Global warming, like so many other things in today’s topic list, is controversial. People go both ways saying it is and isn’t true. Then once you’ve been convinced either way the debate gets deeper. If you choose to believe it then you have to listen to arguments about who, or what caused this huge disaster that is supposedly going to hurt our beautiful planet. The debates go on and on and people will fight about whether global warming is taking place or not for a long time because it is our instinct to be right, and then to prove it. But lets just put all that aside and say it is true, just for times sake. Once we’ve done that you can start to see why people believe in it, and what the real threat is if it is true.
Chronologically cause happens first, so we’ll start there. What could have caused this huge mess? Most people come to the agreement that the airborne chemical called carbon dioxide (Co2) is responsible for what we call global warming. Carbon dioxide come from many sources, most of which are man made, and therefore this is a man made problem. Our vehicles produce Co2 emissions. After the gas we put in our cars goes through and the energy is used from it to power our movement from place to place the left overs are sent out in a smoky substance. This smoky substance is what pollutes the air. Co2 also comes from power plants, fires, and the buildings we live in. Something else to think about is how many more cars are driven now considering all the countries that are revolutionizing like China; how many power plants are being built within the U.S. alone due to the need for more power. With these things taking place more Co2 than ever is being put into our environment.
Now how does this Co2 chemical harm us exactly? Well a normal amount of the chemical isn’t bad at all, but the amount we are releasing into the air regularly is far from a normal amount. With all of the Co2 in the air the chemicals are being trapped in the atmosphere causing two different things that are causing the warming of our planet. First once the chemicals are trapped they are heated because they are higher up and receive more direct heat from the sun. They are then beamed back down to earth, heated up, and contribute to heating up the ground. They continue going back and forth bringing more and more heat to the planet. The second thing Co2 does is by hitting our protective ozone layer time after time it breaks down in common places letting more, stronger sunlight into the atmosphere causing everything to heat up at a much faster rate.
Now that the causes have been explained the effect of these causes is next. What happens due to the warming of our planet? Well something that was predicted and is seen happening to us more commonly than every are the “super storms”. Scientists once said that as the planet gets heated up so will the storms. The hotter the planet the warmer the water, the warmer the water the worse the hurricanes and tsunamis. Haven’t we seen this quite a bit? Things like hurricane Katrina didn’t used to be common, these storms are things of the present and are affecting human life in major ways causing people to lose homes, and more importantly lives. In the past decade thousands of lives have been lost to storms like Katrina.
Something else that happens when water gets hot is something we experience almost daily. When you put a pot of water on the stove what happens? It begins to bubble and is then hot enough to cook with. The point is that the water eventually, after about 5 minutes on high, will begin to boil. Is it possible that the water of our oceans and lakes will one day boil like the water on our stoves? Yes. Water that boils out of small holes in the ground are called geysers and are seen now as wonders. Old Faithful is something many people venture to see at Yellow Stone National Park and is an example that it is possible. Of course the water boiling there is much smaller than an ocean but look at it like this. If the water did begin to boil it would move up start to take over land we call vacation resorts or coastal areas. Water rising also occurs due to the melting of the ice caps all around the world. Not only are we impacted but the water rising but so are animals. Animals living on the ice are losing homes and are dieing due to the lack of help they’re getting.
The last effect is that one day the planet is going to get so hot that we as humans won’t be able to inhabit what we know now as our home. As the earth gets hotter at about 2-3 degrees a year eventually its going to be extremely hot, too hot for us, and we will be forced to leave for space.
From Co2 to humans one day venturing off of earth for life elsewhere global warming has serious effects, and the causes of the effects are what need to be changed regardless of whether or not you believe. Obviously the effect we have had on our planet is coming back to us and its time we all start to change how we live.
