Current Issue In Science :

All About Global Warming

What is global warming and how it occurs?

Global warming is the term used to describe a gradual increase in the average temperature of the Earth's atmosphere and its oceans, a change that is believed to be permanently changing the Earths climate forever. Study done by scientists found that the average temperature of the Earth has risen between 0.4 and 0.8 C over the past 100 years. The increased volumes of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases released by the burning of fossil fuels from vehicles and factories, land clearing, agriculture, and other human activities, are believed to be the primary sources of the global warming that has occurred over the past 50 years. The greenhouse gases in the atmosphere trap energy from the sun so that heat cannot escape back into space. Without the greenhouse effect, the earth would be too cold for humans to survive, but if it becomes too much, the earth could become much warmer, causing a lot of problems for humans, plants and animals. Scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Chage (IPCC) carrying out global warming research have recently predicted that the average global temperatures could increase between 1.4C and 5.8 C by the year 2100. Changes resulting from global warming may include rising sea levels due to the melting of the ice from the glaciers in Antartica and Artic, as well as an increase in occurrence and severity of storms and other severe weather events. Areas already exposed to severe weather shall receive more storms or more flood in the future, like Bangladesh, Hawai and Florida. This will surely cause a lot of problems to those who have been living in areas which have been hit by storms and floods regularly. How to slow down global warming? 1. Planting more trees Planting trees is one of the ways of reducing the global warming of the earth. A new scientific study finds that tropical trees grown in tropical countries like Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand are better at slowing down the effect of global warming than trees grown in higher latitudes, like in Europe. The study also find that deforestation (cutting down the trees) in the tropics is more devastating to Earth's climate than deforestation in higher latitudes, and that trees in mid- to high-latitudes could actually cause warming. Forests affect the climate in three different ways: 1. by absorbing carbon dioxide (a major greenhouse gas) to help cool the planet. 2. by evaporating water that forms clouds to keep the planet cooler

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by absorbing sunlight with their dark leaves, which warms the Earth.

But tropical rainforests trap larger amounts of carbon dioxide and evaporate more water to produce clouds that reflect sunlight back to space. Therefore, tropical trees are more effective in slowing down the global warming. That is one of the reason why the developed countries like the United States and Britain keep on accusing the developing countries like Malaysia and Brazil, and the Third-world countries of cutting too many of their tropical trees. These countries have to cut down their trees as part of their incomes to be used for their development and sometime just for their survival. Whereas, the rich countries have already cut down most of their trees and they have already achieved tremendous development in all fields. 2. Reducing the use of fossil fuel The fossil fuel industry is worried that the concern about global warming might lead to regulation that will slow down the growth of their industry. During the past 15 years the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has produced many reports that document the scientific evidence for global warming. These reports have been written by scientists around the world which have been reviewed critically by the scientific community. These reports have been attacked by the fossilfuel industry in order to create doubt among the general public. For them, the most important thing is to get as much profit as possible at the expense of maintaining the environment for the convenient of the public. Many economists have opposed to the proposal to reduce fossil fuel consumption since it may lead to reduction in economic growth. Reduction in the economic growth of the world will have negative effect on the life of the whole population on the Earth, especially the poor countries. The rich nations will be able to survive because they have a lot of money to face the reduction of the economic growth. Conclusion Science and government policy on environment must work together to reduce the effect of the global warming. If nothing is done to reduce the global warming, then the current and future generations shall live in a worse situation than we are living now. The population of the world is increasing every year for most of the countries. Each nation needs more land to build new houses, building, roads, shopping complex to meet the needs of its population. That mean more agriculture lands will be turned into other uses, especially for residential and industry purposes. More forests will be cleared. This shall affect the environments more seriously. Therefore, all nations must seriously plan to reduce the global warming. Discussions among the leaders of all countries must be carried out to discuss this important issue. All action plans to tackle this problem must be seriously carried out by all countries on this earth. Remember, the global warming shall affect everyone, nobody can run away