Look around. Every day, everyone will witness some sort of carbonic emission in some form dispersing into the atmosphere. You hear enough about it on the news, whether you care or not. However, the question lingers: is it even that big of a deal? Most likely, if you are a Republican, you will say that Democrats are blowing the whole climate change situation out of the water, or that the warming of our earth is completely natural. Notice how they switched it from global warming to climate change; that is because their previous assumptions and models have not been completely accurate, right? On the other hand, if you are a Democrat, you are most likely seething over the statements you just read and want to do anything you can to prevent this possible catastrophic disaster. 97% percent of climate scientists agree that Climate Change is here and now, caused by all of us… right? Democrats are also more likely to target and blame carbon emissions on the rising temperatures. Nevertheless, William McDonough, a famous urban planner, says that targeting carbon is a purely political move. Further, carbon should be a useful resource for humans, and an imbalanced carbon cycle is to blame. In fact, McDonough claims this imbalance is the result of poor and inadequate urban designing. Are any climate change believers right? Or are Donald Trump and friends correct in pointing the finger at the problem and saying, “wrong!” First and foremost, let us explore the partisan views on the issue.
In
Scientific studies have proven that the earth’s climate is increasing and claim that humans are the blame as their activities such as deforestation and the burning of fossil fuels affect the earth. Nearly two weeks ago, the United States had one of its most important days of the year: Election day. The vote came down to Former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton and now, President-elect of the United States, Donald Trump. Before Trump won the election, one of the most controversial issues he and Clinton argued upon was on climate change. Rebecca Harrington of Business Insider writes that Clinton said, “Some country is going to be the clean- energy superpower of the 21st century. Donald thinks that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese. I think it's real.” Harrington then adds that Trump responded by saying, “I did not. I did not. I do not say that.” The article continues and explains that Trump “does not accept the overwhelming scientific evidence that climate change is real.” Hillary on the contrary, according to writers Steven Mufson and Brady Dennis, “had been adamant that she would follow through on the promises Obama made under the Paris climate accord, and vowed to defend and implement the Clean Power Plan and reduce the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions by nearly a third by 2025, relative to 2005 levels.” This issue is very relevant in today’s
During the past several hundred years, civilization has made rapid progress in industries like air travel, automobiles, and energy production. These developments were made without consideration of the long-term effects that their emissions may have on the planet. Changing weather patterns are now wreaking havoc around the world, and scientists attribute this to human-caused climate change. During President Obama’s State of the Union address in 2015, he stated that, “No challenge poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change,” (“Remarks by the President”). Warming temperatures caused by anthropogenic climate change have disastrous consequences that pose a threat to humanity and the environment.
Global warming is defined as the recent increase in the world 's temperature that is believed to be caused by the increase of certain gases (such as carbon dioxide) in the atmosphere. There are many different theories on whether global warming is similar or not to climate change. Simplistically, climate change is different because climate change is defined as a change in global or regional climate patterns or, in particular, a change apparent from the mid to late 20th century onwards and attributed largely to the increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide produced by the use of fossil fuels, having been measured over long periods of time, due to the changes in Earth’s orbit and organic carbon which reflect sunlight. Global warming and climate change are not to be confused because global warming is caused mainly by anthropogenic factors like the emission of carbon dioxide gas and use of fossil fuels whereas climate change is completely natural, however, according to Milan Radovanovic, “it is clear that the anthropogenic factors dominate the increasing temperature and the natural ones have the maximum influence…” (Radovanovic). Therefore, “the contribution to global warming from natural forcings and from natural internal variability is in the range between -0.2 to 0.2 [degrees] celsius over the period 1951-2010…” (Radovanovic). Natural factors have had the most effect on global temperature in the past 59 years totaling a 0.4 degrees celsius increase in
How does the rising use of fossil fuels impact the earth? The simple answer is that the earth’s temperature rises, otherwise known as global warming. Global warming then devolves into climate change. Global warming has been “proceeding at a rate that is unprecedented over decades to millennia” (“Climate Change Evidence: How Do We Know?”) because of the world’s increasing reliance on fossil fuels. World-wide natural disasters, such as Hurricane Harvey, may be correlated to an increased risk in extreme weather events due to climate change. There has been efforts to curb climate change, such as pieces of legislation like the Paris Climate Accord, but beliefs of individual leaders such as Donald Trump, who “claims to think that links between carbon emissions and climate change are ‘a hoax’” (Steadman 19), has halted the fulfillment of such agreements between states. If there is not effective efforts to slow the emission rate, the earth will face devastating consequences. Therefore, the leaders of countries across the world must work together to develop a solution to slow climate change, or else the future will be disastrous.
Climate change has been an important issue for the past century brought about by human activities. As humans aim at growing economically, environment issues are always been overlooked, especially in some developing countries, like China and India. In other words, it is the trade-off between the speed of economic growth and environmental sustainability. (López & Toman, 2006) Meanwhile, with increasing use of dirty energy source, for example, petroleum and coal, a mass of greenhouse gases is discharged into atmosphere, which would lead to greenhouse effect. And greenhouse effect is the main reason of climate change. Scientists have raised the issue of climate change by providing scientific evidence to show
Climate change is a major problem that’s continuing to arise with the lack of action that states have taken to stop the increase of global warming. This phenomenon affects both national security and human security across the world. National security is a nation that the government, along with the legislation, should protect the state and citizens against different kinds of “national” crises through different power projections. Examples of the power projections are political power, diplomacy, economic power, military might, and more self help methods. Human security is a combination of threats that are associated with war, genocide, and the displacement of populations. In short, human security means freedom from violence and from the fear of violence.
The earth as we know it is steadily changing. Weather its evolution, technology, weather or our environment, nothings is what it used to be. Climate is a major factor that is changing. This has been going on for quite some time yet, not taken seriously. Our planet has been much warmer in the past 2 centuries then ever before and scientist are working frantically to reduce this trend,
Climate change and Global Warming are out of control. This means that, no matter what policies, processes or actions are implemented, the Earth as we know it will never be the same again. There is significant evidence to support this hypothesis. The dilemma becomes whether we can limit the damage and adapt to a new status quo or not. Rising sea levels and the damage caused by this phenomenon has irreversible impacts on coastlines worldwide. Damage to sensitive reef systems cannot be fixed. This also has permanent impacts of the ecology not just of those immediate areas but also the ocean as a whole.
In accord with 97 percent of scientists, I agree that climate change is real and a major threat to humanity. In fact, I feel that it is one of our largest national security threats. The funny thing is, the global community agrees with democrats on this. In 2015, world leaders came together to sign the paris agreement, in which major countries around the world “pledged to do all they could to hold the rise of the planet’s temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius (Lee).” However, President Trump appears to be renegading on this promise, giving up Obama’s clean energy initiatives in favor of more coal. He has additionally cut the EPA and put a climate change skeptic at it’s highest position. He has even called climate change a “hoax perpetrated by the Chineese.” All of this is nearly comical, but also has grave dangers with it. I believe that if we do not curb climate change, we will be seeing serious negative effects, as habitats are destroyed, weather becomes more extreme, and the ice caps begin to melt (Lee). To me, this is terrifying, and why it is one of my most important reasons for taking the democratic stance. I believe that we should invest in clean energy, with the help of government subsidies, so that we can develop solar, nuclear, and wind energy to the point where we can eventually begin to cut out fossil fuels. Companies should also only receive a very limited number of tradeable carbon
Global warming and climate change will cause health problems for future generations. Climate change and global warming affect everyone. Polar bears are losing their homes due to global warming, and humans are forced to adapt to a continually changing environment. According to John Balbus, he mentioned “With the climate change can cause exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity which are associated with social and demographic factors” (Balbus n.p). Also, increase susceptibility to higher rates of illness caused by climate change and global warming, which it is similar in some cases. Global warming may be a high risk of health consequences also heat-related disease, mental health consequences, and stress. Global warming gives several adverse health effects in both humans and animals.
By 2014, about 81% of the total 98.3 quadrillion Btu of energy used are produced by burning petroleum, natural gas, and coal in the United States (US EIA). Could you imagine how much greenhouse gases are produced in the energy extraction process, and how could these gases intensify global warming and climate change? In Naomi Klein’s book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate, Klein describes climate change as a catastrophic crisis that the whole world is encountering. Hundreds of cities are threatened by rising sea-levels, wildlife are in danger due to disruption of ecosystems, more extreme heat waves are recorded, all of these are essentially catalyzed by climate change. Klein blamed on capitalism, an economic model used by
A meeting discussing global warming and the ongoing climate change (and the impact CO2 emissions have on the growing problem) has been in session in Peru for the past few days. Dozens of world leaders are gathering to discuss possible changes that can be implemented to halt the increase in temperature seen around the globe. However, many prominent scientists have stated that it may be too late for these world leaders to make any significant impacts (Associated). These scientists, and many other people around the world, believe that humans have contributed significantly to global warming, and as a result mankind needs to do whatever it can to combat this ongoing crisis. Nearly 3,500 miles away from Peru, United States Senator James Inhofe is in Washington D.C., representing Oklahoma in the United States Senate. Senator Inhofe is one of the loudest preachers of the belief that global warming is not the dire threat that so many scientists make it out to be. Inhofe has claimed that it is “arrogant for people to believe human beings are able to change what He (God) is doing in the climate” (Tashman). The Senator believes that only God controls the climate and the environment, and to even think that humans are impacting the earth’s climate is misguided (Tashman). These two opposing viewpoints bring with them questions of religion, politics, human responsibility, and ultimately the fate of the planet. On one side, there are those who say that the science is so concrete, and the
The Earth’s geography is always shift and changing its malleable form through various processes. Whether it is through Earths natural erosion process or a natural disaster such as an earthquake or a tsunami. Everyone knows about these type of disasters when they happen, but do they know why they happen or what causes them to happen? This can be better explained by what is called Climate Change. There are people today that actually do not believe in climate change. However, one can argue that something is truly happening to our planet as a whole.
The world is warming and we cannot deny it, the longer we deny the larger the problem it will become. Global warming is affecting the world economy, the overall health of the population, and most importantly the environment that surrounds us. Ignoring this problem will not just make it suddenly disappear; the world has to make an effort to stop it while it can still be maintained. Accepting the fact that it is happening is just the first step, the next step is taking action and becoming informed on the issue.
Global warming has become a well conversed topic among scientists and peoples in the world today. There are extremists who do everything possible to stop contributing to the warming, but the average person does little to alleviate the issue and in many cases refuses to acknowledge that there is a problem at all. Dating back to millions of years ago, even before humanity was born, the world has always experienced one form or another of warming; so the warming seen today is not as bizarre as many may think. The prevalent saying that history often repeats itself, is no joke when discussing global warming. As to what is kindling the current warming, that is where a query is imposed. Scientists from around the globe have theorized close to every possible contributor to the warming seen today, and the conclusion that present occurrences of global warming are being evoked by human interference has become evident.