Global Warming a Persuasive Stance to All Essay
- Length: 3 pages
- Subject: Weather
- Type: Essay
- Paper: #66744512
- Related Topics: Global Warming, Carbon Dioxide, Global Perspective, Meteorology
Excerpt from Essay :
Global WarmingA persuasive stance to all future generations
I have been an active viewer of the climate change issue for many years now. Although I have noticed that there has been increased coverage of global warming, also referred to as climate change, in the media in the last few years I do not believe that most Americans do not fully understand the consequences of this phenomenon. Global warming is not only a threat to the polar bears portrayed as teetering on the last remaining tract of ice in the Arctic Ocean, or other random species, it is actually a threat to the entire human race. When I am watching the news the effects of climate change are portrayed as effecting the population in some point in the future that is obscure and not alarming.
However, the effects of climate change are already being felt today as millions of people struggle to have access to drinkable water and peasant farmers can no longer grow crops in some of the worst effective regions. The youngest members of society lives' will be defined by this issue and anyone that cares about their kids or future generations in general should begin to wake up to the effects of global warming immediately. I have begun to notice my own personal responsibility to address my own individual contributions to climate change, but I think it is time to begin to be politically active and to try to persuade our leaders take the appropriate actions to mitigate the worst effects of this phenomenon.
When researching the potential effects of global warming, I ran across this organization call 350.org. They believe that the maximum amount that the greenhouse gas layer can hold of carbon dioxide is three hundred and fifty parts per million. At this level, for those of us that are older, this would be consistent with the type of planet that we grew up on. Anything that is significantly above this level will make the planet and its climate systems much different. I also stumbled upon this other website called CO2.now that uses the latest scientific data that is available to climatologist to estimate the current level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This morning our current concentration was 393.66 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere.
I'm obviously not a climatologist, a scientist, or a professional researcher, yet the implications of this trend are alarming to say the least. All of these gases stay in the atmosphere for centuries through different cycles. Even if emissions of greenhouse gases completely stopped tomorrow the greenhouse gas concentrations would stay in the atmosphere for many years hundreds of years down the road. This is especially alarming because altering the climate will make it difficult for the Earth's natural systems to support the population level which is predicted to climb to over seven billion people and continually growing.
As Americans, we are responsible for the largest individual carbon footprints on the planet. The amount of greenhouse gas emissions that a person is responsible for can be thought of as their "carbon footprint." Fossil fuels include non-renewable resources such as oil, natural gas, coal, and others that we use to fuel or our homes and our cars. These fuels power most of the things we use…