The Reasons for Global Warming - Essay Example

Running head: Global Warming Global Warming Introduction The average temperature since 1880 has increased by 4 degrees. The rate at which that temperature has been rising is increasing. The last two decades have been hotter than any of the 4 decades before it. The average temperature in Alaska and West Canada as well as East Russia have increased more than twice the global average. Artic ice is rapidly disappearing and it is estimated that 2100 may be the first ice free summer. The melting of sea ice is already affecting the indigenous people and animals. More coral died in 1998 because of warming water temperatures than ever before. Is there global warming Yes, there is global, though not everyone agrees on the fact that is happening, how to deal with it, or what the end results will be.1 In this paper we will discuss global warming Pick up a newspaper or magazine or turn on the television set. There is bound to be something there about global warming. International Response The United Nations Climate Change Conference is to be held this week in Copenhagen. There will be 192 nations there. It will be a very significant meeting and the primary aim is to slow global warming. In 1997 this same team organized the Kyoto Protocol which called for a 5.2% change in carbon dioxide emissions from the 1990 levels. The United States refused to ratify it, though they now say they are willing to reduce carbon emissions in the United States by 50%. The treaty expires in 2012. When ask what they hoped to accomplish this time, the United Nations' de Boer says that it needs to include, greenhouse-gas emission goals for industrialized nations, emission free energy goals for developing nations, promises of money and machinery from industrialized nations to meet goals, and agreement on how to meet those goals. If global warming is so important then why did the last treaty not get signed2 The "Identifying Signatures of Natural Climate Variability in Time Series of Global-Mean Surface Temperature:Methodology and Insights" study is an international study done by a team of scientists from Colorado State University, Washington State University, East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom, and Exeter, United Kingdom. They used several models during their study since there has been such controversy over the different models showing different things. All of the models were tested by each group and when the final results came back, it was obvious that the predications of global warming were correct. Those model studies will be presented at the International Conference.3 The three model studies used were CTI, TENSO, and Tdyn. All three studies showed a continual increase in the overall temperature over time. That did not mean that there was not some cooling off done. In fact there were many dips but after each dip, the temperature increased to a new high average. Again the high average has been increasing more rapidly over the last 10-20 years. Technology would have to cut back. This would mean a large stain on an already strained world economy. Carbon dioxide emissions would have to be decreased by factories, cars, food manufacturers and many others. This does not appeal to the United States congress or others. The cost in dollars is high. One of the controversial issues is that the richer countries would have to pay for the poorer countries to receive the help they needed; of course global warming did not occur because of the poorer countries but because of the practices of the industrialized countries. Then there is the controversy. Is global warming really happening or is it hype that is created by the scientist to get us to clean up our act4 Recently, there was a disclosure about emails that were stolen from England's University of East Anglia. Those emails included climate researchers "bad-mouthing critics and struggling to explain if global warming is real, why recent years' temperatures didn't exceed 1998 and 2005 levels, the warmest on record."(Vergano, 2009, pg 2). This kind of thing is what is discouraging in the public eye. It gives everyone an excuse to do nothing which is what so many have been doing for so long. Logically, everyone knows that carbon emissions are what is causing the increasing greenhouse gas and they now stand at 388 parts per million. The world will face a temperature rise of 3.6 degrees when we hit 450 parts per million. The industrial revolution saw 270 parts per million. That is a rapid change and because it becomes cyclical, it is changing ever more rapidly. Science tells us that global warming is occurring very rapidly. They point to the fact that Arctic ice is melting so quickly that even they have been surprised.. They originally thought that there would be an ice free summer in 2100 but they now realize it will be much sooner and they will probably know what that date is sometime this week as the new estimates will come out for the conference. There are actually two great fears with this happening. One of those is that the sea level will rise with so many great cities in the flood plain. Another is that the ice in the Arctic is really almost a solid block of carbon. As that ice melts, it puts off more carbon emissions and therefore speeds up the melting. This is a cycle that speeds up very quickly. There are increased weather events that occur because of the ice melt.5 The world has taken a institutionalism approach at this time. The determination of what needs to be done is about "my country." We all have to assure that our own country is not inconvenienced with this thing and surely we do not want any of this to affect the financial viability of our own countries. This is abundabtly clear with the response of the middle eastern countries this week to the emails mentioned earlier. They state that they feel we are asking them to decrease oil production by manufacturing a global warming issue. Do they believe that or are they using that to prevent the cost of cutting back on production Our Environment The problem is the world is one place and the affects of each of our countries affects everyone else. When the ice melt increases because of greenhouse gases created by the United States, the rising waters affects the ability to live in Tahiti and Alaska. It is easy to ignore a problem when it is far away. An example would be the that the Maldave Islanders are losing their homeland to rising waters but most of us have never heard of it no less been there. There is also the droughts in Africa that are destroying their ability to raise food crops. We only notice if we see it on TV. The global challenge may be climate change but it does not compel our everyday lives and till it does we will not hear its message. At this point, the poor are affected more than the rich because the poor live in the weakest regions of the planet and those are the areas being affected by heat, drought, and rising waters. They can do nothing but watch it happen and at this point, we do not feel the pain, so we do little. 6 Everyone needs to take a realism approach in the sense that all things affect all others. If all of the fish in the ocean die, so will we. If the sun gets so hot that plants cannot survive, neither will we. We are all interconnected in some way. The world as a whole must be considered. That is what they hope to accomplish at the Summit this week. There will be profound assessments made and recommendations of greenhouse gas reduction. The reduction of the average persons carbon footprint will be evaluated and ask to be reduced. There will be many things reviewed on how to make this happen. When they actually leave the summit will anything actually happen It is hard to say, we can only work on our own carbon footprint and hope that the nations see what they have to do. How we respond to climate change can be seen as a moral issue yet it is somewhat abstract and speculative. We are morally responsible for more than ourselves and that includes our responsibility to the environment around us. In the end, at this point the effects are not affecting most of us and so being so far away, we feel safe. Man needs his environment though sometimes we wonder if it is not man versus environment. Man cannot be separated from his environment physically or psychologically. Yet nature is a delicate environment that when upset does not work as well as it did before. We as human beings always believe that we can improve on what is the natural environment. We oppose the environment by strip mining, slash and burn farming, and rerouting rivers to build dams. We destroy whole species to get our way7. We use what we need and throw the rest away.8An example is a complete destruction of the buffalo herds in the early part of the century. Could we not have learned from that We look back regularly and say, "oh my, look what we did." Yet we have species disappearing in today's world to. We do not see it as easily because they disappear gradually while the buffalo were slaughtered openly. 9 One of the environmental hazards, as example, that we have created is called eutrophication. This is when artificial nutrients run into the rivers, ponds, and lakes from irrigation. It upsets the natural environment in the water shed and many species die or are affected by it. Basically the same thing is happening in the ocean as sewage and affected water is dumped into the ocean. Fish and mammals in the ocean have a rapid uptake of toxic substances and are killed or changed. Man then harvests those animals for food.10 However, "Inn the long run, environmental quality is not determined solely by the actions of governments, regulated industries, or nongovernmental organizations. It is largely a function of the decisions and behavior of individuals, families, businesses, and communities everywhere." Science Advisory Board. Environmental Education With that statement in mind, how do we assure that the public and community are given the opportunity to participate through education In 1990, Congress passed The National Environmental Education Act. This gave the auspices of environmental education to the United States Environmental Protection Agency with the necessity to educate the public. One hundred million dollars were spent in this process. This educations did not include what is needed today to fight, not only environmental pollution but global warming issues and considering that global warming and environmental pollution have come he stage at the emergent level, they need to change policy. 11 There is hope that environmental education will become a major issue during this week's conference. The hope is that included in the recommendations will be; fostering a clear awareness of the issues throughout the world, providing every person with the opportunities of the present, and focus on the outcomes needed with a ten year limit. 12 There are many things going on now but because most have just been initiated, we do not know the results of these yet. Examples of those would include the following; More than 3000 grants for a total of $45 million have been awarded Tens of thousands of teachers are now part of the educational professionals doing this work National standards for EE have been developed for materials, students and Teachers States are receiving support for developing their own certification programs More than $3.6 million in at least 1400 undergraduate and graduate student Fellowships have been awarded. Partnerships have been formed with federal agencies Baseline literacy is now designed and flowed. National research projects re being done.13 The challenges of education in global warming have now become almost overwhelming. Those challenges include deteriorating condition of our environment and the destruction of our natural resources. The goals of the education have to include and be cognizant of the need to ensure a safe food and water supply, changing our energy supply and managing our ecosystems in a way to help them thrive. Only an educated populace will be able to meet these challenges and so education has to now be a part of any national or international strategy used toward reducing global warming. Conclusion In conclusion, there is defiantly scientifically proved global warming. Everything studied over the last 40 years proves that a catastrophic change in global temperature will happen if we do not do something about it soon. It is easier to ignore the warning though. Like so many things, we would rather go about our daily lives and not worry about change, let someone else worry about it. We believe that the problem is not us. Look how bad it is in Japan, or England, it is not our pollution that matters. Yet it becomes more and more obvious everyday that we are all connected through the environment we live in. The melting ice, caused by pollution from rich countries is destroying the life and livelihood of the poorer islands. We do not feel the same pain that those people in those far away place do so we are reluctant to make changes that might affect our income and happiness. Education may be the one thing that may help us make change. We must all understand how we are interrelated and how we affect each other everyday. We must understand what it is that we can do to change things before it is too late. Most of all, we must be brave and stand up and voice our belief in change even over the naysayers that say, "there is no global warming." Bibliography Anderson, A. (2009). On thin ice. Economist. P 148 ISSN:00130613 Goodell, Jeff (2009). Warming Gets Worse. Rolling Stone. Iss. 1091. P. 43. ISSN: 0035791X Vergano,Dan (2009). Global warming cuts have a price. USA Today. ISSN:07347456. National Geographic (2009). Global Warming and It's Effects. Oc. Thompson, D, Wallace, J, Jones, P., Kennedy J., (2009) Identifying signatures of natural Climate variability in time series of global mean surface temperature methodology and Insights. Journal of Climate. American Meteorlogical Society. Vol 22, pg 6120. Kramer, Kyle (2009). A climate of compassion. America. http://www.ebscohost.com Charik, Kris, (2008). Mans Effect on the environment. Journal of Climate. http://www.ebscohost.com Will, George (2009). Everyone out of the water. New Republic. Vol 154, Iss. 20. pg 32 :luma, Bradford (2009). Global warming. New Republic. Vol. 138, Iss 24. pg. 68 Potter, Ginger (2010). Environmental education for the 21st century. Where do we go now The Journal of Environmental Education. 41 (1) 22-23. Read More