Literal Analysis

Brian Busch

4/7/06

Casual analysis

Global Warming

Global warming is an issue that not only has major scientific concerns but quite troubling, economical, environmental, and political concerns as well. In the late 1918's much was known about green house gases, yet scientist still could not find a suitable connection linking them with the increase of the global mean temperature. Today however, scientists have proven that it is indeed these gases that trap heat in the Earth's atmosphere and in effect warm are planet.

Before the industrial revolution occurred, human activity released very few gasses into the atmosphere. Nevertheless, today through ever-increasing population, burning of fossil fuels and deforestation, we have dramatically increased those mixtures of gasses in the atmosphere. Scientists generally believe it is the combustion of these fossil fuels and certain other human activities that are the main cause for are increased concentration of carbon dioxide. For example, power factories are responsible for about 98% of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions, 24 % of methane emissions, and 18% of nitrous oxide emissions. However, these factories are not alone, increased deforestation, agriculture; landfills, industrial production, and mining also contribute a significant amount of emissions. One example for instance is when rainforest are cleared and burned to make way for farms, a vast amount of green house gases are released into the atmosphere. In addition, each year deforestation contributes 20-30 percent of all carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. And at present time, the countries emitting the most carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are Brazil, Indonesia, Burma, Mexico and Thailand. Many scientists believe it is this type of tropical deforestation that could also be a cause of global warming. By destroying are trees we are destroying one of Earths only ways to absorb excess atmospheric carbon. Another great concern is the melting of our polar ice. According to the National Academy of Sciences the ocean, which represents the largest reservoir of heat in the entire climate system, has warmed by about .05 degree Celsius since 1950. And in effect has caused much of are ice to disappear. According to the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center, if