Global Warming Essay

GLOBAL WARMING

Global warming, also called climate change, has become a topic of concern

over the past decade. Climate has changed drastically over the past decade, “From

2001 through Feb, 2011 the atmospheric carbon dioxide increased by 22.2% of the

total increase from 1800 to 2001” (Pangburn). Although I wasn’t completely aware

of global warming and it’s circumstances until recently, I can honestly say that it is a

issue to be concerned about. Global Warming is an indisputable phenomenon

because it is naturally occurring, yet it’s more of a man-made cause and it’s

a cause that’s hard to prevent.

Global Warming is a natural process that started a long time ago, “Global

warming started long before the "Industrial Revolution" and the invention of the

internal combustion engine. Global Warming began 18,000 years ago as the earth

started warming its way out of the Pleistocene Ice Age” (Hieb). Climate change is

caused by Greenhouse gases, which include: carbon dioxide, methane, water vapor,

and nitrous oxide. These gases are all naturally occurring and lead to a greenhouse

effect, and they “can be emitted into the atmosphere from a variety of natural

sources; volcanic eruptions, solar cycles and cosmic rays, water vapor etc”

(Strasburg). As these gases form in the air, they cause global warming by “creating

an impenetrable barrier that traps heat from being able to escape into space,

holding it hostage within our environment and warming the temperature in the

process” (Dept).

As naturally occurring as global warming is, humans are responsible for

taking it further and increasing it’s effects. Many of our daily activities contribute to

global warming, including “driving your car, cooling and heating your home,

operating electronic devices — produce greenhouse gas emissions, especially

carbon dioxide” (Strasburg). To heat our homes and provide electricity for our

appliances, we need energy and this energy mainly comes from coal, oil, natural gas

and radioactive [nuclear] materials. When this energy is released, it can

never go away, it can’t be destroyed and it spreads out and cannot be reused, “Once

you release all that energy from Uranium, as in a nuclear reactor, it is here forever,

except for some fraction that radiates out into outer space as “long-wave radiation.”

The rest goes into the air, waterways, glaciers, dirt and rocks as waste heat, also

called thermal [heat] pollution, increasing the temperature, thereby bringing about

global warming” (Skorodin). This is one of the main man-made contributions to

global warming.

Driving your car is another contribution to global warming. Cars are of

everyday use for almost every human living in this world, it’s a necessity. While it

may provide us a great amount of convenience, it is also harming nature, slowly but

surely. “For every mile it travels, the average car in the U.S. emits about one pound

of carbon dioxide. Given typical driving distances and fuel-economy numbers, that

translates to about five tons of CO2 per car per year” (Ball, 215). If that’s just one

car, imagine the possibility of carbon dioxide omitted in the air for more than a

million cars.

This might be hard to believe, but food also plays a role in raising global

warming, hamburger especially. In the past, meat was considered a luxury but now

it’s an everyday thing. Foods like hamburgers are damaging the environment

“because beef is such an incredibly inefficient food to produce and cows release so

much harmful methane into the atmosphere” (Pelletier).

One of the most harmful things we do to increase global warming and it’s

effects is by deforestation. By cutting more and more trees we’re increasing global

warming, “The accelerating destruction of the rainforests that form a precious

cooling band around the

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