The causes of global warming

In recent years, many alarms have been sounded about global warming. However, very few of these have addressed its cause. This debate has erupted at a horrible time in the history of news making. Ever since the deregulation of U.S. news content in the 1980s, news channels have focused more on meaningless issues (like Anna Nicole Smith or miscues by politicians) in order to cut costs. As a result, very little analysis has been done of global warming in mainstream media outlets, and even when longer stories are aired (as on 60 Minutes), they simply describe what is happening, rather than why.

Obviously, the Earth is getting warmer. But, in the opinion of many respected scientists, humans are not to blame. Other scientists believe that they are, but that carbon dioxide (CO₂) is not an important factor. I consulted 7 publications: The Guide to Global Hazards, World of Earth Science, Science in Dispute, World Book Encyclopedia, Encyclopædia Britannica, Car and Driver, World of Chemistry, and History of Modern Science and Mathematics, and wrote a report for a class of mine. Here is that report:

The temperature of the Earth is influenced by the energy it receives from the sun and by the energy that it emits into space. The energy that it receives is influenced by its orbit, inclination,¹ and the energy that the sun emits.² The orbit of the Earth can be closer or further from the sun, and its inclination can be changed, moving some parts of the Earth away from the light of the sun. The energy that the world emits is influenced by its atmosphere and by the circulation of the ocean.³

History of the weather

The Earth was created around 4.5 billion years ago. At that time, temperatures were between 46 and 59°F (8 and 15°C) warmer than today.⁴ Two-and-a-half billion years ago, the first glaciers formed.

Geologic history is divided in four ways: by eon, era, period, system, epoch, and series. Epochs last between 20 and 50 million years. So, our epoch (the Holocene) is really a part of the Pleistocene epoch. As far as we are concerned, there are two types of epochs: glacial and non-glacial. The Earth began to cool 55 million years ago and the glaciers found today began to form 38 million years ago. So, the Pleistocene epoch is glacial. There were up to 18 ice ages during the Pleistocene, each of which lasted around 100,000 years. The periods between the ice ages have lasted between 10,000 and 20,000 years. 20,000 years ago, glaciers in the world began to shrink, and 11,500 years ago, the last ice age ended.⁵

In the intermissions between ice ages, there have been various changes in temperature. At the end of the last ice age, the average temperature on Earth was 9°F (5ºC) less that today. By around 4000 b.c., the temperature was 4ºF more that today.⁶ At around the same time (3500 b.c.) the first major civilization emerged in Sumer. The Late Roman Empire (284 – 476 a.d) and the Dark Ages (476 – 800 a.d) marked an age of cold climate. Around 600 a.d., the climate began to improve, and by 1000, the temperature was 2ºF higher than today.⁷ As a result, the Vikings were able to establish colonies in Greenland, which was green, but is not today. The peak temperature marked the beginning of the High Middle Ages (1000 – 1275). Afterward, the Little Ice Age began and lasted almost until the end of the 1700s.⁸ At the beginning of this period was the Black Death (1347 – 1351), and throughout the period glaciers grew.

Warming today

From 1860 to 1980, temperatures rose 1.3ºF (0.7ºC). It is possible nonetheless that the data this was based on was affected by urban heating, which occurs as a result of the absorption of heat by asphalt and concrete.⁹

In the three decades before 1980, temperatures did not increase, even though CO₂ levels did. The quantity of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the atmosphere increased from approximately 270 parts per million (ppm) in 1850 to 360 ppm in 2000.¹⁰ Many believe that temperatures have not increased as much as they would if were tracking the increase of CO₂.¹¹

The greenhouse effect is a natural and essential process caused by various gases in the atmosphere.¹² These are water vapor, nitrous oxide (N₂O), carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, methane, and ozone. Methane heats the Earth 21 – 24 times more that carbon dioxide. The atmosphere had a pre-industrial methane concentration of around 700 parts per billion (ppb), which increased to around 1745 ppb in 1998.¹³ Methane is produced by bacteria largely through decomposition in swamps, landfills, rice patties, and pastures.¹⁴ N₂O warms the atmosphere 290 – 320 times better than CO₂, and ozone 2,000 times more. During this time, the concentration of N₂O grew from 270 ppb to 314 ppb. Water, although having less impact for each molecule, has greater influence due to its ubiquity in the form of clouds. It is responsible for between 60 and 95 per cent of the global warming effect.¹⁵ Humans have not had an impact with regards to water vapor. Many of these gases can be reduced though devices in cars and power plants. But, CO₂ is a product of perfect combustion. Carbon monoxide, N₂O, and sulfur are products of partial combustion.¹⁶ Therefore, human emissions of CO₂ cannot be reduced without reducing the consumption of fuel.

Even if global warming were caused by CO₂, it is not certain that the source of this CO₂ is human. For one thing, humans could not produce enough. Nature produces the majority through decomposition — 29 times more that humans produce each year.¹⁷ Before deforestation, plants stored more or less 990 billon tons (900 billion metric tons) of carbon, 90% of which was in forests. Today, only 616 billion tons (560 billion metric tons) of carbon are stored in plants. Aiding this, many farmers burn forest to cultivate the Earth. These fires produce more CO₂.

Theophrastus (372 – 287 b.c.) believed that deforestation reduced the capacity of plants to absorb heat from the sun. Voltaire (1694 - 1778) said the same. Early colonists in North America noted that the climate there was harsher than in Europe. They believed that clearing the forests would improve the temperature and precipitation. Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson later said that they believed it had worked.¹⁸

The oceans absorb a lot of CO₂ — approximately 50% of it — without any danger of becoming saturated.¹⁹ Unlike oxygen, CO₂ is very soluble in water. It is also heavier than oxygen. A volcano can emit more contaminants into the atmosphere that a thousand cities the size of Los Angeles.²⁰ Some of the gases emitted remain in the atmosphere for centuries.

Despite claims to the contrary, the speed of the recent rise in temperature is not unusual. Before humans, changes of 42ºF occurred in only a century.²¹ In one incident 10,500 years ago, temperatures fell 45°F (7°C) in 50 years.

Conclusion

Global warming has actually been good for many countries, like Iceland, which has been able to overcome the perpetual famine that plagued that country before 1875. Many are worried about the glaciers melting completely, but this process is actually happening very slowly and will take several centuries to finish. It is true that some places, like the Netherlands, will have to spend a lot of money to ward off the sea, but there is nothing anyone can to do help them. Even if man-made emissions of CO₂ were causing the warming, and even if we were to cut these emissions, inertia would still cause the Earth to warm for centuries into the future.²²

The Bush Administration set back the debate when it denied the existence of global warming — an untenable position. Environmental groups were thus relieved of having to discuss the causes of the phenomenon. Instead, they focused on nightmarish predictions of the future, and public fears grew. This situation is not unlike earlier predictions of global overpopulation, which never came true. And this is yet another example of how the Bush Administration has seriously undermined the credibility and influence of the Conservative movement.

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1. Shopov, Yavor. "Paleoclimate." World of Earth Science. Eds. K. Lee Lerner and Brenda Wilmoth Lerner. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Science Resource Center. <http://0-galenet.galegroup.com.sable.jefferson.lib.co.us:80/servlet/SciRC?ste=1&docNum=CV2641950340> [5 April 2007]

2. "Global Warming." Science in Dispute. Ed. Neil Schlager. Vol. 3. (Detroit: Gale, 2002.) Science Resource Center. <http://0-galenet.galegroup.com.sable.jefferson.lib.co.us:80/servlet/SciRC?ste=1&docNum=CV2643510068> [5 April 2007]

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

5. Grootes, Pieter M. ‘Ice age.’ World Book Online Reference Center. 2007 [4 April 2007]

6. "Global Warming," loc. cit.

7. Hare, F. Kenneth. "climate." Encyclopædia Britannica of Encyclopædia Britannica 2007 Ultimate Reference Suite. (Chicago, 2007).

8. Shopov, op. cit.

9. Hare, op. cit.

10. "Global Warming." loc. cit.

11. Hare, op. cit.

12. "Global Warming," loc. cit.

13; Ibid.

14. "Methane." World of Chemistry. Ed. Robyn V. Young. (Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2006). Science Resource Center. <http://0-galenet.galegroup.com.sable.jefferson.lib.co.us:80/servlet/SciRC?ste=1&docNum= CV2432500448> [6 April 2007]

15.Bedard, Patrick. "We just gotta’ do sumethin’ about carbon dioxide," Car and Driver (November 2002) p. 21

16. Ibid.

17. Ibid.

18. Fleming, James R. "Meteorology." History of Modern Science and Mathematics. Ed. Brian S. Baigrie. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2002.) Science Resource Center. Thomson Gale. <http://0-galenet.galegroup.com.sable. jefferson.lib.co.us:80/servlet/SciRC?ste=1&docNum=CV2640700027> [5 April 2007]

19. "Global Warming." loc. cit.

20. Ibid.

21. "Global Warming." loc. cit.

22. Kovach, Robert. "Global warming." Guide to Global Hazards. (Philip's, 2003) <http://www.xreferplus.com/entry/5913813>The consequences of global warming. (2003). In Guide to Global Hazards. Retrieved April 06, 2007, from DISPLAYURL [6 April 2007]