What is Global Warming
What is Global Warming?
The definition of global warming is a state where the temperature of Earth’s climate keeps on rising. Until now, the Earth’s climate has raised and has fallen continuously. According to NASA (source 6), “Average global temperature on the surface of the planet has already increased by about 0.8° Celsius since 1880”. I believe it is a human activity that’s increasing the temperature of Earth up every year.
Global warming can be very destructive. Humanity will suffer because of hunger because of extreme climate around all land. Wet places would not be able to grow food because their land would be underwater and farms would flood. Hot places will also not be able to grow any crops because of droughts will last longer and more frequent. Ice in Antarctic area will start to melt, because of rising temperature. This will eventually lead to rapidly rising sea levels that would force us to leave many of our central cities and this event will make us trash all of the social and scientific innovations progress.
Why is it caused?
During the industrial revolution, human species first started building factories, power plants, and then cars, which became the main reason why we use up fossil fuels. Burning and using fossil fuels release huge amounts of carbon dioxide, and other greenhouse gases into the air. As you can see from the graph on the left, the levels of greenhouse gases are almost one-third higher in 2010 than in the last 50 years. This means that we are releasing more and more greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere as the time passes.
Other greenhouse gasses either then carbon dioxide could be water vapor, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone. These greenhouse gasses are meant to be in the atmosphere to help maintain the temperature of the Earth. Sunlight from the sun heats up the Earth, and the Earth reflects back the heat again towards the sun. Greenhouse gasses block the heat escaping from the Earth and without these gasses, the temperature of the Earth would be too cold for almost no living thing could bear.
The process when greenhouse gases trap heat inside Earth’s atmosphere is called “the greenhouse effect”. If the amount of greenhouse gasses is moderate, global warming would not have happened. Greenhouse gases, mainly carbon dioxide and methane have hit their highest levels (source 5). The Earth is getting hotter just because the amount of greenhouse gasses are increasing. As the greenhouse gases thicken, the energy that is trapped in the atmosphere will increase, warming the Earth and less heat will be reflected back to the Sun.
Diminish of the ice in arctic sea show that enormous amount of ice is melting after years. As long as industrialized MEDC nations keep on wasting energy, and developing LEDC countries increase the use of fossil fuel, the mass of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will continue to rise along with the temperature of Earth.
What could somebody do at an individual level to stop global warming? What can be done locally (in school for example)? What can be done at the city level? At country level? Worldwide?
Many organizations are still working and convincing people to reduce the greenhouse gas release, to slow down the progress of global warming. Especially governments all around the world should put in more effort, time and money for improving the technology to research about Global warming.
Normal citizens can help by using the less energy at the house by plugging out unused electronics, taking public transportation for example bus, buying an electric car, walking and riding a bike when traveling to near places and using solar energy. A big one is eating less meat, for example, beef is the meat of the cow. Single cow creates about 100 kilograms of Methane each year. The negative effect that 100 kg of Methane causes on the climate equals to about 2300 kilograms of carbon dioxide. 2300 kg of carbon dioxide can be generated by burning 1000 liters of petrol. Normal cars spend about 8 liters of petrol in average per 100 kilometers, and by driving 12500 km per year on a car causes equal pollution to how much one cow creates in per year. These simple changes may help keep the Earth cooler in the future.
Us, the ordinary citizens should speak up and take actions for our planet Earth. We will make the most impact when we demand our political leaders, or the governments to act more sensitively about climate change and global warming.
Personal reflection. Where do you stand on this issue?
Future generations are in big trouble. Scientists predict faint climate changes each year, and rising sea levels. Experts say: “This could take centuries, but we are expecting a total sea level rise from 24 to 48 meter, which would happen if all the ice in the polls melted (source 3).” Because of the rising temperature in the Arctic area, the ice partials start to melt, leading to rising sea levels, which will flood all coastal countries around the world, millions of people will become refugees, the population would be much denser, and we will suffer from hunger because we will have less land for agriculture. This event will bring chaos to entire nations all around the world, and this will eventually become our reality. If nothing is done about global warming, the Earth will ultimately swelter. I strongly agree that human influence is rapidly changing the climate and we need to do something, we have to take responsibility for our planet Earth.
I believe that we have to take actions, the climate disasters will be much more critical than they are now. Also, Earth will continue to get warmer due to global warming and storms will grow more intense and frequent breaking all building and man-made creations. People will lose their families, some will die and some will injure. Lastly, all animal species including us humans will be unable to adapt to the changing conditions, and in time they would face extinction.
I know that humans are building up the greenhouse effect and warming planet Earth. From the start of the industrial revolution, humans have increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by more than three times. Because humans are the ones who are causing the global warming, it is our task to solve this problem.
