Global Warming
WHAT IS GLOBAL WARMING?
Global Warming is the increase of the average temperature on Earth.
The average temperature of the earth has increased more than 1 degree Fahrenheit since 1900. The speed of warming has increased significantly since 1970 (the rate at which the Earth is warming has become 3 times in last 30 years, compared to first 80)
Specialists studying the earth’s climate are of the same opinion now that human actions, mainly the discharge of green house gases from smokestacks, vehicles, and burning forests, are the leading drives of Earth’s warming.
As the Earth is getting warmer, natural disasters like hurricanes, droughts and floods are getting more frequent.
Out of the 20 warmest years on record, 19 have occurred since 1980. The three hottest years ever observed have all occurred in the last ten years, even.
It is not only about how much the Earth is warming, it is also about how fast it is warming. In the past, there have always been natural climate changes, but most of those evolved over periods of 50,000 to 100,000 years.
CAUSES FOR GLOBAL WARMING
The major cause of global warming is the emission of green house gases like carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide etc into the atmosphere.
A major source of carbon dioxide is the power plants. These power plants emit large amounts of carbon dioxide produced from burning of fossil fuels for generating electricity.
Nearly twenty percent of carbon dioxide emitted in the atmosphere comes from burning of fuel in Vehicles.
Buildings are also a major source of global warming. Building require a lot of fuel, to electrify, cool or heat them. This emits a large amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Another cause of global warming is deforestation, caused by cutting and burning of forests for the purpose of residence and industrialization.
CARBON DIOXIDE
Carbon dioxide is the number-one reason for man-made climate change. Humans emit over 30 gigaton of Carbon Dioxide every year. More than 50% of it stays in the atmosphere (rest is absorbed by vegetation and water bodies on Earth). With sharp increase in man-generated CO2 emission, the natural cycle of CO2 absorption gets distorted. The resultant increased CO2 in the atmosphere results in increased Green House effect, and subsequent climate changes.
This is the reason why governments and businesses are now scrambling to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions.
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