What Is Global Warming Persuasive Essay

Global Warming Ever since climate change science has come into public awareness, there has been debate over whether global warming was caused by humans, or even, if the climate is warming at all. Some people think climate change is a controversial topic, but it shouldn’t be controversial. This essay presents some facts that show that the climate is warming and humans are causing that warming. Not only that, it explains the consequences of global warming, the major causes, and the solutions to prevent climate change.
It is important that a few facts about the climate and humankind are established. The Earth’s climate warms and cools on its own with changes in the Earth’s orbit, the sun’s orbit, volcanic activity, and levels of carbon dioxide
in the atmosphere. However, this doesn’t mean that climate change can’t be caused by humans. The analogy that oceanservice.noaa.gov uses is “the fact that forest fires have long been caused naturally by lightning strikes does not mean that fires cannot also be caused by a careless camper.” 10,000 years ago the Earth’s climate changed to a relatively level climate. This allowed for humans to switch from a hunter-gatherer society to an agricultural society. Since humans now didn’t have to spend all their time getting food, they began to make rapid advance in science and technology. Eventually, that rapid advance in science and technology led to the discovery of fossil fuels as a major energy source during the industrial revolution and beyond. Global warming is caused by greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere which creates the greenhouse effect.
As defined by the EPA, greenhouse gases are “gases that trap heat in the atmosphere.” According to the Australian Government Department of the Environment and Energy, “The greenhouse effect is a natural process that warms the Earth’s surface. When the Sun’s energy reaches the Earth’s atmosphere, some of it is reflected back to space and the rest is absorbed and re-radiated by greenhouse gases.” Therefore, when humans release more greenhouse gases into the environment than the Earth can naturally absorb, the global temperature
increases.
And for anyone who doesn’t believe in climate change, NASA states on their website that, “Multiple studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals1 show that 97 percent or more of actively publishing climate scientists agree: Climate-warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human activities. In addition, most of the leading scientific organizations worldwide have issued public statements endorsing this position.”
If climate change is real, and it’s caused by human activity, what will happen as the climate warms? The most obvious and easily measured consequence of climate change will be a rise in sea levels. As the climate warms, the sea water heats up, expands, and rises with the melting of glaciers. NASA measures a sea level increase of 3.4 mm a year and a 85.5 mm increase in sea level since 1993. Even though this is only a rise of just under 3.4 in. since 1993, over time the rate at which the sea rises could increase exponentially due to the climate getting hotter, melting ice faster, and expanding the ocean even more. Not only could the ocean start to rise faster, but a small rise in sea level could have disastrous effects due to the fact that, as stated by NASA, nearly 2.4 billion people or over ⅓ of the world population lives on the coast. If the ocean continues to rise, eventually it will force everyone living on the coast at sea level to move. This will be the biggest refugee crisis the world has ever seen. As well as people being forced from their homes, so will animals, except their home is their habitat and they have nowhere else to go. This will cause mass extinctions.
Luckily, it’s not all bad news. New technologies have been invented and are being invented to counteract climate change. Along with solar, wind, and hydroelectric energy sources, humans are working on artificial photosynthesis. The idea is to pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and use that carbon dioxide to create fuel. In April 25, of 2017, at the University of Central Florida, Uribe-Romo and his fellow scientists figured out a way to use blue light waves to trigger a chemical reaction that converts carbon dioxide into solar energy. Researchers have been able to do this before, but they used materials that were much too expensive to be practical. As stated by eurekalert.org, in this new process “Uribe-Romo used titanium, a common nontoxic metal, and added organic molecules that act as light-harvesting antennae”. They devised an experiment in which they placed the metal in a container with blue light and specific, measured amounts of carbon dioxide. The blue light caused a chemical reaction within the metal and the carbon dioxide was broken down into formate and formamides, which are two reduced forms of carbon. This is just one of the many inventions coming out every day to pull carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, create energy, and counteract climate change.
Today, we are still using fossil fuels as our primary fuel source.
As reported by the BP Statistical Review of World Energy, in 2015 the U.S. used 2280.6 million tonnes of oil equivalent. When broken down into types of energy, oil accounted for 851.6*, gas for 713.6*, coal for 396.3*, nuclear energy for 189.9*, hydroelectric for 57.4*, and renewable for 71.7*. During that same year the U.S. released 6,587 Million Metric Tons of CO2 equivalent greenhouse gases. If real change is to be made to counteract climate change, a climate tax needs to be implemented. In British Columbia the government already enforces a carbon tax. The tax worked and according to a study by economists at Duke University and the University of Ottawa, it “reduced emissions by 5 to 15 percent with “negligible effects on aggregate economic performance”. At first, there might be a small uproar over increased prices, but the carbon tax would accelerate accessibility and use of renewable energy so that after a while fossil fuels would be mostly replaced by renewables. However, under the current United States government administration, it is unlikely, if not impossible, that a carbon tax will be passed, owing to the fact that president Donald J. Trump does not believe in climate change. Here is his exact words on the matter, “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” Fortunately for humanity, renewables will slowly take over fossil
fuels as they become more cost effective. The question is whether this will be before or after the Earth runs out of fossil fuels and how much damage can happen in that time.
When it’s all said and done, climate change is real. Like gravity, climate change doesn’t care if people believe in it or not, and it will exist regardless of public opinion. There is no doubt that humanity would be better off if climate change was just a conspiracy, but facts are indisputable. Politicians are wasting valuable, precious time arguing about global warming, when in reality there’s nothing to argue about. The scientific community has established that the climate is warming because of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere by humans. It’s ridiculous that the existence of climate change is a debate at all. While the government wastes their time arguing over established facts, people and animals are already being affected by climate change. Humans could do something to stop this, and we may yet. The worry is that it may be too little too late, and by the time everyone believes in climate change, it will only be because they were forced to by the disastrous effects that climate change has caused.
*million tonnes of oil equivalent