Global Warming - Research Paper Example

assignment is due Earth is undergoing rapid warming, blame on none but human beings. Human pumping of large amounts of green house gases is said to be the cause of global warming. Every human activity, even their eating habits are accused to be the cause of global warming. Scientists say that even meat eating is causing warming of earth. The studies of The United Nations reveal that there is a big relationship between meat eating and global warming. Americans are therefore recommended to cut down their meat consumption. According to a report published by The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), livestock is the cause of almost 20 percent of the global warming emissions (Michael, 2009). While considering meat’s entire lifecycle, a meat eater is said to contribute to 1.5 tons more greenhouse gases per year compared to a vegetarian. This fact has been revealed by a study conducted by the University of Chicago (Michael, 2009). By contrast, changing to a hybrid Toyota Prius from a Toyota Camry is expected to help humans get rid of one ton of greenhouse gases per year (Michael, 2009). Global meat production is increasing every year. This is found to be adding more global warming gases. Therefore it is said that one of the easiest ways to decrease the collective greenhouse gas emissions is to consume less meat. Similarly every human activity is blamed to be causing global warming. These findings appear to be amusing when we properly understand the nature of the process, global warming. Global warming is believed to be primarily caused by carbon dioxide emitted into atmosphere through the use of fossil fuels in vehicles. However we forget that natural water cycle is causing much more carbon-dioxide to come in and out of the atmosphere. Even though we cannot deny that human activities are contributing to warming of earth, it would be wrong to comment that global warming is completely human-made. Some of the causes of global warming are in the arctic region. The polar ice caps melt faster than they get evaporated. This process would be reversed in ten to twenty years. Human activities are causing less than three percent of greenhouse gas release into the atmosphere. Average world temperature is gradually increasing; this process is happening in the last one million years. This is long back the human activities started on earth. Global warming has been happening long back industries started emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. We are of the belief that carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere today will negatively affect human beings several hundred years later. This is however not true. The lifespan of carbon dioxide is only 20 years. After 20 years, the emitted carbon dioxide would completely disappear from atmosphere. Sun has little role in heating the atmosphere. The high frequency radiation of sun does not heat atmosphere. Hot bodies like sun cannot release low frequency radiation called infrared radiation. Rather, the heat from the sun heats the earth’s surface. This process reduces the radiation to infrared. Heat moves into the atmosphere by different processes like conduction, convection and evaporation. The infrared radiation gets absorbed by carbon dioxide. Instead, the sun’s rays heats the Earth’s surface, this weakens the radiation to infrared. From there it moves in to the earth’s atmosphere by any means necessary (Conduction, convection, evaporation). Then the inferred radiation is absorbed by the CO2. Almost 97 percent of the heat in the atmosphere is caused by evaporation or convection. Greenhouse gases are not responsible for this warming of atmosphere (Mintzer, 1992). The climatic changes of these ages are negligible compared to the climatic changes of the ancient periods (Mintzer, 1992) (Mike, 2006). Water evaporation is the chief cause of global warming. Water evaporation is causing global warming 100 times more than carbon dioxide emission (Mike, 2006). Human activities are unnecessarily blamed for global warming. Earth exists for the last 4 billion years. Industries started appearing in the earth about 200 years ago. Earth started warming since its beginning. Human beings have caused only meager contribution to environment warming. Nature emits green house gases to the atmosphere through natural disasters. The eruption of Mount St Helens has caused great environmental damage. The eruption emitted large amounts of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere (Hulme, 2009). This amount is much more than that caused by human activities. Earth is undergoing a natural climate cycle (Shah, 2010). In the 1940-1980 period earth was experiencing a cooling, global cooling (Shah, 2010). After that period a reverse process began in the earth. In 1980-2020 period earth temperature would experience a rise. The reverse process would cause global warming (Shah, 2010). This process is happening naturally. No human activity is influencing it. The greenhouse gases released to the atmosphere through human activity is not found to be bringing disastrous effect on the atmosphere. Emission of greenhouse gas due to human activity is increasing every year by 1%. If this 1% can make such a big difference, the earth would have already destroyed due to the warming caused by human activity (Shah, 2010). Human activities bring negligible contribution to the global warming. Global warming advocates have always blamed human brings for causing the emission of carbon dioxide into atmosphere. The truth is that earth is witnessing a natural planetary cycle. Carbon dioxide pushed into atmosphere due to earthquakes, ocean warming and volcanic activity is causing earth temperature to rise. Climatic changes and changes in sun are found to be the major cause of earth warming (Hulme, 2009). Certain studies reveal that both earth and mars are experiencing this warming (Hulme, 2009). Carbon dioxide ice caps that are found close to the south pole of the planet mars are diminishing in these years. The experience of mars reveals that global warming is caused by changes in the sun. Continuing rise in solar irradiance is found to be warming both earth and mars. There happen significant changes in the heat output of sun. These changes in sun are causing climatic changes in earth and mars. Earth and mars go through same phenomena together. Both have undergone periodic ice ages together. As both planets are experiencing warming, we can say that human activity is not the principal cause of global warming. Greenhouse warming has little effect on the warming of earth. The fluctuations in the heat of sun that causes climatic ups and downs must be causing the warming of earth. That is the reason why both earth and mars are experiencing global warming in a similar way. Yet another argument about the cause of global warming says that carbon dioxide emission is not the cause of temperature rise in earth. Temperature rise is rather causing the carbon dioxide level to rise. Temperature of the earth is caused by nothing but sun. The sun however does not remain stationary. It rather wobbles. In the period between 1940 and 1980 earth had gone through a cooling session. People even feared that they are going to face an ice age. Temperature dropped, fluctuated several times. Those were the period of booming of industries that emitted greenhouse gases. This rise in carbon dioxide levels in atmosphere must have caused big temperature rise. However, the temperature fall in these periods reveal that emission of green house gases is not causing global warming. Meteorological studies also reveal that solar activity is the chief cause of atmospheric changes; even cloud formation is caused by solar activity. Earth is warming up always; no human activity is causing it. Earth is witnessing a natural cycle that is powerfully impacting temperature rise. Planets are also experiencing wobbles while they move around the sun. The wobbles of earth is termed as Milankovitch cycles. The fluctuations or wobbles bring changes in the tilt of earth’s axis. It also brings changes in the distance between the planet and sun. These changes cause the waxing and weaning of ice ages on the planet. These wobbles bring swings in climate. This makes huge impacts on temperature. Massive amount of carbon dioxide emitted into atmosphere by human activities are feared to bring disastrous effects on the temperature of earth. Scientists believe that such temperature rise can raise sea levels, make glaciers melt and bring extreme weather in earth (Mintzer, 1992). Extreme weather and sea level rise can occur, but not caused by carbon dioxide emission into atmosphere (Mintzer, 1992). Sun is the object whose characteristics decide the present and future of all planets. Differences in the behavior of sun can cause dangerous results in the earth. Temperature rise and temperature fall are caused by nothing, but the sun. Small phenomenon like carbon dioxide emission has negligible effect on earth’s temperature rise. The characteristics of sun are causing temperature rise and fall in other planets. Earth is also witnessing processes like global warming because of these factors. If carbon dioxide emission had brought global warming, the world would have been destroyed long back due to warming. Global warming is no way human made. It is rather the result of different natural phenomena. Cyclic climate change, wobbles of sun, wobbles of planets and several other processes are causing warming in several planets. It would be wrong to think that human activities are bringing such great changes in the atmosphere. Global warming can never be called human-made. Works Cited Anup Shah. “Climate Change and Global Warming Introduction”. Global Issues, 2011. Hulme, Mike (2006). Chaotic world of climate truth. BBC News. Bloch, Michael. “Cutting Meat Consumption: Livestock, Red Meat, and the Environment.” GreenLivingTips.com. Green Living Tips (2009). Mike Hulme. Why we disagree about climate change: understanding controversy, inaction and opportunity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Mintzer, Irving M. Confronting climate change. Cambridge University Press, 1992. Read More