Blog Post #1 (final)

The topic I chose for my independent study was global warming. I chose this topic for many different reasons. I first was interested in global warming because it is an issue that directly affects the world and our lives. I also had heard that global warming is just a hoax, which somewhat confused me at first. How could global warming be a hoax, with all of this evidence that indicates global warming, how could some think it’s a hoax? This got me interested in the topic, and if global warming was actually happening I wanted to learn about ways that I could help fight against global warming. Global warming is such and immense issue and topic I knew it would be enjoyable to learn about, and would help educate, and allow me to be more aware about this problem.
Global warming is an enormous issue, and there are many different sub-topics to global warming. First you must understand what global warming is; global warming is defined as the increase of the average temperature on Earth. Though there are many different factors that contribute to global warming, the biggest factors are human beings. People all around the world have contributed to global warming in many different ways over the decades. The reason that humans contribute so much to global warming is because the emission of CO2 that human beings give off. Human beings themselves don’t give off the CO2, but the items we use in everyday life, for example the car, give off huge emissions that aid global warming. CO2, carbon dioxide, and other air pollutants collect in the atmosphere like a thickening blanket and trap the sun’s heat in the Earth. Coal-burning power plants are among the largest U.S. sources of carbon dioxide pollution. These power plants produce 2.5 billion tons each year. Automobiles are the second largest source, and these produce 1.5 billion tons of CO2 annually. These numbers are just for the United States, which provides evidence that the U.S. is one of the biggest contributors to global warming. America makes up 4% of the world’s pollution, and produces 25% of the world’s carbon dioxide pollution. The United States emits more carbon dioxide then China, India, and Japan combined. The build up of these air pollutants creates, as I already mentioned, a thickening blanket. This thickening blanket is also known as the greenhouse gas effect. CO2 and other gases are known as greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gases are chemical compounds that are found on Earth. The sunlight from the sun is re-directed towards space, and captured by the greenhouse gases. These gases are essential to living because they allow the Earth to keep warm. If all of the greenhouse gases were gone the Earth would be very cold, and we would not be able to live. The Earth emits its own greenhouse gases that are just enough to keep the Earth at the right temperature. The emission of greenhouse gases that we emit, harm the atmosphere because if too much greenhouse gases are in the atmosphere, more heat is trapped, and the Earth heats up. Some chemicals are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, and CFC's. Carbon dioxide is one of the most abundant gases that are emitted by humans.
Due to these greenhouse gases, the Earth’s temperature has been on the rise. Over the past 50 years the average global temperature has increased the fastest ever seen. As the Earth is heating disasters like hurricanes, droughts, and floods are becoming more frequent. If all of this evidence is shown, why do some think that global warming is just a hoax? There are many people that believe that global warming is just a hoax, and that it is not a serious issue. The people that don't believe in global warming all have their different opinions on why they don't believe in this major issue. Some say that there is no real evidence supporting global warming, that one record year is not good enough evidence, that glaciers have always grown and receded, that one hundred years of global surface temperatures is not enough time, and that basing global warming on the temperature record is not reliable. There is also some evidence that could show that global warming is just a hoax, but with that evidence you need to look deeper, and see what actually is happening. One isolated piece of evidence might show that global warming is just a hoax, but it is only isolated. The whole Earth needs to be looked at and evaluated to show that global warming is just a hoax, not one isolated instance. Some evidence shows that Antarctic ice is growing, some evidence shows that global warming stopped in 1998, Antarctic sea ice is increasing, the sea level in the Arctic is falling, and glaciers are not melting. These are the many reasons why people think that global warming is just a hoax, but you must see the big picture in order to get the overall view. These isolated facts are somewhat like when we looked at bias in the media. The facts seem to be true, until you look at the overall picture and see that they are false. For example, evidence shows that global warming stopped in 1998. If you look deeper into the information surrounding this year, you will find out that this was an El Nino year. Some temperatures are going to get cooler from that year, but with all of the data collected, the Earth really is warming up.
There are many different ways that everyone could contribute to help fight global warming. People could recycle, use less hot water, turn appliances off instead of on standby, buy new energy saving appliances, or switch to an alternative energy source. A big way to reduce your CO2 emissions is by changing your driving style. If you drive smart you could cut these CO2 emissions greatly. There are also many different energy sources that have become available to us due to recent technologies. Now we use fossil fuels for example oil, coal, and natural gas. If people in the world want to fight global warming we must become less dependent on these fossil fuels, and switch to alternative energy sources. By using energy that is renewable and clean, will help save this planet. Some new sources of energy are fuel cells, solar panels, wind turbines, using biopower, hydrogen, hydroelectric power, and geothermal power. All of these new sources of energy produce clean and renewable power that will help save this planet from global warming. All of these alternative energy sources have their ups and downs, we should still try to migrate over and start using them. “As alternative energy is more widely accepted, it will become more effective, maybe to the point where hydrocarbons are obsolete. Alternative energy will play an important role in powering the world of tomorrow, so we can look forward to a clean, healthy and bright future.”
Over all global warming is a major issue effecting people all over the world. If we don’t accept that global warming is actually happening there is no way that we will be able to prevent it. There are many different options available to everyone to help prevent this problem, but people must take the initiative, and actually start caring about our environment. People could cut their CO2 emissions, or switch to an alternative energy source. If we don’t stop this problem we will have much greater problems in the future.

Quotes from: http://www.virtualsciencefair.org/2004/wong4j0/public_html/