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Climate change is any substantial change in Earth’s climate that lasts for an
extended period of time. Global warming refers to climate change that causes an
increase in the average temperature of the lower atmosphere. Global warming
can have many different causes, but it is most commonly associated with human
interference, specifically the release of excessive amounts of greenhouse gases.
Greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), water vapor,
and fluorinated gases, act like a greenhouse around the earth. This means that
they let the heat from the Sun into the atmosphere, but do not allow the heat to
escape back into space. The more greenhouse gases there are, the larger the
percentage of heat that is trapped inside the earth’s atmosphere. The earth
could not exist in its present state (that is, with life) without the presence of some
naturally occurring greenhouse gases, such as CO2, CH4, and water vapor.
Without any greenhouse gases no heat would be trapped in atmosphere, so the
earth would be extremely cold.
We're seeing the effects of global warming all around us - more intense heat
waves that disproportionately affect the elderly and poor, more severe storms
that wreak havoc on our homes and communities, and all kinds of changing
cycles in the natural world.
Environmental News
Leading up to the event, though, Live Earth was also criticized by some for being
too vague in its cause or for being a promotional tool for its co-founder,
environmental activist Al Gore, the former vice president.
The politician was given a rock star's welcome at Giants Stadium in New Jersey,
where he was introduced by Oscar-winning actor Leonardo DiCaprio. In
London, the Black Eyed Peas' Will.i.am premiered a new pro-Earth song that he
said he recorded after an inspirational encounter with Gore at the Grammy
Awards in February.
One of the song's lines: "We got a new terror threat: The weather."
The other Live Earth concerts Saturday were in Hamburg, Germany; Sydney,
Australia; Tokyo; Shanghai, China; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and Johannesburg,
South Africa, while many "unofficial" events borrowed the name and cause of
the day, such as the Viva Earth show, an R&B and hip-hop concert at the Los
Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
Implementing these solutions will enable people to usher in a new era of energy,
one that will bring economic growth, new jobs, technological innovation and,
most importantly environmental protection.
However, for global warming green solutions to find a foothold in the market,
governments and corporations need to shift away from polluting technology. In
most industrial countries, conventional electricity is heavily subsidized, and the
negative environmental impacts of its production are not reflected in the cost to
end-users.
The atmosphere has a natural supply of "greenhouse gases." They capture heat
and keep the surface of the Earth warm enough for us to live on. Without the
greenhouse effect, the planet would be an uninhabitable, frozen wasteland.
Before the Industrial Revolution, the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other
greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere was in a rough balance with what
could be stored on Earth. Natural emissions of heat-trapping gases matched
what could be absorbed in natural sinks. For example, plants take in CO2 when
they grow in spring and summer, and release it back to the atmosphere when
they decay and die in fall and winter.
Industry took off in the mid-1700s, and people started emitting large amounts of
greenhouse gases. Fossil fuels were burned more and more to run our cars,
trucks, factories, planes and power plants, adding to the natural supply of
greenhouse gases. The gases—which can stay in the atmosphere for at least fifty
years and up to centuries—are building up beyond the Earth's capacity to
remove them and, in effect, creating an extra-thick heat blanket around the
Earth.
The result is that the globe has heated up by about one degree Fahrenheit over
the past century—and it has heated up more intensely over the past two decades.
If one degree doesn't sound like a lot, consider this: the difference in global
average temperatures between modern times and the last ice age—when much of
Canada and the northern U.S. were covered with thick ice sheets—was only
about 9 degrees Fahrenheit. So in fact one degree is very significant—especially
since the unnatural warming will continue as long as we keep putting extra
greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Already, people have increased the amount of CO2, the chief global warming
pollutant, in the atmosphere to 31 percent above pre-industrial levels. There is
more CO2 in the atmosphere now than at any time in the last 650,000 years.
Studies of the Earth’s climate history show that even small changes in CO2 levels
generally have come with significant shifts in the global average temperature.
Scientists are no longer debating the basic facts of climate change. In February
2007, the thousands of scientific experts collectively known as the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that there is
greater than 90 percent likelihood that people are causing global warming.
(IPCC, 2007)
These latest findings amplify what other highly respected science organizations
say: