Global Warming - Rise in Earth's Temperature

According to the Centers for Disease Control of the United States, global warming is defined as the progressive gradual rise of the Earth's surface temperature thought to be caused by the greenhouse effect." The operative word here is thought. The CDC goes on to say, "global warming may be responsible for changes in global climate patterns." Once again, the operative word here is may (CDC, 2005). The primary greenhouse gasses are water vapor and carbon dioxide. When these gasses build up in the atmosphere they allow short wave solar radiation in but prevent log wave radiation from escaping thereby creating a warming effect (FFIF, 2001). The major contributing gasses are widely present in the atmosphere naturally and include water vapor (36%-70%), Carbon Dioxide (9%-26%), and ozone (3%-7%). Other gasses include methane, nitrous oxide and CFC's. Theses gasses can be naturally present but are largely associated with the industrial actions of humans (Wikipedia, 2005).

Over the last 150 years, since industrialization in this country, humans have released great quantities of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, which based on scientific theory, should lead to global warming. According to the IPCC, the temperature has risen from between .4C and .8C over the last 100 years. The IPCC claims that all temperature rise over the last 50 years is due to human activity. The theory is that increased releases of greenhouse gasses mediated by human activity have significantly increased the concentration of these gasses in the atmosphere there is a minority of scientific opinion that opposes this theory however.

According to EPA estimates, global warming could impact a variety of factors on the earth including sea level, crop yields and water supplies. These in turn could possibly lead to serious animal and human health issues and lead to irreparable damage to existing ecosystems. There is also a fear that deserts may expand and destroy existing land used for crops and animal rearing (EPA, 2000).

There have been many proposed solutions to the problem of global warming. The primary response to global warming appears to be "have meetings." Much like to business world, there is a lot of talk and not much action going on regarding this issue. The United Nations (waste of time) meets constantly discussing the issues of global warming and every five years the Earth Summit occurs. At the UN conference in Kyoto Japan an agreement was made to cut the amount of greenhouse gasses released to the atmosphere world wide. It is interesting to note that this decision was made without input from the business world, which effectively is paying the bill for this decision. The overall action taken from all of these meetings has been for all nations to reduce carbon dioxide input into the atmosphere by alternative methods of power production. There is one major problem with all of the proposed solution, the solution creates problems in every nation and every community on earth. Many nations are not capable of producing even enough power for self-sustenance and the expense and involvement in introducing new forms of energy. It is also very difficult to educate an uneducated people on the complexities of global warming itself. The rural farmer in Africa is not going to understand if you try to tell him his oxen are producing too much "gas."

Overall, global warming is a tricky subject. This treatise began with the premise that global warming existed and was a scientifically proven fact. We cannot let ourselves fall into an emotional quagmire of concern over an issue that is highly controversial and debatable. We cannot dedicate manpower and resources to the mission of eliminating something that we cannot conclusively prove exists and is a problem. I personally have my druthers that global warming in and of itself is not really a critical issue if it actually exists at all. Although there is evidence that the temperature has risen (albeit non-linearly) we have only a limited amount of data with which to work with. The only way to prove conclusively that there