Essay/Term paper: The problem of global warming(cause and effect essay

Essay, term paper, research paper:  English Term Papers

The problem of global warming, an increase in the average temperature on Earth, is getting worse. The Earth has warmed 0.3 to 0.6 degrees Celsius since the late 1800s. Scientists believe that the cause is the greenhouse effect, the process of trapping heat in the Earth"s atmosphere because of the presence of large amounts of carbon dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons, methane, and nitrogen oxides. Less oxygen is being produced and cleaning the atmosphere allowing more of these gases to do its work on the environment.

Automobiles exhausts are just one of the contributors to this problem. The burning of fossil fuels is another major influence to the increase in global temperature as well. The destruction of the rainforests and all forests and trees in general, is another. Every car produces enough gases from its exhaust into the atmosphere that takes a mature tree to clean in about five years. Trees keep the air clean for the environment by taking the gases in and produces oxygen out of it. By cutting down the trees we are allowing for more of the carbon to be exposed into the atmosphere.

Another factor that most people would not consider in the raising of global warming is the excrement of cows. Cows produces tons of carbon that does not all get treated for, and is in the top five for highest amounts of carbon produced per year. This is another factor that somehow has to be dealt with.

All of these causes of global warming have been know by scientists, it"s the effects we are seeing in today"s climate now they had no idea of. Arctic glaciers are melting and causing the ocean"s water level to rise. It has be proven that if the water level were to rise anymore then we won"t be able to see the state of Louisiana anymore or any coastal areas anywhere. Louisiana is already having there wetlands filled by the floods. The polar bear is another example of the effects of global warming. Its habitat is decreasing and so are it"s numbers. Global warming affects the polar bear by melting the arctic snow and allowing it to starve longer then it usually does. The polar bear leaves off it"s fat for about 2-3 months and global warming will increase this time. Other effects will be increased weather storms both in summer and winter as a hot summer produces a lot of precipitation in the air and thus gives extreme winters and storms.

The worst is yet to come in this problem of global warming. If the carbon gases are not somehow stopped the greenhouse effect will get worse and global warming will increase. The scary thing about this all is that we are not yet trying to stop them.