Global Warming

Global Warming or the End of the World? April 3, 2008

Global warming is a growing predicament in the future and current world... but can and will it be stopped?

The year is 2100. The Earth is in a state of terror. The Earth is heating up and temperature rises over 100 degrees Fahrenheit regularly. The scientists of the planet are trying to save the North and South Pole. Both poles have melted drastically and there are few pieces of land remaining. Thus, the sea levels around the world have risen. Areas around the world that used to burden cities and people are now underwater. Also, many animals from the past have gone extinct including the Polar Bear.

This is what has happened in the world and everyone is to blame. Warnings were given but no one listened. Some precautions were taken by the United Nations but they weren’t enough to stop global warming. Rumors are that the world is about to end. “Get ready; judgment day is coming.”

That’s a prediction of global warming. This actually may happen if global warming isn’t stopped. Global warming is affecting people all over the world. Kids will be affected the most since they will grow up to live in the future where global warming will reach its highest peak. Therefore, middle school students were asked about how they actually felt about global warming. Out of the people who were surveyed, 87 percent of them said that they are worried about this growing world crisis. Only 13 percent of the people said that global warming didn’t really bother them. You can now probably get a better picture of the fact that we need to help stop global warming.

How It All Began

Global warming is the rise in the temperature of the Earth's atmosphere due to the increase in certain gases in the atmosphere. Global warming actually began 8,000 years ago. Scientists in 2003 looked at the ice in Antarctica. They examined the air bubbles in the ice, which gave a history of the air at that time the snow fell. The results showed that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere started to rise 8,000 years ago. This is the time when humans started to cut down forests and grow crops and livestock. The actual years of history the scientists got back from ancient ice went way back to 400,000 years old.

"You have 395,000 years of history, which sets some rules, and 5,000 years that break those rules," Bill Ruddiman said, a emeritus professor in the University of Virginia.

I always thought that global warming started when humans started using factories and polluting the air.

One of the first scientists to state the problem of global warming was Svante Arrhenius, a Swedish chemist in 1896. He and Thomas Chamberlain both studied the human activities that could lead to global temperature rising. At that time no one took real notice about it. From then on, scientists found more and more information on how global warming was growing by the centuries. It wasn’t until 1987 that their studies were verified.

The Causes

Global Warming is happening right now and there are many reasons why this is happening. Plus, most of them are caused by us, humans. To get the picture I’ll point out the main factor, the greenhouse effect.

The main cause of global warming is the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This is called the greenhouse effect. The greenhouse effect is the heating of the earth caused by the blockage of sun rays from escaping the earth when they enter. This effect can also understandably be seen in a greenhouse. The greenhouse is a house or a building made of glass which holds many different kinds of plants. Joseph Fourier was actually the first man to discover the greenhouse effect but wasn’t thoroughly studied until Arrhenius.

The main greenhouse gas in our atmosphere is water vapor. Water vapor is not a gas that has anything to do with human activities, which is a surprise. Evaporating H20 warms the atmosphere when by absorbing infrared radiation and then re-emitted into the atmosphere.

The main human caused green house gas is carbon dioxide. This gas mainly enters the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels like coal, petrol, and diesel. The other way that CO2 is released into the atmosphere is deforestation and the destruction of plants. Plants take in CO2 from the atmosphere within photosynthesis and when they are killed there are more CO2 in the air. Also, when forests are destroyed CO2 from the trees are released into the atmosphere.

Carbon Dioxide is also released by power plants, cars, airplanes, and buildings. About 40 percent of US carbon emissions came from power plants stemming to make electricity using coal. 33% of US carbon emissions come from cars which burn gasoline into the atmosphere.

Another greenhouse gas is called methane. This is a gas that is, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is 20 times as effective as CO2 in trapping heat in the atmosphere. The concentration of this gas had doubled because of agricultural activities like the growing of rice.

The Special Effects

Special may not be a good word for describing the effects but the effects are drastic. As you probably know, the main effect of global warming is the heating of the Earth. This is a climate change that will have a big impact today and tomorrow.

The Earth’s average temperature right now is 57.9 degrees Fahrenheit. Altogether, the temperature has risen 1.35 degrees Fahrenheit over the last century. Temperatures on Earth have been at its peak the last few years. In global records, 2005 was the hottest yet. Also, looking at US records the last nine years were the hottest in all 113 years of US recordings.

Impacts of Earth warming have already happened. For example, ice melting is occurring all over the world especially at the North and South Poles. Animals also took damage, as penguin mates in Antarctica dropped from 32,000 to 11,000, according to the National Geographic. Because of the melting of the ice sea levels have also risen in parts all around the world. Also, precipitation around the globe has increased on average around the world.

Many people have noticed the effects of global warming. Barack Obama says, “All across the world, in every kind of environment and region known to man, increasingly dangerous weather patterns