Inquiry-Based Essay

 

Global warming is not a fallacy. I thought starting this paper with that statement would set a good tone for my research. There is a concerningly large group of people that either don’t know about global warming or chose to disagree with it. The world these people live in is far from reality, however, the world is currently in a “Global warming extinction emergency” meaning that at the current state (not the state rapidly approaching) our planet is not able to support many species that live here, due to damages caused by human interference. Through the research I have done I find it fitting to say that we should all take some sort of initiative towards fixing this issue. I hope to better educate you on the damages done already, as well as, damages that are not too far from distant future. These damages come from things such as coal and oil burning activities, clearing land for farming, industry, and many more human activities.

 

To better understand the gravity of the situation, it would be best to start by explaining global warming. The term Global warming is used to talk about the observed average global temperature increase. In our atmosphere, gases such as water, carbon dioxide, methane, ozone, and nitrous oxide gather together and absorb and emit heat radiation. This process puts the gases in charge of how much heat from the sun is held in by the atmosphere. This disturbance of normal temperature regulations causes the earth to “boil” in some areas at some times and decreases temperatures in others. This unpredictability of the weather causes more frequent and severe storms, droughts, wildfires, and extreme temperatures. These events can cause much more damage than thought of, Food production will drop, storms will be more violent and frequent, and global issues in poor countries will become more frequent and apparent. The ocean and forests are trying their best to counteract the rise in carbon in the atmosphere, but after so much carbon absorption, they cannot hold anymore and start putting carbon back into the air, causing the total to grow even larger. With the ocean at its max for carbon, the oceans are becoming acidic, causing carbon eating algae and plankton to die off, cutting off a large part of our oxygen source.

 

Even those people who believe in global warming often brush it off as nothing to worry about, saying that the governments have it under control. These governments in actuality are doing and have been doing nothing productive in the aide of stopping or even slowing the rise in methane and carbon pollution in the atmosphere. For the past 35 years, there has been constant and thorough studies on global warming and atmospheric conditions. This means that despite all the research and warnings, the world’s nations have ignored it as a serious issue. In the research done in Mauna Loa in Hawaii, scientists used the Keeling curve to measure the levels of atmospheric carbon. The keeling curl is a graph of the level of carbon in the atmosphere at a certain point in time. They learned that “Life on Earth has flourished best when carbon levels were in a range of 200-270 ppm, in the pre-industrial”. In addition to this, scientists have found that the parts per million of carbon in the atmosphere should not go over 350. The current amount is 414 ppm and increasing. The current level of 414 is higher than at any point in the last million years and possibly the highest in the past 25 million years. This is not the only chemical that we should be worried about either, the combination of greenhouse gases carbon, and atmospheric methane increases the pollution level to 430 ppmv and increasing faster than the carbon level. almost exponential in recent times, with the increase almost reaching 4 additional ppm every year. According to James Hansen, one of the world’s most well-known climate researchers, if the ppm goes over 450 all damage done will be irreversible. This will make all the events talked about in this paper a definite part of an inescapable future.  Despite what you might hear in the news about the temperature going down, and how that proves that global warming is not an issue, that is simply not true. The daily temperature fluctuates just as normally as always, however, it is the average temperature that is increasing and causing issues. It is this temperature rise that gets ignored while the daily temperature can be two degrees colder than yesterday and that somehow proves global warming is not a thing. This is wrong so please don’t ever believe that.

 

It should be said however that carbon emissions do not all come from cars, buses, and airplanes. Deforestation has a huge effect on carbon being put back into the environment. Trees hold a certain amount of carbon that they have absorbed during their life, this carbon is released after the tree is cut down. Now cutting down one tree isn’t going to kill the earth, but in an era where the world’s tropical rainforests are being removed in massive quantities, the amount of carbon released is ridiculously large and concerning. The level of carbon being put back into the environment is equal to if not greater than the “total of all the cars and trucks in the world”. Diminishing deforestation would be one of the cheapest and promising ways of combatting global warming. If we were to replant “350 million hectares by 2030, we would capture about a sixth of the carbon necessary to close the emissions gap”. This means that by doing just this simple act of replanting trees we have already cut down, we can put a significant dent into the progress we need to make in reducing the carbon level in the atmosphere. It is not just deforestation of rainforests that make up the entire issue either. Cutting down trees for animal feed is the next biggest culprit and is present almost worldwide. It would be somewhat better if the land were being used for human consumption, but the land is being used for cattle and livestock feed which leads to another huge climate change issue.

 

Another major factor leading to the increase in carbon in the atmosphere is the giant trash islands in the ocean. The chemicals from the trash pollute the waters, causing sea life to die of unnatural causes. This death of sea life cuts off an enormously large part of the carbon eating, oxygen releasing plants in the world. Not to mention the polluted waters are already filled to their maximum with carbon, causing even more dead sea life. Plastics in the ocean also breakdown due to the constant sun exposure, and in a study done by the University of Hawaii they found that the breakdown of these plastics is also aiding to the carbon levels increasing. As the plastics break down the carbons within them are released into the air. All of these factors put together makes the trash islands a huge issue that impacts the entire world, and need to be taken care of if we want to save our oceans. By saving our oceans from pollution we would leave room for the oceans to fix another sixth of the emissions gap. This would be done by eliminating the trash that gives off emissions, but also by allowing the damaged sea life to come back to healthy levels, returning to their job of taking the carbon and turning it into oxygen. Getting rid of the trash islands would be incredibly beneficial; and would help greatly in the climate change battle. However, there is not only trash in the ocean. There is just as much if not more trash on land than in the ocean doing the same thing as the plastic in the ocean. The only difference being that instead of the water being polluted, it is the ground. When the ground is polluted almost nothing can grow, making the land unless for anything except for building. But even that can be risky as the polluted ground can be deemed as unsafe for human presence, leaving a space of polluted land with nothing to do with it.

 

Now let me talk to you about methane. Methane is a greenhouse gas that comes from the digestive process of cattle and other animals farmed in the US. Methane is 28 times more hurtful per kilo than carbon. Even if we were to stop carbon emissions, which have a much longer-lasting effect on the environment, nothing much would happen unless the methane output also went down. This means we have to rethink our farming ways. The reasoning behind changing our farming methods goes deeper than just the cattle, however the artificial fertilizer accounts for methane and CO2 in the atmosphere, the clearing of land for farm and cattle space accounts for methane and CO2 in the atmosphere, the harvesting of crops by industrial tractors accounts for the same things as well. Almost the entire process of cattle farming is damaging to the environment and is also one of the most overlooked causes. This is because the current state of the world would rather kill itself than adapt to a greener diet. Red meat has become present in almost everyone in the world’s diet, even though the amount we need per day is much much less than is processed and consumed every hour. Many studies are showing that methane is processed by our atmosphere at a rate which should not affect global warming, however that is only taking into account the feces left behind by the cattle. The entire process of clearing the land, planting the plants, making the artificial fertilizer, spreading the artificial fertilizer, and then harvesting it ruins the balance of methane and CO2 released. This entire process accounts for a third of the pollution in the atmosphere.

All of these causes, however, have to lead to a bigger picture. That picture includes an increased sea level, caused by melting polar icecaps. That increased sea level will change life as we know it. Coastline cities will start to decrease in size as the water level rises causing more people to move inland into tighter and tighter spaces. With this rise in sea level and increase in temperature, more water vapor will be in the atmosphere causing more frequent and severe storms globally. Even now we are seeing some of the most intense tropical storms and hurricanes in a long time with no sign of them slowing down any time soon. In addition to the other disasters, the increased temperature will lead to dryer inland climates, destroying farmland and in the process destroying our food sources. This is a major issue as the population of the world is increasing at a rapid rate, and without a reliable food source, the world will go into chaos. All of these things are incredibly possible and not too far from our reality.

 

In conclusion, Global warming is a very dangerous and something of which we should be incredibly concerned about. If we, the single destroyers of millions of years of work do not get our act together, we will eliminate the only home we have in this universe, dooming our species for the rest of time. We should all take a moment and think of how much better life could be if we allocated our resources and worked towards a better future for ourselves and future generations. Hopefully, the increasingly possible outcome of an apocalyptic future doesn’t come to possibility, but why risk it when we can just listen to our scientists and fix what we know we need to fix now before it’s too late. There are many easy solutions to the many problems that we face. The easiest and cheapest would be to start replanting trees in deforested areas. However other solutions are going to get more complicated and costlier, especially as time goes on. If we were to stop making plastics right now, we would shut down a massive number of factories that attribute to the carbon in the atmosphere, helping greatly with the earth trying to fix itself. In addition to the factories being shut down, the landfills could successfully break down without the piles increasing in size as they normally do, also allowing for the environment to work towards fixing itself. I hope this would inspire you to do your part in the war against climate change and to be more aware of what is happening around you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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