Solve A Propblem - Research Paper Example

There is a lot of hue and cry on global warming because warming brings climate changes in the form of drought or torrential rains in some part of Earth, melts glaciers, lengthens seasons, develops cyclones and large scale disruption in variety of ways. Global warming is entirely a human creation and it needs to be resolved accordingly. If Earth keeps getting warmer, it is quite likely that about 25 percent of our plants and species on Earth could go extinct by end of this century. Our ecosystem is in danger because each plant or species acts as a predator, a source of food, a source of shelter or a pollinator and loosing even one of them affects whole chain in ecosystem.

Causes of Global Warming While going into the root cause or causes of global warming, the pertinent question arises how and why does global warming take place? Scientists state that it occurs because humans have begun burning fossil fuels in large quantities in last one hundred year or so and the burning goes on in industries, power stations, and vehicles uninterruptedly. Burning generates carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide gases that go to atmosphere. Oceans do absorb greenhouse gases and maintain a delicate balance; however, load of emissions are now so high that nature cannot clear them on its own.

Can Clean Energy Stop Global Warming? Energy is the most crucial and strategic resource necessary for economic development and more than 80 percent of the current energy needs are met with fossil fuels. The moot question is can we replace fossil fuels with some other sources of energy that are clean in nature and do not generate any harmful emissions? Certainly, there are clean sources of energy such as wind, solar, hydro, biofuel, hydrogen and many more that can be used to generate electricity to meet our requirement.

Let us, time being, assume that all these technologies have reached to a level where it is feasible to replace fossil fuels completely and now there is no release of greenhouse gases any more – then, does this mean that world will become free from the global warming completely? Apparently, it may seem so but that is far from truth! It has been established that pre-industrial carbon dioxide concentration was 280 parts per million (PPM) that has gone past 380 PPM in 2010 – a rise of over 30 percent after the process of industrialization that began in 1850.

Unless carbon dioxide level falls back to the pre-industrial level of 280 PPM, global warming will continue on this planet (Effects of Changing the Carbon Cycle, 2013). Why? It is worth noting that about 30 percent of the carbon dioxide that humans have emitted into the atmosphere has been taken away by the ocean. In the process of dissolving carbon dioxide in the ocean water forms carbonic acid reducing pH (the measure of acidity) of the water by 0.1 – almost 30 percent increase in acidity of the ocean water.

Experts state that ‘coral reefs’ that provide habitat to fish and other creatures in the ocean will get vanished in increased ocean acidity (Global Climate Change, 2013). Its impact will be severely felt in coming years in terms of lost food web that joins all oceanic creatures. Moreover, warmer oceans, due to greenhouse effect, would have impact on the growth of phytoplankton and sea grasses because they grow better in cool waters. This eventually reduces the