Global Warming

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses how, over the past few years, global warming has evolved into several imminent crises, such as air and water pollution, the extinction of various animal and plant species, global population growth, the deforestation of the rain forests in South America and Asia, an increase in rural development and rapid changes in global climates and temperatures. The paper looks at how the main culprit for these crises is inescapably linked to the burning of fossil fuels and the negative interaction of human beings with the natural world. It also discusses current and potentially future efforts to slow the process down such as the Kyoto Protocol.

From the Paper:

"In layman's terms, the modern appellation of global warming is not too different from Fourier's "giant greenhouse," for it is now referred to as the "Greenhouse Effect" which has come about as a consequence of the burning of fossil fuels, such as coal, natural gas and oil, by human beings and Fourier's "giant smokestacks" which crowded the landscape of Western Europe shortly after the beginning of the Industrial Revolution circa the early 1800's. As Bruce E. Johansen explains it, "The burning of fossil fuels was key to the economies of many industrialized nations" during the 19th century, a situation which in great measure remains so to this very day, but "the gases and related matter that were released into the atmosphere when fossil fuels were burned" during this time were not seen as being immediately hazardous to man nor to nature."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Berliner, L. Mark. "Uncertainty and Climate Change." Statistical Science. Vol. 18 no. 4 (2003): 430-35.
• "California Global Warming Impacts and Solutions." Union of Concerned Scientists. Internet. November 2007. Retrieved from http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_california/ca-global-warming-impacts.html.
• "Extreme Events: Abrupt Climate Change." Climate Change--Health and Environmental Effects. Environmental Protection Agency. Internet. December 2007. Retrieved from http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/effects/extreme.html.
• Friedlingstein, Pierre and Susan Solomon. "Contributions of Past and Present Human Generations to Committed Warming Caused by Carbon Dioxide." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. Vol. 102 no. 31 (August 2005): 10832-836.
• "Global Warming: New Scenarios from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change." Population and Development Review. Vol. 27 no. 1 (March 2001): 203-08.

More papers on Global Warming:

• Research Paper # 96959 : "Global Warming"
• Analytical Essay # 126900 : "The Man-Made Global Warming of Earth"
• Analytical Essay # 107071 : "Global Warming"
• Analytical Essay # 132750 : "The Impact of Global Warming"

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