Global Warming, a Threat to Humans?

Is Global Warming a threat to the Human Population?

Global warming has been a lot in the media and most people have probably discussed it and feared it for an amount of years now.
In the media, Global Warming has been presented as a catastrophic event that will change the world as we know it, and have disastrous and horrible effects on us, and that it might be our demise.
At first, scientists believed Global Warming to be a result of too much human activity, but as they years have passed and they have researched more, they now claim that Global Warming is a natural process which happens every now and then in a cycle with ice-ages. They now say that after an ice age, the earth will start to heat up, and that this process can take many years. Scientists say that the earth is now on the heating part of the cycle, and that human activities have just hastened the process a little, however the consequences of the heating period is still as catastrophic as they were when the process was caused by human activities alone.

Global warming has been discussed for a long time, and people have been worried about the consequences.
Not so long ago, scientists believed that global warming was caused by human actions alone, which they had a good reason for, as the earth has been changing a lot since we first invented cars and started using fossil fuels. The earth’s changes happened in a pattern with the increase of CO2 emissions from humans that came from cars factories and more. This led the scientists to come up with their theory. However, lately scientists have pondered upon a new discovery, which they say reveals that global warming is not caused by our actions, only sped up by them. Apparently, global warming is now a result of a natural cycle of the earth, which occurs every now and then, in a cycle with ice ages. Scientists now believe that after an ice age, it is natural for the earth to go into a heating phase, where it warms up before cooling down again for another ice age.
No matter what causes the global warming, the consequences are apparently of the same catastrophic level, which some believe might destroy the human race.
Some of the signs of global warming are changes in the earth’s global temperature, weather changes in countries, the melting of glaciers and the ice on the poles, and many more disastrous things. Also here in Norway, we have noticed many changes in the weather patterns the past few years, like colder winters warmer summers, more snow, less snow, earlier snow, and things like this. This is supposedly the result of the temperature changes of the earth, as well as the melting of ice in the poles and other places, which turn out to be affecting the temperature and weather conditions in Norway and other northern countries, as well as all other countries with a coastal line.
Scientists have discovered that if the earths temperature changes much more now, ice will completely melt, and this will supposedly have a major impact on the Gulf stream, which will lead to the Gulf stream to flow in a different direction and this will have a disastrous affect on Norway, as we rely on the Gulf stream for heat, and if the Gulf stream changes it’s flow direction, it turns out Norway will become very similar to the North pole.
Also a problem for Norway will be economical issues, as it will become more difficult to get to the oil at sea, and possibly the oil at land as well. As the country becomes colder, the oceans will freeze, and so the platforms might become more at risk. Also it might become more difficult to reach the spots at land where the oil is, due to the masses of snow and ice that might occur due to the extreme cold weather conditions. This will probably lead to major suffering of the Norwegian wealth, and our reputation as an oil nation might die out, as we may not be able to get out to the oil. Also, if everything freezes, we will loose all our power, as 99.5% or so of Norway’s power supply comes from hydro electricity, and if the water freezes, Norway will have to extend to fossil fuels for electricity and heat, and this will also only release more CO2 into the environment.
Social consequences might also occur, due to the cold conditions, people might not want to go outside the house unless they have to, and so people might mostly be stuck indoors, without their friends and so they might only communicate over computers or phones, and loose touch with humanity.
Politicians in Norway are working with the case, trying to make Norway become a more environmental friendly nation, by increasing fuel prices and introducing taxes, as well as have scientists work on finding out ways to have hydro powered cars so that we will not use CO2 or any other polluting gasses while driving.
Although the politicians might be working on these marvelous ideas to reduce our CO2 emissions, they are set far back by the inaccurate, hated Norwegian public transport. It is difficult to rely on trains because they are always too late, and they are always cramped and so you need to wait for a new train, and so the public transport of Norway is not very well worked out. This is something they will have to work on if they want people to stop driving as much, as less driving will involve more accurate public transport, because people will still have to get places they cant by just walking or biking.
Scientists have for a long time been saying that we have to cut out our CO2 emissions to be able to stop the global warming in time, but now they have discovered a new idea called geo-engineering, which revolves around the idea of building tunnels in the earth, manipulating it’s climate to combat the global warming and its affects.

I think that from what I have discussed, the effects of global warming will have a major impact on us due to the climate changes, and flooding and frozen tundra’s will be horrible things, but unless scientists and civilians let the situation go too far and have it get too far out of control I don’t believe it will be humanities doom.
I think that if scientists act now and start setting the idea of geo-engineering in use, as well as faster developing ideas to counter the CO2 emissions from cars and factories, the world can be saved, and we will all survive to tell the story, as well as reducing the effects of global warming, to a scale where they won’t be as destructive people believe.

Bibliography: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoengineering http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming
http://www.philforhumanity.com/Global_Warming.html

Bibliography: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoengineering http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming http://www.philforhumanity.com/Global_Warming.html