GLOBAL
WARMING
Global
warming is the warming near the earth's surface that results when the earth's
atmosphere traps the sun's heat. The earth is getting warmer. The changes are
small, so far, but they are expected to grow and speed up. Within the next
fifty to one hundred years, the earth may be hotter than it has been in the
past million years. As oceans warm and glaciers melt, land and cities along
coasts may be flooded. Heat and drought may cause forests to die and food crops
to fail. Global warming will affect weather everywhere, plants and animals
everywhere, people everywhere; humans are warming the earth's atmosphere by
burning fuels, cutting down forest, and by taking part in other activities that
release certain heat trapping gases into the air.
Global warming is
affecting many parts of the world. Due to global warming, the glaciers are
melting which are causing the rise in the sea level. When the level of the sea
rises, it cause danger to the people living in the low lying areas. So, this
cause a big problem for the people, plants and animals living on the earth.
When the level of the sea rises, it covers the plants and causes some of them
to die. When they die, animals lose their main source of food. We, human beings
lose our two sources of food, plants and animals. It may also force people to
lose their homes. In other words, the whole chain will get affected if nothing
is done on time to stop global warming from spreading it’s wings.
There are few of the main causes that are
contributing their best towards global warming, such as Landfills, Pollution, Deforestation,
Population, etc. Landfills are
those big chunks of garbage that you must have seen on some expressway, when
you go out of your city, that stink. When we throw garbage out of our house it
goes to landfills. The garbage is is then used by big recycling companies
to make some useful products out from that garbage. Most of the time that garbage
is burnt which then release some toxic gases into the atmosphere. These
enormous amount of toxic greenhouse gases when go into the atmosphere
makes global warming worse.
The other causes is pollution.
Pollution whether it is vehicular, electrical or industrial is the main
contributor to the global warming. Everyday billions of vehicles release
various gases into the atmosphere. This causes earth to warm up and increase
its average temperature. Electricity causes
pollution in many ways.
Fossil fuels are burnt for example
coal. Coal is burnt to produce electricity. Coal is the major fuel that is
burnt in these power plants. Coal produces around 1.7 times as much carbon dioxide
per unit of energy when flamed as does natural gas and 1.25 times as much as
oil. Over 75% of the electricity worldwide is produced by burning fossil fuels.
Many gases are sent into the air when fossil fuels are burnt of which main is
the carbon dioxide gas.
Industries on the other hand release
various gases into the water and air. Carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide
are the major greenhouse gases. Different gases have different heat trapping
capabilities. Some of them trap more heat than carbon dioxide. Methane is much
more effective then carbon dioxide in entrapping heat in the atmosphere. By
driving cars, using electricity from coal fired plants and heating up our homes
from natural gases, we release carbon dioxide and other heat trapping gases in
the atmosphere.
Deforestation is the cutting down of trees and plants to make way for
any development activity. Carbon dioxide is the air that our body lets out when
we breathe. Trees take in this carbon dioxide and release oxygen that we
breathe in. With the cutting down of more and more trees is leading to greater
concentration of carbon dioxide in the air. This means that it is very
important to protect our trees to stop the greenhouse effect, and also so we
can breathe and live. Deforestation is blamed for rise in the greenhouse gases
present in the atmosphere by cutting or burning them. New development projects,
requirement of land for homes and factories, requirement for wood and also soil
erosion are the major factors that are causing deforestation, which in turn
leading to global warming.
Another cause of global warming is
population. Since Carbon dioxide contributes to global warming, the increase in
population makes the problem worse because we breathe out carbon dioxide. More
people means more demand for food, more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, more
demand for cars, more demand for homes and they all in some how or other lead
to global warming. More demand for food will lead to more transportation since movement of goods and services is done by
transportation sector. More demand for cars means more pollution in the air and more traffic on the roads which
means longer waiting time on the traffic lights and will result more burning of
fuel. More demand for homes means cutting down of trees to make way for homes,
schools and colleges.
Research shows that global warming is
affecting every aspect of life. The increase in the temperature of the earth’s
neon- surface air. It is one of the most current and widely discussed factors.
It has far-reaching impact on biodiversity and climatic conditions of the
planet. Several current trends clearly demonstrate that global warming is
directly impacting on rising sea levels, the melting of ice caps and
significant worldwide climate changes. In short, global warming represents a
fundamental threat to all living things on earth. Global average temperature
rised significantly during the past century. The prevailing scientific view is
that most of the temperature increases since mid-20th century has been caused
by increases in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations produced by human
activity. Most scientists agree that planet’s temperature has risen 0.5 degree
Celsius since 1900 and will continue to increase at an increasing rate. As a
result, the world is getting warmer. The year 1990 was the hottest year in the
last century. Together with 1991, the years of 1983, 1987, 1988 and 1989 have
been measured to be the warmest six years in the last hundred years. The year
1991 was the second warmest year of the past century.
The consequences of the rise in
temperature is being felt all over the globe the findings of scientific
research done in this field reveal that the temperature of the earth is likely
to rise from 1.4°C to 5.8°C within a period of 100 years. Unfortunately, the
imbalance which we have created between our life and earth is already showing
the signs disasters in the form of flood, cyclones, landslides, tsunami,
drought, etc. If the imbalance continues to rise, one day this will pose a
question mark on the existence of this planet. Carbon dioxide (C02) which is an
important constituent of environment is causing a warming effect on the earth’s
surface.
It increases the evaporation of water
into the atmosphere. Since water vapour itself is a greenhouse gas, this causes
still more warming. The warming causes more water vapour to be evaporated. The
C02 level is expected to rise in future due to ongoing burning of fossil fuels
and landuse change. The rate of rise will depend largely on uncertain economic,
sociological, technological and natural developments. Other gases such as
methane, CFCs, nitrous oxide, tropospheric ozone are also responsible for
global warming. Increases in all these gases are due to explosive population
growth, increased industrial expansion, technological advancement,
deforestation and growing urbanisation, etc.
Trees play a significant role in the global
carbon cycle. They are the largest land-based mechanism for removing carbon
dioxide from the air. Deforestation is checking these positive processes. It is
the second principle cause of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Deforestation is
responsible for 25 per cent of all carbon emissions entering the atmosphere, by
the burning and cutting of 34 million acres of trees each year. Everyday over
5500 acres of rainforest are destroyed. As a consequence of massive loss of
forests, global CO, levels rise approximately 0.4 per cent each year, the
levels not experienced on this planet for millions of years. As we know the
forests are the great absorbers of CO.
The sea levels as a result of melting
of glaciers have risen from 0.35 mm to 0.4 mm. Scientists have warned in their
reports that most of the glaciers will disappear within a period of 15 to 25
years. It will create problems of drinking water and food grains in most of the
North American countries. India is not unaffected from it. The Himalayan
glaciers have shrunk about 30 per cent after 1970. The rise in sea levels is a
major cause of concern. A large number of cities located in coastal areas will
submerge in the sea. Besides, many island countries will ultimately “lose their
existence and will be washed away from the surface of the earth. The damage of
rising sea levels is diverse. Buildings and roads close to the water could be
flooded and they could suffer damage from hurricanes and tropical storms.
Experts believe that global warming could increase the intensity of hurricanes
by over 50 per cent. In addition, as the sea rises, beach erosion takes place,
particularly on steep banks.
The solutions for global warming
issues is make a future fuels. Replacing fossil fuels may prove the great
challenge of the 21st century. Many contenders exist, ranging from ethanol derived from crops to hydrogen electrolyzed out of water, but all of them have some
drawbacks, too, and none are immediately available at the scale needed.
Biofuels can have a host of negative impacts, from driving up food prices to
sucking up more energy than they produce. Hydrogen must be created, requiring
either reforming natural gas or electricity to crack water molecules. Biodiesel
hybrid electric vehicles
(that can plug into the grid overnight) may offer the best transportation
solution in the short term, given the energy density of diesel and the carbon
neutral ramifications of fuel from plants as well as the emissions of electric
engines. A recent study found that the present amount of electricity generation
in the U.S. could provide enough energy for the country's entire fleet of
automobiles to switch to plug-in hybrids, reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the process. But plug-in hybrids
would still rely on electricity, now predominantly generated by burning dirty
coal. Massive investment in low-emission energy generation, whether solar-thermal power or nuclear fission,
would be required to radically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And even more
speculative energy sources—hyperefficient photovoltaic cells, solar energy
stations in orbit or even fusion—may ultimately be required.
A potentially simpler and even bigger
impact can be made by doing more with less. Citizens of many developed
countries are profligate wasters of energy, whether by speeding in a
gas-guzzling sport-utility vehicle or leaving the lights on when not in a room.
Good driving—and good car maintenance, such as making sure tires are properly
inflated—can limit the amount of greenhouse gas emissions from a vehicle and,
perhaps more importantly, lower the frequency of payment at the pump.
Similarly, employing more efficient refrigerators, air conditioners and other
appliances, such as those rated highly under the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency's Energy Star program, can cut electric bills while something as simple
as weatherproofing the windows of a home can reduce heating and cooling bills.
Such efforts can also be usefully employed at work, whether that means
installing more efficient turbines at the power plant or turning the lights off when you leave the office.
Transportation is the second leading
source of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. (burning a single gallon of
gasoline produces 20 pounds of CO2). But it doesn't have to be that
way. One way to dramatically curtail transportation fuel needs is to move
closer to work, use mass transit, or switch to walking, cycling or some
other mode of transport that does not require anything other than human energy.
There is also the option of working from home and telecommuting several days a
week. Cutting down on long-distance travel would also help, most notably
airplane flights, which are one of the fastest growing sources of greenhouse
gas emissions and a source that arguably releases such emissions in the worst
possible spot (higher in the atmosphere). Flights are also one of the few
sources of globe-warming pollution for which there isn't already a viable
alternative: jets rely on kerosene, because it packs the most energy per pound,
allowing them to travel far and fast, yet it takes roughly 10 gallons of oil to
make one gallon of JetA fuel. Restricting flying to only critical,
long-distance trips—in many parts of the world, trains can replace planes for
short- to medium-distance trips—would help curb airplane emissions.
The other solutions is stop cutting down trees. Every year, 33 million acres of forests are cut down. Timber harvesting in the tropics alone contributes 1.5
billion metric tons of carbon to the atmosphere. That represents 20 percent of
human-made greenhouse gas emissions and a source that could be avoided
relatively easily. Improved agricultural practices along with paper recycling
and forest management—balancing the amount of wood taken out with the amount of
new trees growing—could quickly eliminate this significant chunk of emissions.
And when purchasing wood products, such as furniture or flooring, buy used
goods or, failing that, wood certified to have been sustainably harvested. The
Amazon and other forests are not just the lungs of the earth, they may also be
humanity's best short-term hope for limiting climate change or global warming.
References
2.
http://www.shareyouressays.com/2893/1309-words-essay-on-global-warming-causes-effects-and-remedies
3.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/10-solutions-for-climate-change/
