans have been in denial and are pushing for Congress and the Senate to repeal the agreement that the 200 countries initially pushed for. This shows that although there are people who wish to make a difference, there is always a strong organization or corporation who will push for the repeal of any mandate that could harm their

As fervent as scientists are about the abundance of evidence that Global Warming is true, opponents are just as passionate that Global Warming is a farce. Ellie Zolfagharifard (2014) of Mail Online, blasted the errors in the UN report of the

The standard way of thinking about the truly phenomenal issue of Climate Change is represented by the idea of danger and damage caused by this change in the nature. However, a number of scientists-skeptics have recently suggested that consideration of climate change as a significant and destructive problem is scarcely relevant and rather groundless.

The planet naturally goes through periods of extreme cooling and heating. That’s why we have had multiple periods of ice age (when polar ice grows far beyond its normal range) and the opposite, hothouse periods (when all the polar ice melts). Currently, we are in an interglacial period (when it’s not too hot nor too cold). Interglacial periods are best for human life because our bodies have not evolved to withstand radical high or low temperatures.

But as convincing that the data supporting a warming Earth may be, it is not without its uncertainties. There are many people who disagree upon the data that scientists present to explain the temperature phenomenon. James L. Payne presents a valid point in his writing “The Real Case against Activist Global Warming Policy”. According to Payne, “They express their findings and predictions with probabilistic language” (266). If given the chance to examine the works presented by supporters of global climate change, it is easy to see where Payne is coming from. Many authors do not use the words for certain, or absolutely when talking about what global warming will do. The phrases that they choose to use instead are ones like: this is likely, this will most likely happen, or this is very possible (Payne 266). This shows that the supposed evidence is just that, supposed. There is little to no certainty in research for global warming because we simply do not know for an absolute fact that what humans are doing is causing the problem. We also are not for sure about what the heat will do to the Earth. It is understandable to question worldwide temperature change if the people that advocate it do not even know if the proposed effects will actually

The biggest problem with climate change today is the debate on whether or not human activity is responsible for our current warming trend. According to Jonathon Schuldt (2014:219), around 99.7% of climatologists agree that man-made climate change is a reality, while only 40% of Americans believe that humans are the main driver. This is because we live in societies in which, thanks largely to the internet, everyone is free to express an opinion. On the issue of climate change, we have tons of sites saying one thing, as well as tons of sites saying something the complete opposite. The problem is that the whole debate, clearly scientific based, has been hijacked by politicians, media, and the public who undoubtedly don’t think in a scientific way (Schuldt 2014: 224). This has led to the science of global warming being thrown out of the window and according to Mazo (2014:47), has slowed the momentum of national and international efforts to prevent climate change, to the point where it will be politically impossible to succeed.

This doesn't necessarily mean that every scientist sees eye to eye on each component of the climate change problem, but broad agreement exists that climate change is happening and is primarily caused by excess greenhouse gases from human activities.” (EPA)

Countries seem to be in grievance with the limitations set in order to starve off global warming. In a surprising negotiation, many countries promised not only to stick to the 2C deadline but further reduce global warming to an increase of 1.5C. By superseding their previous promises, the world offers a safer future for low lying countries currently at risk of being submerged due to rising sea levels. All countries agreed that greenhouse gas emissions needed to be cut as soon as possible but failed to highlight the importance. Science has stated that to avoid a 1.5C warming, greenhouse gas emissions would need to reach 0 by 2050. And failing that, 0 must be achieved between 2060 to 2070 in order to ensure that global temperature does not