Enviro Saver asked:

What is global warming? Global warming is when the temperature of the planet starts to rise causing the icecaps to melt, resulting in the ocean levels rising. You might be wondering how this can affect the average person. Global warming might be seen by many as something that does not need to be overly concerned about. In truth, it really is something that people should be concerned about. With the temperature of earth rising, the icecaps melt and the stores of fresh water mix with the salt water. If there is one thing the human population does not want to be short of, it is fresh water.

Global warming is what contributes to the growth of deserts as more moisture evaporates into the air from the heat. In many places drought is becoming a major problem and this can lead to poor crop yield and an increase in the chance of having fires. Extreme flooding is also believed to be contributed to by global warming as the weather patterns change. As the temperature becomes warmer, it disrupts regular storm patterns and can lead to worse storms that lead to more tornados, hurricanes and floods.

What ways can you stop global warming? Whether you are a business or an individual, you can become someone who does not contribute to the problem. Here are some tips:

•Replace all incandescent light bulbs with florescent lights that use less electricity.

•Try to minimize the number of times the furnace turns on, maybe even turn it down a bit.

•Use appliances that are energy efficient; they don’t use as much electricity as the common ones.

•Don’t leave things on standby. When finished with a machine turn it off.

•Turn off lights when the room is not in use.

•Replace single pane windows with double pane.

While many of these suggestions are often associated with homes, they can also be used by businesses who wish to help stop global warming. These are only a few of the many things a person or business can do. To find out more ways you can be more environmentally friendly, you can go onto the internet, find books in libraries or stores, or you can even bring in a professional who can help you find ways to be a part of the solution. At first, it might seem like it is very expensive, and it is at first, but you help stop global warming and over time it can actually help to save yourself, or your business money.

Diana Trimble asked:

It’s not just the planet that’s hotting up, it’s the whole debate about global warming. Especially now that we can see and feel its effects every day. Yet you’ve probably noticed that when it comes to taking action, the focus always seems to be on what each of us can do personally. We the people must use energy-saving light bulbs, fly less, recycle, use green energy, take our appliances off standby, and so on. But perhaps, like me, these entreaties leave you feeling a bit ripped off. Perhaps you, too, are wondering what part business, industry and governments have to play? It’s certainly true that there are things individual citizens can and must do, but surely really significant reductions ultimately depend on tough, international legislative action. After all, if personal responsibility were all that has ever been necessary to solve problems, why were political systems and governments invented in the first place? Once we’ve taken individual action, is that it? Or is there more to be done? What really seems to be needed is a way of acting collectively to ensure that governments around the world start co-operating to solve global warming instead of talking more hot air while the planet burns.

In his film, An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore rightly points out that collective action depends on political will, but this, he says, is in short supply. Right again! The reasons for its scarcity, he suggests, are that it’s simply not in the short-term interests of the main polluting nations and their industries to take substantive action. So far so good, but the cartoon image he uses to hammer his point home is an unfortunate one: a pair of scales with gold bars on one side and the entire planet on the other. Gore uses this to demonstrate the absurdity of those who see economic prosperity and a healthy planet as an either/or choice: after all, what value could gold bars have if there’s no habitable planet in which to enjoy them? It’s plainly ridiculous, and so too, suggests Gore, is the reluctance of some to give up the gold bars.

But rather than ridicule those who fear for their short-term interests, shouldn’t we be trying to look at what may be their perfectly legitimate point, and trying to understand the forces that keep it relevant? Gore may have faced the inconvenient truth of global warming, but he is yet to face a second inconvenient truth: that stiff action on the part of the rich countries WILL have adverse economic effects, at least in the short term. And if global warming is dealt with in isolation, those costs WILL fall heaviest on the USA and on other big polluters. To deny the barrier to action that these short-term costs and disincentives represent, as Gore seems to, is to fall into the same trap as those who deny global warming itself.

I laughed along with everyone else when I saw the gold vs earth cartoon, but making fun of those who are wary of economic backlash is hardly likely to elicit the consensus Gore seeks. It also seems like a cheap shot when you keep in mind that had Gore actually become President in 2000, he would inescapably have joined the ranks of those he’s poking fun at. The president of the U.S. has only four years before facing another election, so Gore’s popularity and tenure in office would have been directly influenced by his corporate funders and their support for short-term gains to the US economy.

Today, there may only be few people who still cling to denying global warming. But knowledge and acceptance can’t effect change by themselves. What is urgently needed is a means to unlock the short-term barriers and disincentives that prevent decisive collective action – nationally and internationally. Make no mistake: in today’s globalised and largely borderless world, capital and jobs generally move to wherever in the world environmental and social costs are lowest and profits therefore highest. Any government moving first to significantly increase environmental costs or regulations in a bid to reduce emissions would definitely see investment and jobs moving elsewhere, thus making the nation uncompetitive. That’s why nothing changes except the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere just keeps on rising. Prime Minister Tony Blair at least seemed to recognise these realities when he pointed out that “The blunt truth about the politics of climate change is that no country will want to sacrifice its economy in order to meet this challenge”.[i]

Unlike Gore, Blair clearly recognises this second inconvenient truth and he should not be blamed for stating it. But his statement only holds true IF nations fail to act together. This is the barrier that keeps the gold bars firmly on one side of the scales. However, if all nations co-operated, the necessary regulations could be implemented without any nation fearing capital or employment flight because there would be no low-cost haven for them to run to. Corporations, too, would have nothing to fear because all corporations would be subject to the same additional costs, so maintaining their relative competitiveness and their relative profitability. Think about that for a minute.

But there is a further problem: the biggest polluter, the USA, would have the biggest adjustment cost, so it has the least incentive to sign up to any cooperative agreement. This is why the Kyoto Protocol is not supported by the USA and Australia, another big polluter. It is also why the provisions of the Kyoto agreement are so mild and relatively ineffectual. Because if the nations supporting Kyoto agreed to tougher, more significant curbs, the costs involved would make them uncompetitive with nations, such as the USA and Australia, who refuse to participate.

The net result is a recipe for missed targets and an intergovernmental dead-lock of a kind which raises the third, final and most important inconvenient truth; this time one that concerns not so much governments or businesses but each of us as individual citizens. It’s a truth which all citizens around the world must urgently take on board: that we can no longer abdicate responsibility for taking collective action to politicians and governments alone. If free-riding governments are to be compelled to co-operate, then it must be citizens who force them to do so. We have no choice but to take the initiative, and stop assuming that politicians are in the driving seat of the global economy. It’s time to grab hold of the steering wheel and find a way of driving our politicians and governments toward co-operation. What’s needed is a method of achieving cooperation which removes the barriers and objections, takes away the fears of being uncompetitive, and replaces those fears with an enthusiasm for shared problem-solving.

When Al Gore became fully aware of the dangers of global warming, he travelled far and wide to gain a deeper understanding of the science and its real-world effects, and justifiably so (although I do hope he planted plenty of trees to personally offset his carbon emissions). But Gore and the rest of us have so far failed to embark on another, far more urgent line of enquiry. If we genuinely wish to solve global warming and other global problems, we need to gain a deeper understanding of the barriers to collective government action under globalisation. For the deeper truth is that global warming and many other global “problems” are not the real problems at all. They are merely symptoms, albeit terrifying ones, of our failure as a global human society to co-operate. Until we understand the dynamics of co-operation and how to achieve it, and what we as citizens can do to unblock the barriers to it, international inaction, missed targets and deepening chaos will continue and global warming may well destroy human civilisation.

The Simultaneous Policy, a global citizen’s initiative, claims to have begun this vital journey and to offer a plausible and effective way that citizens can use their right to vote in a new way that drives the politicians of all parties and nations to collectively implement the measures we so desperately need. It seems that political representatives would find it a welcome relief to be freed from the restrictions that keep them beholden to big business interests and confined to wholly inadequate policies dictated by the need to keep their nations “internationally competitive”. This is reflected in the fact that already politicians from opposing sides of the spectrum – nationally and internationally – are pledging their support for the Simultaneous Policy as a result of voter pressure and/or enlightened social responsibility. Check it out for yourself at www.simpol.org – as Noam Chomsky commented, “Can it work? It’s certainly worth a serious try!”

James Nash asked:

Accelerated global warming could lead to a runaway methane global warming effect due to the release of methane currently trapped in unstable methane hydrate deposits in the arctic that could be destabilised by accelerated global warming effects.

Core samples taken from old ocean sediment layers have been used to trace back in time the climate changes that have occurred over the past tens of millions of years. By analysing the incidence of different fossil shell remains of sea creatures occurring in these sediments it is possible to track the changes in the sea water temperatures and levels of atmospheric CO2 occurring at the time the shells were formed and deposited. These shells contain carbon from the CO2 in the atmosphere which was dissolved in the sea water in which the creatures lived just as takes place today.

From these records it appears that there have been short periods of only a few hundred years in the geological past when rapid increases of the Earth’s temperature have occurred superimposed on top of the rise and fall of average temperatures over the longer term. For these short periods temperature rises of up to 8 degrees centigrade appear to have occurred on top of existing long term rises of 5 to 7 degrees to give temperatures up to 15 degrees centigrade warmer than today. Temperatures then fell back to the long term trend, the whole rise and fall only lasting a few hundred years.

The most likely cause of this rapid global warming over such a short period is the release of methane into the atmosphere. Methane is 60 times more powerful than CO2 as a greenhouse gas but only remains in the atmosphere for about ten years and so looses it’s greenhouse effect quickly compared to CO2 which remains in the atmosphere for 100 years. CO2 would not be available in sufficient quantities to achieve the rapid warming and if CO2 was the cause then the raised temperatures would last a lot longer.

Methane hydrates occur extensively today all over the world. They consist of methane stored within unstable water bound deposits that if disturbed release the methane. They occur in major river deltas such as the Amazon delta and in old delta areas such as the Gulf of Mexico. Major rivers carry millions of tons of silt containing vegetable matter that continues to decay after the silt is deposited in the river delta. This anaerobic decay produces methane which gets trapped in the silt as methane hydrates until the conditions of water temperature and pressure change which can release the methane in vast quantities very quickly.

Another form is a frozen slush/ice methane hydrate where the methane is trapped in an ice/water mixture which releases the methane when it warms up or the pressure on the ice is reduced. Frozen methane hydrates can contain 170 times their own volume of methane. These frozen hydrates occur in the seabed deposits of the Arctic Ocean.

Methane can also be trapped by permafrost layers which over-lay lower unfrozen layers of vegetable material that is decaying and producing methane which remains trapped by the frozen permafrost on top. If the permafrost layer were to melt then the methane in the layers below would escape into the atmosphere. Given the vast areas of permafrost in northern latitudes there is a significant potential for methane to be trapped that would be released if the permafrost melted as a result of global warming.

The theory for these rapid rises and falls of temperature, based on the geological records from 55 million years ago, is that gradual global warming due to some natural cause had resulted in temperatures 5 to 7 degrees centigrade higher than average (i.e. higher than today’s temperatures). At this point methane trapped in methane hydrate deposits started to be released into the atmosphere and accelerated the rate of warming. This would result in further warming releasing more methane.

As the atmosphere warmed different types of methane deposits would start to be released and so a cycle of methane release leading to increased warming leading to more methane release from other areas of methane deposits elsewhere in the world would become established as global warming effected different areas of the world.

There is an intriguing photograph of what appears to be a methane plume coming up out of the Arctic ice sheet which indicates that the phenomenon described above can occur. There have also been incidences of oil drilling inadvertently triggering large releases of methane from hydrate deposits. One theory to explain the loss of ships in the so called Bermuda triangle is that they have been engulfed in a sudden methane release which reduces the buoyancy of the sea water so that the ship sinks.

So, does methane pose a threat today? Let us review the situation. We know there are extensive methane hydrate and permafrost deposits all around the world. We have evidence that we are at the beginning of a period of global warming that is probably being made worse by the continuing build up of CO2 in the atmosphere due to fossil fuel burning. Recent computer modelling incorporating the feed back effects of global warming that has already occurred suggests that by about 2050 we may start to loose the beneficial effects of the Amazon rain forest as a carbon sink.

This could lead to temperature rises of 5 to 8 degrees centigrade by 2100. This would be uncharted territory and no one really knows at present how the world’s environmental systems would change but we now have the evidence from the geological past. On the basis of this evidence global warming can lead to methane releases which once started would escalate. This would be the worst possible thing to happen because once started there would be no way of stopping a runaway methane global warming event.

We CAN reduce our CO2 emissions from fossil fuels but we COULD NOT reduce methane emissions once they started, huge natural forces would take over and change our world. This would probably result in the melting of the Antarctic icecap which would raise sea levels by 50 metres and would completely change the climates of the world.

So what should we do? We should be careful and not risk starting the sequence events described above. To do this we must reduce total CO2 emissions from now onwards and take measures to protect carbon sinks such as the Amazon rainforest.

If we all carry on burning so much fossil fuel as we do now we will be running the risk of starting an unstoppable runaway methane global warming event within the foreseeable future. Only major absolute reductions in CO2 emissions NOW will avoid this risk.

Hamish Fraser asked:


Global warming is the issue worrying one and all environmentalists around the world. It is now becoming quite imperative that be stop global warming fastest so that the effects of warming that have affected earth adversely are reversed and we are able to live a little happily than before.

There are many things that can be done on a personal level to stop global warming. Firstly, we should know how much heat and pollution is created by every family, this pollution is producing green houses gases and accelerating the process of global warming. One of the answers to stop the warming is that we should consciously start planting trees not just around us, we also ensure that the lost rainforests and tropical forests are restored back to their normal volume.

These tropical and rain forests work as lungs for the entire world, creating oxygen and purifying the air. Therefore, when these are cut off, it can harm the entire ecological system of the Earth, this means there will be very less oxygen and lesser trees to provide us with oxygen. It will make us susceptible to many breathing disorders and other health problems.

We need to stop global warming, is that the scientists have been telling us for quite sometime now. The reason is obvious, if not stopped or reduced, the large snow mountains at the poles will start melting, and this will lead to a sort of catastrophe. World’s major population stays at the sea side. Once the ice starts melting it will increase the sea levels several feet above what it is now. It has been already reported from the countries near the North pole that the rising sea levels has caused them to relocate their homes a little farther.

Rising sea levels will mean destruction of huge numbers of human beings, animals, property, industries, flora and fauna. This will also mean flooding and increase in salinity of available ground water. This again is potentially harmful for human health. This will also mean millions of people will have to move from near the sea to interiors. This would also mean loss of life and loss of millions of dollars.

If you feel strongly against global warming you should try and make contributions to organization you feel has been working actively for the purpose to stop global warming. Your small financial contributions can make a lot of difference. Your contributions can provide boost to these organizations to find man power and monetary power to buy land and convert it from arid dry deforested land to a good sized forest.

You can also stop global warming at your personal level. You can try and plant as many trees around your home. You can also try and use minimum electricity, you can try and avoid usage of sprays, non-green products which increase toxic waste on the Planet. It is necessary to stop global warming so our children can live healthy and long lives.

Arjun Singhe asked:


Currently no one really knows the exact cause of global warming although it is a big part of what science is researching. There are a lot of efforts being placed into finding out the exact cause of this and to figure out how to stop it from going much further. We can speculate however what may happen if global warming is not put to a stop and put to a stop very soon. While there are many people out there with outlandish stories of what is going to happen to the world, there is some underlying cause of concern with the issue of global warming that should not be ignored in the slightest bit.

First, we all need to understand just what exactly global warming is and that is the increase of the average temperature of the surface air and the temperatures of the oceans. The temperatures have slowing increased over the years showing that this may be a trend that could very well get out of hand one day. Of course, many people and scientists are claiming that human activity could very well be the main cause of all of the problems with global warming. But there are of course natural causes that have to be taken into consideration as well.

Getting Educated

When it comes to making sure that future generations know that global warming is something serious that they need to be cautious of, there is nothing more important then education. If we just continue to ignore the subject then our future generations will not truly understand the seriousness of it and just go on allowing this whole thing to get more and more out of control. Global warming is something that should be taught in every school starting in the grade school years. Even though the younger kids cannot understand all of the complexities of the situation, they can be taught a lot of the basics just to get them to understand age appropriate things regarding the situation.

As child progress into their older years then the teachings can get a little in depth within the schools. Projects and assignments on global warming is a great way to make sure that the kids are truly getting involved and that they are really thinking hard about this. Whether or not your school district is teaching a good bit on global warming, it is a good idea to make sure that you are talking about it at home. This will reinforce what is being learned at school about global warming and your child will see that this is truly something to take serious at all times.

John Nilson asked:


“With public sentiment nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed. Consequently, he who molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes than he who enacts or pronounces decisions.” Abraham Lincoln.

People exist always only in combination with nature, they can not be separated from it by any means and thus any kind of changes either positive or negative are always reflected in our lives. Long time ago one of the main problems on the planet became the global climate change. The Artic ice starts to melt and disappear, Latin America and South America suffer from lethal storms and floods. Europeans have to face melting glaciers, forest fires and heat waves. The tree rings and ancient coral in ice cores show that the world has not been as warm before as it is now. The warmest years were all starting since 1998. Most of these changes are influenced by human activities, as people burn the nature’s stores of coal, oil and natural gas. As a result billions of tones of carbon dioxide come into the air annually. Some scientists even suppose that these changes were caused by the dawn of agriculture. The well known phenomenon connected with global warming is greenhouse effect. CO2 is a greenhouse gas that makes the obstacle for the Sun radiation in the troposphere, the lower atmosphere. Some researches also show that cosmic rays are also connected with this effect. As soon as the atmospheric CO2 rises the global temperatures are luckily to rise by around 2C to 5 C. As a result the ice starts to melt, changes in clouds and vegetation occur and so on. When the glaciers melt, they will certainly cause some rivers to overflow, while others will be emptied. The situations with water resources might cause conflicts in different regions. All this will of course influence the natural ecosystems, as not all species can move quickly enough to put up with the global warming, for example coral reefs. The melting ices will influence not only the level of rivers’ water, but also the level of the oceans is disturbed. And if the level of the ocean rises 6 meters higher, that would be enough to flood the lands of billions of people.

Forests and oceans on our planet were able to absorb about half of the CO2 people produced, but since 2001 the amount of CO2 is twice bigger, which really limits the resources of the nature.

Methane is the second most important gas for greenhouse effect. The effect of methane is even 20 times greater than carbon dioxide, but there is less methane in the atmosphere. Methane influences 25% of global warming. Methane is produced by cows and termites. Thus agriculture and rice growing can produce methane. Besides coal mining and oil wells also produce methane. The level of methane in the atmosphere is constantly increasing – this is also an alarming fact for the Earth climate.

Public Health organizations are also worried about global warming, as researches state that the global warming is luckily to increase human mortality, when the cases of diseases transmitted by mosquitoes and other  parasites increase. But the American Council on Science and Health announced the conclusions of its study which show that such diseases could become serious problems for people disregarding global warming and that these diseases can be prevented not only by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The aim of these conclusions was certainly to make the diseases for the government not associated with global warming. The findings of the American Council on Science and Health were as follows:

- As the World Health Organization states that there are more than 500 million cases of malaria each year, malaria can not be caused only by warming of the climate, the increasing of the temperature can increase the incidents of malaria only by 10-16%.

- The ACSH studies were also stating that wealth can bring health and stimulate long living, whereas poverty is one of the reasons for hard diseases and short life spans. And public health would be put at risk when great economic costs could go on control of greenhouse gas emissions, as it could lead to poverty.

- Yellow fever, malaria and other tropical diseases could be prevented with fewer costs than those needed to restrict greenhouse gas emissions, for example: use of vaccinations, judicious use of pesticides and biological control methods, usage of mosquito and fly screens and public education.

- Spending money for reducing greenhouse gas emissions means that this money can not be used for better methods of preventing the above mentioned diseases, as better nutrition and sanitation.

This was one of the bright examples how the problem of global warming is not treated in a proper way in order to solve the financial and other problems of the high politic leaders, who care really not much for the future of the whole planet.

But no matter what is said, global warming still stays a great problem of the whole mankind. Certainly it is not possible to stop all human activities that disturb the atmosphere as they are connected with producing food and making people warm. But we should not forget that some predictions about global warming are close to tragic. People are controlling the whole Earth as there are almost no places, which never felt the hand of a human. And thus the whole responsibility is on people. There are certain measures to at least avoid the worst case, the disaster on the planet. People can reduce of greenhouse gas emissions with the help of energy conservation, like turning the computers and other technical devices off, when they do not use them, use compact fluorescent lights, unplug the chargers of cell phones and digital cameras and so on.

The issues of global warming and fossil fuel usage are certainly closely connected. The use of oil and natural resources will decline in a decade. But this would not reduce the carbon dioxide emissions automatically, the replacements with coal, heavy oil and tar sand contain even more carbon, if to make them produce the same amount of energy they will produce twice more carbon. But the fact is that all transport, roads and airports for this transport are useless without oil. To create a new transport system is a task for the whole society, not for an individual, besides it would need money, time, natural resources and a lot of brain power. So the previous arguments concerning a lot of money spent on the stopping or at least slowing the global warming can be put aside against these ones.

The projections made for the future state that Earth will be an ice planet without greenhouse effect, the Earth will get warmer, by the 2100 the temperature will be 1.5 C – 4.5 C warmer, the increase will be less in the southern hemisphere and greater in the northern hemisphere. The global temperature is connected with carbon dioxide level and methane level, which at the moment exceed greatly the past levels.

It is necessary to mention some facts concerning the future in order to understand why the global warming can be considered a disaster for the whole planet. Certainly it is not possible to know the future climate on Earth precisely, but some data are certain: every century brings the increase of the temperature of 1-2C. It is enough for Greenland and Antarctica to start melting, thus some part of northern areas could become a farmland and Sahara might become bigger. Storms can be stronger. Some countries like Bangladesh and Netherlands are luckily to vanish because of the ocean level rise up to 5 meters.

The term “climate forcings” is often used though it is hard to give its precise definition. To define it simply – this is an event that influences global climate. At this point it is necessary to mention that the weather and climate are different things, the weather is described with the help of variations of dryness or wetness, cold and heat. They do not play a great role for the whole picture on the Earth, but climate can be influenced by forcings, like for example a volcanic eruption can cool the climate on the whole Earth. Such forcing is called a short term forcing. An example of long term forcing may be continental drift which within millions of years changes the path of ocean currents. To anthropogenic forcings belong fossil fuel burning and agriculture. Not all forcings of humans result in global warming, sulfur dioxide from coal burning produces aerosols and they result in cooling.

These were the main negative influences on the climate that cause the global warming. They are rather serious and need urgent steps taken by people in order to avoid the catastrophes in the world of nature, to which we by the way also belong.

So the climate of the Earth should be an international concern and not only of scientists and ordinary people, but also of those who hold power in their hand and are able to make the politics work not only for money, but also for the future of the whole mankind. Unfortunately, these are mostly beautiful words and promises when elections are in the future as soon as they are over the real situation changes. Not a single national leader has come out publicly and said that the recent spate of hurricanes was the result of global warming, this is a part of conventional wisdom of environmentalists that they should not frighten the public, but should focus their interest on technical solutions, like for example hybrid cars and so on.

Global warming is such a problem that it is necessary to deal with all its aspects, which includes the politics. When politicians formulate their policy they need inputs from many disciplines and from science as well. But unfortunately global warming has become an absolutely political issue and politicians do their best to influence even science.

In 1992 at the Earth Summit the decision to prevent such dangerous climate change was taken. The first step was the 1997 Kyoto protocol, which is supposed to come into force in 2005.

One of the reports of the U.N. Panel on Climate Changes warns that the U.S. and other wealthy countries should immediately cut their oil and gas consumption and agree to get at least a quarter of their electrical energy from renewable resources – solar and wind power; and that they should double their research spending on low-carbon energy by 2010.In 1997 the U.S. Senate voted 95-0 to make Clinton Administration not to send the Kyoto treaty to Capitol Hill for ratification. In his first term president Bush rejected Kyoto. Russia ratified it, but most believe that Putin was made to do that as British Prime Minister and other European Union officials threatened not to let him become a member of World Trade Organization, which could cost Russia billions of dollars each year. But the chief economic adviser of Putin – Andrei Illarionov shows his doubts as for the upholding commit to Kyoto, he says: “There is no evidence confirming a positive linking between the level of carbon dioxide and temperature change. The U.N. Panel’s so called scientific data are considerably distorted and in many cases falsified” (Can We Defuse the Global Warming Time Bomb?, by James Hansen, 2003, pp.2-15). One of the main ideas of Ilarionov and others is to break the advanced economies of the U.S., Europe and Japan, by persuading the multi-national companies to move plants and jobs to developing countries in order not to comply with emissions restrictions. But the president of the American Policy Center in Washington – Tom DeWeese doesn’t agree that it makes sense, he states as the main concern and the prime target is the wealth of the United States it would not be wise to place factories in Third World countries, as the same amount of emissions would come out from jungles of South America instead of Chicago and in this case we are not talking about the protection of the environment any more. He is right in a way.

The main goal of the meeting in Kyoto was signing the amendment to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (the Rio Treaty) in order to require the signatory nations to take the necessary steps to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, as these gases cause an alarm situation with global temperatures. The costs of signing it for the U.S. could be really high, as the county could be made to reduce between 10 and 20 % of greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2020, that would cause reduction of gross domestic products by $260 billion annually, it is equal to $2.700 per household. Certainly it was hard to prove that such costs are justified. Besides as millions of American people could be put at risk, several important questions appeared. The first one was about the possible merits or drawbacks of global warming. The World Bank researches prove that about one-third of the whole population suffers from water shortages. By 2025 they say – around 40 % of the whole population could be living in countries without sufficient water supplies. The crops will also suffer from lack of water. Global warming leads to more condensation and more evaporation, thus producing more rains. So it could be in a way an answer to the problem about lack of water. The second positive point about global warming is possibility of agriculture in North America and Europe, the southern regions of Greenland were not covered with ice when between 10th and 12th centuries the temperature was 0.5 degrees warmer than today, and could be also cultivated. The evidence of this was found when: “scientists from the National Science Foundation sponsored Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2 extracted in an ice core from Greenland’s ice sheet that spanned more than 100.000 years of climate history. Samplings from the core suggest that a Little Ice Age began between 1400 and 1420, blanketing the Vikings’ farms in ice and forcing them to abandon their farms in search of more hospitable climates”.( Michael Crichton’s State of Fear: Climate Change in the Cineplex, by Amy Ridenour pp.1-5). Thus global warming could mean more agricultural productivity and more water resources.

The idea that great storms are connected with global warming is sometimes called a myth. Those who say so find little evidence to support this fact and also to support a conclusion that there is a connection between global warming and increasing number of such pests and mosquitoes that bring malaria, yellow fever and other diseases.  The researches of George C. Marshal institute show that most severe storms are more associated with warm and cold weather, for example in the North Sea the storms occurred between 15th and 16th centuries after the onset of Little Ice Age. The United Health Organization writes that with the grow of international traveling and great number of migrations and refugees people have the chance to communicate more, and thus the diseases are spread more quickly, not just from one person to another, but also from one continent to another.

Another important question concerns the global warming itself. Depending on the time period we are discussing the planet is either warming or not. Our planet has experienced several periods of warming and cooling. In his article in 1994 Richard Kerr offered his point of view about this issue: “In order for a climate model to have credibility, it must first be able to reliably “predict” current climate. … Some “tune” their models by adjusting the strength of solar radiation; others by adjusting the transfer of energy between the ocean and the atmosphere to get just the desired results. The result is climate models that are largely worthless”. (When Science Meets Politics on Global Warming, by Roy W. Spencer, 1998 pp.1-4).

Another question concerns economical results of reducing of greenhouse gas emissions. The plan as to reduce them to their 1990 level by 2000 and with further reductions for 2010 and 2020. This would make the taxes for carbon dioxide raise up to $100 $200 pro metric ton. Then by 2010 this could cause about 500.000 – one million job loses in U.S. The situation in Australia would be even worse, as they have a strong mining sector. The economies of developing countries would also be sensitive to these reductions in carbon dioxide emissions. The emissions in Brazil grew by 20%, in India – by 28%, in Indonesia – by 40% between 1990 and 1995.Thus developing nations and oil exporters have fears concerning their economic futures. That is why developing nations were exempted from reduction mandate under the Berlin mandate.

So the main point of political leaders is that the high costs for reducing greenhouse gas emissions are not worth the climate benefits they could bring. There is a point of view that even if such steps are necessary for improving our climate, we should not hurry and should at first improve our knowledge about causes and consequences of global warming, we should develop technology that could reduce the greenhouse emissions per unit of output, increase the reflectivity of atmosphere. The supporters of this position state that there are a lot of other important economical, scientific and political issues that need to be solved and there is no reason to rush to conclusions about global warming, as scientists themselves are a kind of swept up in the moment. Even after the Kyoto was coming into force constant debates between climate skeptics and global warming “supporters” continued. For example when Kevin Trenberth, being a head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggested that there was a connection between climate changes and wave of hurricanes,  Christopher Landsea, hurricane expert at America’s national Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration wrote in his public letter that: “because of Dr. Trenberth’s pronouncements. The IPCC process has been subverted and compromised, its neutrality lost” (When Science Meets Politics on Global Warming, by Roy W. Spencer, 1998 pp.1-4).

The concepts of “nature” and “environment” were reconstructed. Actually the human-made phenomenon – global warming- is somehow considered environmental. Some people believe that this framing is political, not just conceptual problem. When the term environment is used it means something that is “out there” and needs fixing, but in reality the problem can not be considered external, as it is within people and not out. And it was and will be the humans’ problem.

Overall, the warming of the Earth has become a serious problem concerning, scientists, citizens and of course policy-makers. It is certainly hard to give one-sided characteristics to all effects, results and reasons of the global warming described above, there are certainly possibilities that not all recent researches and conclusions of scientists are true to life 100%, and the statement that in several decades we will know much more about climate changing and global warming has also some rational points. But on the other hand it is hard to deny the fact that the human beings do influence the climate and the nature greatly. These issues touch every single person on the planet and the whole mankind. They should bother the policy making people as well. They have to care for the wealth of the country but to simply deny all the negative facts about global warming is hardly the best way out. But unfortunately it usually happens so that the politics are more interested in real facts concerning finance and industrial developments than in vague future of the whole planet. As the whole industrial process and thus the economy of almost any country depends on its usage of natural resources, the climate seems a low “price” for spoiling them. When they start to think about problems caused by climate change, they think first of all about refugees, loss of job places, food shortages because of bad development of agriculture and so on.

Eva Torriente Diaz asked:

Global Warming: Is The Bush II Government Pursuing A Policy Of Genocide By Proxy

Help Stop Global Warming With a Solar Power System

Learning About the Cause of Global Warming in Schools

« Previous Page — Next Page »