Global Warming: Causes, Effects, and the Future - Research Paper Example

?Global Warming: Causes, Effects, and the Future (A Research Paper) Issue ment: The phrase ‘global warming’ has become very much familiarized bymany people in the modern world. The global warming is now being considered to be the only cause and challenge for the environmental protection. Many environmental activists have provided how the global warming is going to affect the environment, as they have all come to the same conclusion about the fact that the global warming is really going to affect the earthly environment, where the extent of its harmfulness will keep increasing with due respect of time. Thesis Statement: The main purpose of this paper is to provide different explanations about how the environment will affected by the global warming. The paper will help the readers in forming their individualized opinions about the global warming after thoroughly studying this research report. -------------------------------------------- Final Draft/ Paper Introduction: The phrase ‘global warming’ has become very much familiarized by many people in the modern world. The global warming is now being considered to be the only cause and challenge for the environmental protection. Many environmental activists have provided how the global warming is going to affect the environment, as they have all come to the same conclusion about the fact that the global warming is really going to affect the earthly environment, where the extent of its harmfulness will keep increasing with due respect of time. The main purpose of this paper is to provide different explanations about how the environment will affected by the global warming. The paper will help the readers in forming their individualized opinions about the global warming after thoroughly studying this research report. The earth is warming at a fastest pace in the history of this world. history suggests that there has never been recorded such a huge climatic change since the last 1000 years as has been experienced in the last 60 or 70 years. The scientists have provided many reasons about how this planet is becoming such a warmer place, and the key reason for this has been observed to be the industrial boom that has been experienced wider since the past 80 years. The important role in affecting the environment and promoting the global warming is played by the human being himself. Even if we know the factors which affect the environment badly, we are still committing the similar mistakes since the beginning of 20th century. Global warming is actually the cause of the increased use of the greenhouse gases. CO2 is the one example that is affecting the environment, as the increased amount of this gas is being extricated into the atmosphere. Therefore, another aim of this report is to provide the indications of the global warming and that it is really and evidently happening around us. The paper will take two approaches, scientific, and sociological, to highlight the arguments of those who are causing global warming to happen, and those who are getting affected by the global warming. The natural greenhouse of earth: The temperature of the planet earth is actually controlled through two factors, which must be naturally balanced, and an imbalance would cause the earth to get warmer or colder (Maslin, 2007). The one factor is the input of energy of the sun, and the second factor is concerned with the loss of the same solar energy that is reflected back into the space after it has reached the earth. Some of the gases, which are known as the greenhouse gases, actually affect this natural balance of energy. The actual energy that earth gets from the sun is the short-wave energy, or in the form of the radiation, which is basically an ultra violet light. One third of this energy goes back to space after reflection. The two third of the energy is absorbed by the earth, i.e. oceans and lands. This results in the surface of the earth getting warmer and resultantly releases the infrared radiations, which are long-waved in nature. While the radiations are releasing from the earth to the space, the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere trap their channels and consequently the earth as well as the atmosphere stays warmer (Houghton, 2004). The greenhouse gases that naturally occur are carbon dioxide, water vapors, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone. These all gases combine together to formulate a natural greenhouse, which is also known as the ‘blanket effect’, resulting in warming the earth at 63oF or 35oC. These greenhouse gases are in fact spread throughout the atmosphere and get mixed with each other in any feasible way they can. Human effects on the spread of greenhouse gases: The activities led by the humans all over the world are causing the increased levels of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere (Schuetzenmeister, 2009). This is becoming the main concern for the scientists as they believe the increasing amount of these gases will be leading to directly enhance the influence of the greenhouse gases, resulting in the planet earth’s environment cease to become a feasible place for living. This enhanced greenhouse effect is actually the sole measure of the extent of the global warming and the level of this warming will be scaled with the extent at which the greenhouse gases are affecting the world. The scientific history of the effects of the greenhouse gases on the global environment are justified through the industrial boom that rose since the beginning of the 20th century. Most of the developed nations turned their economic orientation from solely agricultural economies to industrial economies. This led to an international competition in which everyone was struggling to build more industries to produce more mechanized goods where everyone was aiming to reduce the costs paid to labor which was working before that on higher wages. This agricultural-turned-industrial-economy trend led to many environmental causes. The manufacturing of the products on machines led to the exclusion of deadly gases into the environment. These gases are primarily methane, carbon dioxide, and nitrous oxide. All these gases are the constituent parts of the ozone, a layer which is the primary trap for the earth radiations to reach the space, resulting in the earth’s atmosphere to get warmer. Climate changes in the past and rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide in industrial period: The study of the climate changes in the past is an important indicator of why we focus a lot on controlling carbon dioxide for reducing the global warming. The last two and a half million years’ history shows that most of this period has seen the great ice age where 3km thick layers of ice had covered the lands of Europe and America. The conditions kept getting warmer and milder and we now see the earth in its present form. None of those periods have experienced such rapid changes in the climate as we are now experiencing. The sensitivity of the climate system of the earth is another factor that must be kept checked in. Since the ice ages, the role of the carbon dioxide has been critical. Coming back to this 20th century era, the common man must be worried now about the rising levels of the global warming, and the main reason is evidently the rising level of carbon dioxide since the beginning of the industrial revolution in 18th century. This grew even more intense from the start of the 20th century onwards. The research on the measurement of the rising levels of the carbon dioxide actually started in 1958 in Hawaii at a height of 4000 meters where the region was expected to be farther away from the industrial hubs, so that it could be ensured that this measurement is not being taken at some polluted region. The results were quite disappointing as the rising levels of carbon dioxide gas were found out which presented one reason being the global industrialization, becoming the sole cause of the global warming. The scientists have reached to some hardcore conclusions in the end of the 20th century and have already cautioned the world community to start taking preventive measures before the conditions become even more intense, resulting the planet an impractical place to live for humans. The scientific results highlight some of the key facts as follows: Rise in the average temperature of the earth, i.e. 1.4oF rise in temperature since the beginning of the 20th century. The global warming report presented by NASA also shows the same amount of temperature rise and reports that must of this rise has been observed in the recent decades. The rate of the global warming is increasing at a rapid pace. Since the last 400 years, the last two decades of the 20th century were considered to be the hottest ones. The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report shows that the last 11 of the 12 years have been recorded to be the warmest years since 1850, or possibly in the history. The Arctic regions are actually experienced the most intensive effects of global warming. The average temperatures in Canada, Russia, and Alaska have increased double the temperature in 19th century. The ice at the Arctic is rapidly melting, and the world could see the first full fledge and ice-free summer season in these regions by 2040. The indigenous cultures and polar bears have already been suffering the pain since the loss of the sea-ice. The mountains and the glaciers are now melting at a rapid pace. The one example is the glaciers in Montana’s Glacier National Park, which are now only 27, compared to a total of 150 in 1910. The weathers are now becoming even more extreme, as the winter and summer seasons are now becoming more prolonged, i.e. shattering the fall and spring. The summers and winters are even breaking records in every part of the world due to the global warming. The scientific explanations given above do testify the fact that the global warming is really becoming a serious matter. The important scientific causes have been reported above where the effects are actually going to be suffered by the whole of the community. The next section will now explore the social factors, causes, and effects that are associated with the global warming; however the main focus would remain on how the life styles of the human beings in different parts of the world keep changing due to the changing global warming scenarios. Global Warming and life style choices: Discussing the life style choices is an important sociological indicator that contributes towards understanding the issue of global warming. On a wider perspective, the life style choices lead to integrate some of the conflicting trends such as micro-economic, social, cultural, psychological, and anthropological. These factors are also related to the resource consumption. The purpose of employing the life-style approach in this report is to highlight the economic requirements of the humans and thus as a result of that, the need of the industrial manufacturing, which has actually been leading to the increased global warming. The behavioral change among the humans is another factor that this report must discuss as that the humans have to live in this world despite increased global warming, and therefore, the human attitudes must be dealt with more focus. Fighting against the global warming has actually become an incentive along with the development in economy. The modern day technology is believed to be ensuring the prosperity of human kind. On the other hand the daily activities concerned with the existing system of development are not seen as a drawback for the society or environment. This creates an ironic situation, where the world is serious about changing the global scene by reducing the global warming but is also focused towards building the economy by making daily practices possible as well as feasible. Taken this into another form, the world is not viewing the wider picture as they are struggling to develop in the shorter period of time, which in the longer run can turn on serious threats to even the existence of life on this planet. This is the kind of life style that has been adopted by the humans where the double standards can cause serious troubles in later periods of time. The lifestyle approach will provide the tools with the help of which the interconnections between the global warming, human actions, as well as the social changes can be determined. It is also believed by the scientists that the global warming is not caused by the world as a whole; rather the individual actions actually lead the environment to get affected. Therefore, the lifestyle of an individual human being is the main cause based upon which the environmental pollution and global warming happen. Another sociological approach leads to the conclusion that the way in which the people live does make a strong influence on the environment of that place. This leads to a scientific explanation that environment in this way would be different in different parts of the world. This means that the temperature rises with due respect of time will be different in different regions of the world. Another sociological implication is that the way people live in also affects the environmental conditions. This also leads to the fact then the life styles of the individuals connect with each other to formulize the universal life style of a certain region, resulting in the unique effect on environment, which is yet different in different parts of the world, and at some point, all the human life styles relate to each other where the universal effect on the environment is recorded. This leads to the conclusion that the human life styles, either on individual basis, or collective basis, are dependent on the environmental conditions, and vice versa. Additionally, both the factors affect each other with time. Conclusion: The report has been prepared to highlight the leading scientific and sociological causes of the global warming. The main scientific cause is related to the trapping set by the greenhouse gases against the ultraviolet radiations released from the earth into the space, and the failure of these rays not reaching into the space makes the plant earth warmer. The main cause of global warming to increase since the dawn of 20th century has been the reason of the industrial revolution due to which the emission of carbon dioxide and other gases became a common practice and thus resulted in consistent rise in the global warming and average temperature of the earth. Another main conclusion of this report would be the dependency of the environmental protection on the life styles of the human beings, which are true the other way round as well, i.e. human life styles are dependent on the environment itself. Therefore, the individual responsibility of every one of us must be concerned with the protection of the environment so as to reduce the global warming and make this planet sustainable for living for coming generations. Annotated Bibliography: Houghton, John Theodore. Global Warming: the Complete Briefing. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2010. Print. Maslin, Mark. Global Warming: Causes, Effects, and the Future. Stillwater, MN: Voyageur, 2002. Print. Moore, Thomas Gale. Global Warming: a Boon to Humans and Other Animals. Stanford, Calif: Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, 1995. Print. Weart, Spencer R. The Discovery of Global Warming. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2003. Print. Revkin, Andrew. Global Warming Understanding the Forecast. New York: Abbeville, 1992. Print. Goldstein, Natalie. Global Warming. New York: Facts On File, 2009. Print. Bartiaux, F. "Does Environmental Information Overcome Practice Compartmentalisation and Change Consumers' Behaviours?" Journal of Cleaner Production 16.11 (2008): 1170-180. Print Gross, Matthias, and Harald Heinrichs. Environmental Sociology. Dordrecht: Springer, 2010. Print. Web. 29 Dec. 2011. . Behreandt, Dennis. "Another Side to Global Warming: Environmentalists and the UN Want You to Believe That the Science of Global Warming Is Settled and That the Globe Is Heating. In Fact, the Science Is Anything but Settled." The New American 12 July 2009. Print. Read More