Understanding The Complexity Of Global Warming Issue

Environmentalists are those people who are dedicated to the preservation, restoration, or improvement of the natural environment, and this includes the preservation of our natural resources and the prevention of pollution. In regards to the global warming topic, environmentalists believe that forests should not be cut down or burned, which would help to prevent more CO2 from going into the air. Environmentalists also support renewable energy sources, as less coal and fossil fuel usage would lead to less CO2 being put into the air.

Media coverage in the United States tends to give equal coverage to both sides of the debate involving global warming. That may sound reasonable, but it actually might lead to inaccurate coverage. The reason why is because the "balance" of covering both sides of the issue has allowed a small group of global warming sceptics, many of which are funded by carbon-based industry interests, to be frequently consulted and quoted in new reports on climate change.

This has allowed their views to be greatly amplified to the point where it looks like there is a 50/50 divide on whether human-made global warming is a legitimate concern or not, when in reality, there is more overwhelming evidence that suggests that human-made global warming is a real legitimate concern.

Controversy is being stirred when science actually finds consensus.

However, there is disagreement about whether the scientific community has reached a consensus that human-made global warming is a legitimate concern and that if it is left unchecked, it will cause considerable damage to our planet in terms of extreme climate changes, more powerful tropical storms and hurricanes, and rising sea levels that will lead to the destruction of coastal communities, among other destructive events.

Opponents maintain that no consensus has been reached, claiming that most scientists believe that human-made global warming is "unproven," they dismiss the theory altogether, or they dispute the dangers of consensus science.

Global warming is also a decisive political issue, especially in the United States. Most Republicans tend to adopt the view of not believing that human-made global warming is a "proven" issue, so they oppose all proposed measures of counteracting it because they don't believe it's necessary. Democrats, on the other hand, believe that human-made global warming is a legitimate cause of concern and endorse measures to reduce and/or eliminate the threat.

Two perfect examples of the political division involving the global warming issue are President George W. Bush's inaction regarding the Kyoto Treaty provisions and 2000 Democratic Presidential candidate Al Gore's new documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," that refocuses attention on the global warming issue and why we must address it soon or face dire consequences.

The Kyoto Treaty is an amendment to the international treaty on climate change, calling for mandatory emission limitations for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to the nations that sign off on it. It was opened for signature on December 11, 1997, but wasn't enforced until February 16, 2005.

Even though the United States is a signee of the Kyoto Treaty, the US has neither ratified nor withdrawn from the Treaty. Since it has not been ratified by the US to this point, the US is not required to follow the provisions of the Kyoto Treaty.

On July 25, 1997, the U.S. Senate passed the Byrd-Hagel Resolution, which called for developing nations to also be required to follow the Kyoto Treaty before forcing industrialized nations to sign off on it, 95-0. They feared serious harm would come to the US economy if they signed off on it beforehand, as developing nations not bound by the Kyoto Treaty would have an unfair advantage over industrialized nations like the US in coal and fossil fuel production. As a result, the Treaty was never submitted to the Senate for ratification.

Current President George W. Bush has no intentions of submitting the treaty to the Senate for ratification, not because he doesn't support the Kyoto principles, but because of the exemption granted to China (the world's second-largest emitter of carbon dioxide after the US, and is projected to be the largest emitter by 2010.) Bush also believes the Treaty would put much strain on the US economy; he has concerns over the uncertainties which are present in the climate change issue.

Bush and the US Government have enacted some of their own legislation in order to mitigate the climate change and the US is on track to fulfil its pledge to reduce its carbon intensity 18% by 2012. However, Paul Krugman has stated that the target 18% reduction in carbon intensity is still actually an increase in overall emissions. In addition, the White House has also come under criticism for downplaying reports linking human activity and greenhouse gas emissions to climate change.

Al Gore has brought renewed focus on the topic of global warming with his Oscar-winning documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth." This documentary shows Mr. Gore's passionate and inspirational look at his fervent crusade to stop global warming's deadly progress by exposing the myths and misconceptions that surround it. The documentary also reveals that if most of the world's scientists are right about global warming, we may have just ten years to avert a major catastrophe that could cause our world to experience extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics, and killer heat waves at levels we've never seen before.

As you can see, there are many facets and elements that go into the topic of global warming. From the controversial science behind it to the way the media covers it to the politics that are behind each side of the debate to the Kyoto Treaty that tries to address the issue of global warming to the Oscar-winning documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," that tries to alert people that global warming is a real issue that needs to be addressed now by all, both governmental and individual, global warming is a very important topic in our world. The debate will likely continue, but the evidence seems to indicate that human-made global warming is having more pronounced effects on our world, and without concise and decisive action in the near future, it's quite possible that the damage caused by global warming will only continue to become more devastating to our world.

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Know The History And Understand The Global Warming Issue

Global warming is defined by Wikipedia as "the observed increase in the average temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and oceans in recent decades and its projected continuation."

Most think of global warming as being human-made, and while much recent attention to global warming is due to the human-made variety, global warming is actually a natural process as the Earth has experienced natural global warming and cooling many times in the past. The Antarctic EPICA ice core has existed for 800,000 years, and that has included eight glacial cycles with interglacial warming periods that are much hotter than current temperatures.

Some geologists believe that a rapid build-up of greenhouse gases caused the Earth to experience global warming in the early Jurassic period, with average temperatures rising by 5 C (9 F.) This caused rock weathering by 400%, which in turn, led to CO2 levels dropping back to normal over the next 150,000 years because rock weathering locks away carbon in calcite and dolomite.

Other past global warming events were believed to be caused by sudden releases of methane from clathrate compounds, including the Permian-Triassic extinction event and the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum.

However, the last glacial period was believed to be caused by natural variations in the Earth's orbit, which led to the retreat of the ice sheets because of the changing amount of solar radiation received at high latitude.

However, the recent attention to the topic of global warming is due to the fact that human actions have caused global warming on a scale and with a rapidity unseen before.

Global average air temperature near the Earth's surface has increased by 0.56-0.92 C (0.98-1.62 F) over the last century.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes that this observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in greenhouse gas concentrations due to such activities like burning coal and fossil fuels, cutting down forests, and overgrazing the land. These activities have increased the greenhouse effect, which in turn, has warmed the temperatures near the Earth's surface and lower atmosphere.

From the period of 1860-1900, global land and sea temperatures had increased by 0.75 C (1.40 F,) but from 1979 to the present day, land temperatures have increased about twice as fast as ocean temperatures (about 0.25 C/decade land temperature versus about 0.13 C/decade ocean temperature.) Also, temperatures in the lower troposphere have increased between 0.12-0.22 C (0.22-0.40 F) per decade since 1979.

The hypothesis of man-made global warming was first made in the 1880s, but due to the fact that 19th century calculations predicted that the mean global temperature should have risen by more than 1 C by 1940, and it hadn't, most had considered the hypothesis as more of a curiosity. It wasn't until 1979 when Mrs. Margaret Thatcher became the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom that the hypothesis became a major international policy issue.

Global warming has continued to be a major international policy issue since 1979, as the Rio Summit in 1992 proposed actions to constrain the emissions and the Kyoto Summit in December 1997 established binding agreements that would commit nation states to the constraints.

Europe, Japan, and the United States have agreed in principle to adopt the "Berlin Mandate" that requires them to cut their CO2 emissions to 15% below their 1990 levels by 2010. The US is not totally convinced this is the right approach, however, as the US Department of Energy (DoE) has conducted a study that suggests the "Berlin Mandate" will not reduce world-wide emissions of CO2. In fact, the DoE study suggests that the "Berlin Mandate" could raise CO2 emissions because many energy intensive industries would be forced to leave the US, Europe, and Japan where the constraints are enforced to countries that have either not adopted the mandate or that don't strictly enforce them, and because those countries likely would have less energy efficient industries, that would likely raise the level of CO2 emissions.

The 2000 Democratic Presidential candidate, Al Gore, has brought a new focus on global warming with his 2007 Oscar-winning documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth." In this documentary, Mr. Gore has offered a passionate and inspirational look at his fervent crusade to expose the myths and misconceptions behind global warming so that global warming's deadly progress can be stopped before it's too late.

As you can see, global warming has been a hotly debated global topic for nearly the last 30 years. No one is absolutely sure what approach is the best way to go about reducing the threat of global warming in the future. If it's true that global warming could cause epic destruction in the near future, more discussion, and more importantly, action will need to be taken in order to avert that destruction. Looking at the history of global warming will likely help in determining a course of action that will help us avert that possible destruction.