Global warming: persuasive arguments and evidence

¶ … Global Warming

Ample scientific evidence exists to demonstrate that global warming is an authentic and unequivocal threat to the globe, to nations around the world, and to society in developed countries. Climatologists have found evidence of seven cycles of glacial retreat and advance over the past 650,000 years ("NASA," 2012). Notably, the beginning of the era of the climate we experience today is estimated to have occurred 7,000 years ago when the last ice age ended ("NASA," 2012). Scientists assert that these earlier climate changes were caused by changes in the solar energy that Earth receives as a result of its orbit ("NASA," 2012). However, the current global warming is not a natural event since it has been induced and worsened by human activity ("NASA," 2012). Moreover the rate of global warming in unprecedented over the past 1,300 years as substantiated by scientifically validated geological and climatological records, and by the research conducted through satellites that orbit the earth ("NASA," 2012).

Regardless of the naysayer rhetoric, some facts about the climatic dynamics of the earth are indisputable. For instance, the mechanisms by which carbon dioxide and other gases trap heat and transfer infrared energy are established scientific fact ("NASA," 2012). Moreover, through ice core research taken from Antarctica, Greenland, and glaciers from tropical mountain regions indicate that global climate is responsive to changes in levels of greenhouse gas, solar output, and the orbit of the earth ("NASA," 2012). Further, large climactic changes have been shown to occur rapidly over the course of tens of years, not the fabled thousands or millions of years ("NASA," 2012).

In a race for green energy answers with the potential to turn back or slow down global warming, NASA is looking at ideas both small and large. One group of scientists is researching the functioning of the gut of termites because of their ability to generate fuel from wood by only producing 2% waste ("NASA," 2012). This is not a function of size, but one of efficiency brought about by the symbiotic relationships of enzymes and microbes in termite guts ("NASA," 2012). The research focuses on the potential for conversion of biofuel using the same sort of biology ("NASA," 2012). On a larger scale, NASA is looking at the energy that is produced by wind-driven mechanisms that are not attached to the conventional blades and cement columns of wind turbines ("NASA," 2012). The most familiar mechanism used to help explain this phenomenon is the common kite, which can fly ever higher to catch the wind that circles the globe at high altitudes -- free of bonds that would tie it to the earth and restrict it to airflow (or wind doesn't blow on particular days) ("NASA," 2012).