Global warming: causes, impacts, and mitigation strategies

Global Warming

There is a growing body of evidence that shows global warming, also called climate change, has caused sea levels to rise on a global level. However, even though the statistics point to this as a real problem, there is still no reason to suddenly panic and start changing the way everything is done. In other words, a wait and see attitude is a much better choice, and it is the one that I choose to adopt. Healy and Tapick (2004) have stated that, over the last 100 years, the sea level has risen globally between four and eight inches. In addition, every year the sea rises one-tenth of one inch. That does not seem like much, but top scientists are concerned about it and they believe that it can become a serious problem in the future. I do not completely agree with that, and I am not alone. Most people shrug it off, but the people who take climate change seriously warn against continuing the burning of fossil fuels, especially in very large amounts, because of the long-term impacts to the actual planet and to human health.

There are currently many countries that are not happy with the United States because it is one of the largest contributors of greenhouse gases. Most of that comes from power plants, since they still burn coal (Healy & Tapick, 2004). For example, in 1998, 24% of emissions of these gases came from the U.S. That is a very big amount for just one country, even though the U.S. is large, and there is no other country that produces more (Healy & Tapick, 2004). The Energy Information Administration has estimated that -- between 1990 and 2001 -- greenhouse gas emissions within the United States grew more than 12%.

Around 84% of total greenhouse gases produced by the U.S. come from carbon dioxide, which is also among the gases considered to be most dangerous to the environment and to human health (Healy & Tapick, 2004). Unfortunately for the people who worry about the dangers that greenhouses gases possess, fossil fuels are still cheapest and easiest when it comes to the forms of energy that are in use today. Because of that, they continue to be used, and used often, for all kinds of things. It was hoped in the past there would be laws and regulations in place that required mandatory reductions in greenhouse gases that were put into the atmosphere. The Kyoto Protocol would have seen to this, but the U.S. rejected it. It still remains to be seen whether Obama's Administration will make renewable energy a real possibility and lower the number of greenhouse gases that are put into the environment.

Regulating greenhouse gases does not guarantee that climate change will stop or be reversed, but these kinds of gases are not good for people anyway, so there is nothing wrong with regulating them. However, the rising sea levels and rising temperatures could be cyclical and not really related to greenhouse gases or anything else that humans are doing. If that is the case, regulating the greenhouse gases and making other environmental changes will not help anything. Getting too worried about this and trying to make too many changes is not going to fix things overnight, and it may not fix things at all. Waiting and seeing is a much better idea.