Global Warming

Timah Reid
October 3, 2013
Period 8
Senior Science

Global Warming Controversy

Humans have known about global warming for many years now. But Al Gore did not discover global warming. Neither did Tim Flannery, Peter Garrett, Greenpeace or Malcolm Turnbull. However they did add their scientific two cents and made everyone more knowledgeable on what this topic is really about, and stressed the importance it has on the Earth. Scientific concern about global warming is not new. This is nothing surprising or new to the world. Although new studies about this topic is brought up often. Many amount of people believe that our concern about global warming is a modern day obsession which is driven by the attention of high-profile personalities, politicians and green activists. Also that we shouldn’t pay so much attention to it, and give our attention to “bigger problems” that’s going on in the world. Global Warming is a controversial issue we have faced for many years, there is many reasons why people believe and disbelieve that Global Warming is a real life issue.

There is no exact date you can put on the discovery of Global Warming, neither person to say they discovered it as well. Many people had their own theories, and added on to each others beliefs before everything was summed up to what now is Global Warming. However, these studies goes way back to the late 1800s, when scientist started to notice the change of temperature. The first person to look into climate change was Svante Arrhenius. Arrhenius was a Swedish scientist, also the first person to claim fossil fuel turmoil will eventually result to what now known as Global Warming/ Climate Change. “He found that the average surface temperature of the earth is about 15oC because of the infrared absorption capacity of water vapor and carbon dioxide”(Enzler). That is called greenhouse effect, which is one of the main causes of Global Warming. Arrhenius also believed that human activity can also add to climate change by putting carbon dioxide into the air and warming the earth. He was not researching about climate change for no reason, this was part of his own research to figure out if global warming was the cause of the great ice ages. Which was found out to be true in 1987, and after Arrhenius discoveries the topic was forgotten for quite some time.
However most people believe that Global Warming was discovered by an American scientist by the name of Wallace Smith Broecker. He was a scientist at Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory as well as a Professor at the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University. Broecker was also a writer and published a total of 10 books and wrote more than 450 journal articles.On August 8th, 1975, he published a paper in the Science magazine. The paper was titled “Are we on the brink of a pronounced global warming?”, where he first used the term “global warming”. Which is why he is believed to be the first person to discover it. Before his article was published the term “global warming” was mostly known as “inadvertent climate modification” by other scientists. However, Broecker believed that the term, “modification” was innocent. Because the term modification meant the temperature could go either way (warmer or colder). Broecker proved that to be wrong, and that it would only get warmer because of the ozone layer thinning, the earth would be more exposed to the sun.
One major source of believers are the vast majority of the scientific community. Which debate with others on whether or not Global warming is caused by human activity or from natural sources, for example volcanoes and forest fires.Those believers of Global Warming believes Global Warming exists because of something called the greenhouse effect. This controversy has been going on for many years, although gained a lot of attention in 2005. When former Vice President Al Gore created his documentary called “An Inconvenient Truth.” The documentary served to blame human activity as the reason for global warming. The United Nations are also believers of the greenhouse effect. The Kyoto Protocol was created by the United Nations and is an agreement among industrialized nations that have pledged to reduce their annual greenhouse gasses. “The protocol currently consists of over 160 nations representing over 55% of the world 's greenhouse gases”(Sedlak). Believe it or not, the United States has the largest amount of greenhouse gasses produced in the air. Taking up about “20.6% of the worlds greenhouse gases, and has not signed the protocol”(Sedlak). Now in America President Obama isn’t ignoring the effect we are having on the world. He acknowledges the problem, and has created the Clean Energy Act. “The clean Energy Act is an Act of Congress concerning the energy policy of the United States”(Maloy). The CEA is to reduce our dependence on fossil fuel over the next 15 years through government spending. This should help the United States slow down with the green house gases we produce into the air, and temporarily slow down Global Warming.
Even with tons of facts and scientific research with lots of evidence, there are still people out there that do not see Global Warming as a threat to the earth 's atmosphere. “New data shows that in fact the Earth has not warmed at all over the last 15 years. In fact, the Daily Mail reports that the Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit, after taking data from nearly 30,000 stations around the world, have found that the earth stopped warming in 1997”(Scott). 16 scientist wrote an article expressing their belief that global warming is not supported by science. They believe that politicians (Al Gore) and certain scientist are embarrassed to admit that they were wrong about Global Warming. These scientist believe that for the past 15 years the world not only stopped warming, but actually started cooling. These scientist believe it is outrageous that the world began to listen to what politicians believe about global warming with no scientific backup. They put most of the blame on Al Gore because of his article An Inconvenient Truth. They said it is shown all over, in classrooms “teaching” children about Global Warming. They believe that Al Gore dramatized the effects that carbon dioxide have on climate change and some say he fabricated the evidence shown in the film. Another source that doesn’t believe in Global Warming was a turned into a documentary called “The great global warming swindle”. The documentary was made by a british director with many scientists economists, politicians, writers, and others who believe that Global warming isn’t real.They argued that man made Global Warming is a lie and “the biggest scam of modern time”. Even former president George W, Bush and most of the Republican Party members did not believe it is necessary to spend money in an effort to combat global warming.
I believe Global Warming is very much true and alive as it ever been. You can see certain signs of Global Warming everyday. In New York City and other industrialized states you can’t even see all of the stars in the sky because of the fuels from all of the greenhouse gases, and fossil fuels. I also feel that it is true that a cause of Global Warming is also because of natural disasters, such as volcanoes, tsunami etc.
Global warming is a controversy the world have been trying to face for many years. As the years go by global warming becomes more serious. Although natural causes makes up some of it, human activities add on to this. There isn 't a way to stop global warming, but slow it down. By reducing, reusing, and recycling.

Work cited page: http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/g/global_warming_controversy.htm http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/global-warming7.htm

http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Global_warming_controversy.html

http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2012/08/14/confirmation-bias-why-both-sides-of-the-global-warming-debate-are-nearly-always-right/

Senior Science Seminar Research Essay Rubric

1. Introduction – The introduction should introduce the history of the issue or controversy including the history of organizations that attempted to intervene and resolve this conflict.. 5/5
2. Sources- The writer has used five advisor-approved sources and woven them seamlessly into the essay.
8/10
3. . Research Supporting Paragraphs - Each supporting paragraph describes the conflict from a different perspective. Each paragraph is supported by citations, and analysis. Quotations and citations are blended seamlessly into the writer’s paraphrasing and analysis.

17/20
4. MLA Works Cited - The writer has included an MLA “Works Cited” sheet using only researched articles that were used in the essay. 0/10
5. Mechanics - The writing is free of verb tense errors, fragments, run-ons, and spelling errors.
7/10
TOTAL
555/55

Cited: sheet using only researched articles that were used in the essay. 0/10 5. Mechanics - The writing is free of verb tense errors, fragments, run-ons, and spelling errors. 7/10 TOTAL 555/55