Understanding Global Warming

Understanding Global Warming

What I Know, Assume or Imagine

The ice caps are melting, the polar bears are drowning, and we’re all doomed? These things that I speak of are what I tend to associate with the topic of global warming. My knowledge about global warming, if any, is quite inadequate. However, I have the desire to learn more and find out what all the commotion going on in politics and the media is really about. So in response to my desire for knowledge, I ask myself the following questions: What is global warming? Is it really happening now? And if it is, how will it affect me and the rest of the world?

Global warming has always been somewhat of a mystery to me even after three years of various high school science subjects. In school we have briefly discussed the topic along some tangents in science class, but we have never really discussed it directly or formally. I know that the term global warming refers to the general rise in temperature of our entire planet, but I do not know if this term is fact or fiction, or exactly what the cause or the effects of global warming are. I need to research these things in order to obtain a greater understanding of global warming, its effects on the world, and whether or not there is substantial evidence to prove the existence of global warming.

In terms of assumptions, I have a few basic ideas that have shaped my limited understanding of global warming. I assume that it would affect the entire world, hence the name global warming. I have noticed that the topic of global warming usually seems to be associated with worry, so I feel free to assume that the possible negative effects would outweigh the possible good effects, even though I do not know what any of the effects might be exactly. I imagine that I might be able to learn enough information from my research to be able to answer my questions about what global warming is, to what degree it is occurring, as well as how I can help educate others who lack an understanding of this little known subject in our world today.

The Search

I was intrigued to learn more about global warming so I sought out on a quest of knowledge to find my answers. “Where to begin my search?” I wondered, and this question led me to one of the most powerful search tools in our world today, the internet, along with the easy to use search engine, Google. I entered the words “global warming” into the search bar and then one quick “click!” and there I was, assured that I could find the answers to my questions, buried within the various articles and web pages that filled my computer’s screen. Now all I had to do was jump in and dig up the information I wanted, and this is how it went.

The first article to catch my attention was one from Wikipedia, a peer-created, open encyclopedia in which members create articles which can be edited and corrected by other members. Wikipedia articles are not always the most reliable of sources due to their ability to be modified quite easily, so I was careful to not believe everything I read. Instead, I tried to just get the main ideas out of the article. It was here in the first few lines of this article that I found the first answer to my first question. The article stated quite plainly, “Global warming is the increase in the average temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and oceans since the mid-twentieth century, and its projected continuation” (“Global Warming,” Wikipedia). So once I had gotten my answer I felt the need to dive deeper into my topic. I read that global warming was a result of GHG’s (greenhouse gases) in the atmosphere that trap heat radiated from the earth and reradiate it back down to warm the planet (“Global Warming,” Nytimes.com). GHG’s like water vapor, methane, and carbon dioxide are naturally occurring gases necessary for life on earth which keep our planet warm enough to support life. The problem comes when too many of these gases are present in the atmosphere, which then leads to larger than normal amounts of heat trapped within the atmosphere, a rise in the global average temperature. The key area of controversy is the source of these rising amounts of GHG’s.

Most of the websites I researched indicated that mankind was the main culprit for the sudden change in global temperatures. The Environmental Protection Agency has stated that “Most of the warming in recent decades is very likely the result of human activities” (“Basic Information”). Wikipedia perpetuates this idea of blaming humanity by stating, “the increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases due to human activity caused most of the warming observed since the start of the industrial era” (“Global Warming,” Wikipedia). However, while most of the sources I viewed put the blame on mankind, there were a couple that refuted this position. One website claimed that global warming was a natural process that could not be affected or stopped by human beings (“Adapt or Die”). The article titled “The Global Warming conspiracy Theory” states that global warming is, “a fraud, perpetuated for financial or ideological reasons” (“Global Warming Conspiracy Theory”). The sources that oppose the theory of global warming may sound like they are legitimate, but upon further inspection, they prove to have no solid scientific base. Their lack of scientific data makes them seem more like mere speculation, so they are not as reliable as the sources that support the idea of global warming.

Further down the Wikipedia article I studied the data on multiple charts and graphs that reflected the observable rise in the average temperature of the earth. This rise was not just based on a few years; rather, it was based on collected data spanning over a century. Because the data was consistent and showed a warming trend, I thus succeeded in finding the answer to my second question. This data from Wikipedia corroborated with the information I received from Ms. Amy McCoy, an A.P. Environmental Science teacher. She stated, “Data shows that CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere are higher than they have been in the last 400,000 years... global temperature has correlated closely with CO2 concentrations in our atmosphere. When CO2 was high, temperature was high, and vice versa” (McCoy). Thus once again the information from my sources left me with what I strongly believed to be the answer to my second question.

Now