GLOBAL WARMING BY: SAHI L AMIN 2 /11 /2008 PERI OD 4

‘Global warming’ is one of today’s most popular subject and buzzwords. Day after
day, this word can be heard on the news, read in magazines and newspapers, and is often
talked about when the earth itself is brought up in conversation. Many people also do not
know if global warming is real or not, though, and some often dispute if humans are causing
it or Mother Nature is just going through a cycle. I for one do not believe that humankind
started global warming, though I do believe that we contributing harmful gases and
pollutants to the earth.

As history itself has shown, the earth goes through many stages of warm and cold.
Scientists believe that when the earth first started out it was incredibly hot, but soon it soon
cooled down, allowing more things like oxygen, H 2O, and CO2 to form. History has also shown
that the earth did not stay like this. During early stages of life the atmosphere was very hot
due to greenhouse gases from volcanic emissions trapping hot air. These temperatures were
much hotter than temperatures today. Yet, Mother Nature overcame this obstacle and soon
brought an Ice Age, which drastically cooled down the earth. These processes continued for
many years, and always revolved around the Extinction Ages.

Extinction Ages (or Periods) are times in the history of Earth’s life forms when many
types of an animal’s class or species is either wiped out or placed near extinction. A great
example of this is the Great Extinction Age, which occurred when nearly 70% of all mammals
(oceanic and land alike) where wiped off the face of the earth. This allowed room for avian
and non-avian dinosaurs. During this time period there was a major spike in not only
temperature, but also the way the earth acted alike. Volcanic disturbances increased and
new types of plants were arriving. Of course, as we all know, dinosaurs became extinct in
another Great Extinction Age along with many other species and a new Ice Age was brought
forth. The cooling in temperatures would not allow reptiles to stay dominant and brought
mammals back into the picture as the leaders again.

Today we are going through just another extinction age. Temperatures are rising, but
it is not due to humankind and our ways. Scientists have discovered that moose are now
beginning to emit as much CO2 as the average American SUV. In the 1970s, volcanoes
placed a greater amount of sulfur, water vapor, and CO 2 in the earth’s atmosphere than
humans did in a half a century alone. Scientists have also begun to discover than many
animals species across the world are becoming endangered or extinct at rates never seen
before. What does all this mean? It means that we are going through another extinction age
and that the earth should be warming up.

Of course, humans are emitting out lots of things into the earth that could harm it,
and yes, it should be stopped. However, politics has warped the world’s mind so bad that
people do not understand what to do anymore. They feel any slightly warm day in winter is a
sign of global warming and immediately began to freak out because Al Gore had said that we
are at a point of no return. I personally believe that Al Gore is at a point of no return because

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if he understood what was going on, he would know that temperatures today are nowhere
near temperatures during earlier extinction periods.

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