Global Warming

Humans cause big problems for the environment

Global warming is a big problem in this day and age. But what's causing global warming? Humans. At least that's what over 90% of scientists who extensively study global warming say. You may be asking yourself, how are we causing the problem? Well, obviously humans aren't outside with space heaters, warming things up a bit. It's small things that we wouldn't even consider such as driving, clearing and burning forests for new development, and other activities that emit greenhouse gases into our atmosphere. The next question one might ask is, how do greenhouse gases warm the globe? There are four main greenhouse gases; Carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and chlorofluorocarbons or CFC's. However ozone and water vapor are also considered greenhouse gases. What happens is these gases get released by mainly human activity but also some by processes of nature such as photosynthesis into the atmosphere. The atmosphere then traps the gases, acting as a greenhouse by not allowing the gases back out.

About 200 years ago the level of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere was 288 parts per million or PPM. But compared to 2001, when the level was 371 PPM mainly due to new development during the industrial revolution and progressively until today. This carbon dioxide(CO2) in the atmosphere depletes the ozone layer which in turn plays a big part in global warming. By global warming what I'm referring to is the average surface temperature per year. It is a fact that the globe is becoming warmer. When you look at the statistics 1997,1998, and 2002 were the three hottest years on record. The main thing we, as humans do to release these greenhouse gases which through process, warm the globe are burning fossil fuels such as gas, oil, and coal. To even realize how huge of a factor that is, you must think that there are 6.7 billion people that inhabit earth. Just think about how much gas, coal, and oil you use and then multiply it by 6.7 billion. It came as an absolute shock when I discovered that. Another huge factor of the greenhouse gases are clearing and burning our forests for new development. This increases CO2 in two different ways. First, when the forests are burned there is combustion of the gas which releases it into the atmosphere. The other is that because we just burned all those trees, they are no longer there to use the CO2 which they normally absorb for photosynthesis. The United States is by no means even close to the largest country, population wise in the world, but we do release the most greenhouse gases.

The problem however does not just stop there. So, humans cause global warming and global warming causes more extreme weather. Let me first tell you that most scientists attribute the change in weather to the warming of the ocean.