Global Warming: A Reality or Misconception - Essay Example

? Global Warming: A Reality or Misconception January 8, Global Warming: A Reality or Misconception In today’s time, when the entire world has become a global village due to the advancement in technology every individual is familiar with the phenomena of “global warming”. What is global warming? How does it occur? Did it ever happen before? Is the issue of global warming a fact or a fiction which is invented for malicious purposes? All such questions are debated again and again by the scientists who are currently in search of the answers. Well, the answer to the first question is a well known fact. Global warming, in general, is a term that relates to the increase in the temperature of the earth and it affects the entire world equally. Every other country has suffered or observed the effects of global warming. Global warming did exist in the historic times but advanced dramatically with the increase in the use of the hydrocarbons. In those times, the weather fluctuations were more smooth or moderate and there was a periodic trend in the hot and cold seasons as compared to today. The extent of global warming was very low level because mankind had not advanced much in the field of technology. But today, as the consumption and burning of the fossil fuel is increasing, so is global warming. Due to this phenomenon, the weather conditions have become extreme and abrupt changes have been occurring. It has also brought many record breaking floods, heavy precipitations, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes and typhoons etc. A single fact is believed to be relating to the phenomenon of global warming which involves that carbon dioxide is increasing global warming as a whole. Many individuals put forward that carbon dioxide is a part of our normal atmosphere and hence it cannot be said to be a cause of global warming. The reason behind this fact is that our world runs on energy which is derived from the fossil fuels. Coal, oil, natural gas and petrol are most commonly used around the globe. The burning of these fossil fuels in air releases carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and some other types of by-products as well. Carbon dioxide also becomes a part of the air by the respiration of animals and humans. Carbon dioxide is accumulated in air more than is consumed by the plants and other primary autotrophic producers. All the excess carbon dioxide and some carbon monoxide form a layer in the air. The solar energy is absorbed by the earth but when it should be dissipated back in the atmosphere as heat, this layer acts as an insulating layer and traps the heat in the surrounding air. The heat in return, increases the temperature and thus becomes the phenomenon of the global warming. This action of carbon dioxide is similar to the green house effect thus it is called as green house gas. Actions carried out by human beings are one of the major contributors to the phenomena of global warming. Eradicating trees and forests for constructive needs are adding up to the effect of global warming (Harmon, 2009). Former United States Vice President Al Gore under the reign of President Bill Clinton gave a presentation relating to the cause and effects of global warming in 2006. His documentation was also turned into a movie named “An Inconvenient Truth”. According to him, global warming is the consequence of the human activities as described in the above paragraph and hence the only way to reduce its effect is to decrease the emissions of green house gases. He established many organizations for pollution control which would help to decrease global warming. He also tried to put a tax on the amount of carbon dioxide released per vehicle (Gore, 2006). The people, who believe that the phenomenon of global warming is fake, claim that “An Inconvenient Truth” does not provide enough logic and evidences about global warming, it was however, more focused on the people that they are similar to culprits causing global warming. They propose that he did all this for his own purpose because many scientists believe that 99 percent of the green house gas is water vapor. The rest are small amount of gases which cannot become a cause for global warming. The non-global warming group believes that earth has a natural tendency to survive and it undergoes a natural cycle to prevail. The weather fluctuations and the hot temperature are nothing but a part of this naturally occurring cycle. According to the opponents of global warming the human activities and the emissions of carbon dioxide do not contribute to global warming. (Lindzen et al., 2001) John Coleman, co-founder of the weather channel, presented with facts that the carbon dioxide emissions and accumulation is not causing global warming, but it is the solar flares, the variations in the sun and the cosmic rays coming down upon earth which are causing global warming (Global warming: Facts or Fiction? 2011, Spencer, 2008). There is another group which puts forward a totally different reason for the occurrence of global warming. Deforestation and the increase in the population of human beings is considered as a reason for this increase in temperature. They also state that the green house gases accumulated in the atmosphere do not cause a wide temperature difference as it is due to the changes occurring on the surface of the earth. (Christy et al. 2003) There is also a lot of contradicting data with relation to the causes of global warming. The supporters of global warming claim that the data provided by the opposite group is not validated. If global warming is caused by urbanizations and deforestations, then it should only affect a particular country with these problems. But it is a noted fact that global warming shows its effect on the entire earth and not on just one or two countries. It affects the entire globe by unusual weather conditions, increase in the natural catastrophes like floods, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. Even the data retrieved from the satellite does not support the theory of those against global warming. (Fu et al 2004). In my opinion, the anti-global warming group must start validating and testing their own theories before presenting any contradicting ideas. They are not capable to support their own theories with solid facts. On the other hand, a wide number of scientists have given enough proofs and provided enough data to claim that the phenomenon of global warming is a reality and support green house gas accumulation as the cause of it. The concept of global warming swallowing the whole earth has greatly mobilized the people and they are trying to reduce its effect by recycling and afforestation. Bibliography Gore, A., & Melcher Media. (2006). An inconvenient truth: The planetary emergency of global warming and what we can do about it. New York: Rodale Press. Harmon, D. E. (2009). Al Gore and global warming. New York: Rosen Pub. Spencer, R. W. (2008). Climate confusion: How global warming hysteria leads to bad science, pandering politicians, and misguided policies that hurt the poor. New York: Encounter Books. Global warming: Facts or Fiction? May 12, 2011 retrieved on 7/1/2012 Lindzen, R., M.D. Chou and A.Y. Hou. 2001. Does the earth have an adaptive infrared iris? Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 82(3), 417–432. Fu, Q., C.M. Johanson, S.G.Warren, and D.J. Seidel. 2004. Contribution of stratospheric cooling to satellite-inferred tropospheric temperature trends. Nature, 429, 55–58. Christy, J.R., R.W. Spencer,W.B. Norris,W.D. Braswell, and D.E. Parker. 2003. Error estimates of version 5.0 of MSU-AMSU bulk atmospheric temperatures. J. Atmos. Oceanic Technol., 20, 613–629. Read More