Environmental Problems Part 5-Global Warming and Climate Change

Environmental Problems (Mooney, Linda, Knox, David, and Schacht)

Global Warming and Climate Change

Global warming refers to the increasing average global temperature of earth’s atmosphere, water and land, caused mainly by the accumulation of various gases (greenhouse gases) that collect in the atmosphere. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an international team of scientists from countries around the world, “Warming of the climate system is unequivocal…The atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished, sea level has risen, and the concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased” (2013, p. SPM-3). In the United States, 2012 was the warmest year since records began in 1895 (Blunden & Arndt 2013).

Causes of Global Warming

The prevailing scientific view is that greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, and nitrous oxide, accumulate in the atmosphere and act like the glass in a greenhouse, holding heat from the sun close to the earth. Most scientists believe that global warming has resulted from the marked increase in global atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases since industrialization began. Global increases in carbon dioxide concentration are due primarily to the actions of humankind, particularly the use of fossil fuels.

Deforestation also contributes to increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Trees and other plant life use carbon dioxide and release oxygen into the air. As forests are cut down or are burned, fewer trees are available to absorb the carbon dioxide.

The growth of greenhouse gas emissions is strongest in developing countries, particularly China, which emits more carbon dioxide than any other nation. In 2010, China consumed nearly half of all coal worldwide and surpassed the United States as the world’s largest consumer of energy (BP 2011). However, the United States has the highest per capita emissions of carbon dioxide (Energy Information Administration,2013).

Even if greenhouse gases are stabilized, global air temperature and sea level are expected to continue to rise for hundreds of years. That is because global warming that has already occurred contributes to further warming of the planet, a process known as a positive feedback loop. For example, the melting of Siberia’s frozen peat bog could release billions of tons of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere (Pearce 2005). And the melting of ice and snow, another result of global warming, exposes more land and ocean area, which absorbs more heat than ice and snow, further warming the planet.

For more than 20 years, the fossil fuel industry and its allies have launched an aggressive misinformation campaign attacking and discrediting climate science, scientists, and scientific institutions (Greenpeace USA 2013). This well-funded “climate denial machine” has been effective in swaying public view of climate change: Despite the overwhelming scientific consensus that human activity causes global warming (Cook et al. 2013), more than half (57 percent) of U.S. adults believe that global warming is due to natural changes in the environment (Saad 2013).

 Sources

Mooney, Linda, Knox, David, and Schacht, Caroline 2015. Understanding Social Problems. Cengage Learning: Boston, MA.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 2013. Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. United Nations Environmental Programme and the World Meteorological Organization. Available at www.climatechange2013.org

Blunden, Jessica, and Derek S. Arndt. 2013. “State of the Climate in 2012.” Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 94(8):S1-S258

BP. 2011. BP Statistical Review of World Energy. Available at www.bp.com

Energy Information Administration. 2013 (September). Monthly Energy Review. Available at www.eia.gov

Pearce, Fred. 2005. “Climate Warming as Siberia Melts.” New Scientist, August 11. Available at www.NewScientist.com

Greenpeace USA. 2013. Dealing in Doubt: The Climate Denial Machine Vs. Climate Science. Available at www.greenpeace.org

Cook, John, Dana Nuccitelli, Sarah A. Green, Mark Richardson, Barbel Winkler, Rob Painting, Robert Way, Peter Jacobs, and Andrew Skuce, 2013. “Quantifying the Consensus on Anthropogenic Global Warming in the Scientific Literature.” Environmental Research Letters 8(2)1-7.

Saad, Lydia. 2013 (April 8). “Americans’ Concerns about Global Warming on the Rise.” Gallup, Inc. Available at www.gallup.com