Global Warming Effects and Causes: A Top 10 List
One of the biggest issues facing us right now is global warming. Its effects on animals and on agriculture are indeed frightening, and the effects on the human population are even scarier. The facts about global warming are often debated, but unfortunately, even if we disagree about the causes, global warming effects are real, global, and measurable. The causes are mainly from us, the human race, and the effects on us will be severe.
Global Warming Effects and Causes: A Top 10 List
1. Global Warming Cause: Carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel burning power plants
Our ever increasing addiction to electricity from coal burning power plants releases enormous amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. 40% of U.S. CO2 emissions come from electricity production, and burning coal accounts for 93% of emissions from the electric utility industry [EPA, pg. 10]. Every day, more electric gadgets flood the market, and without widespread alternative energy sources, we are highly dependent on burning coal for our personal and commercial electrical supply.
2. Global Warming Cause: Carbon dioxide emissions from burning gasoline for transportation
Our modern car culture and appetite for globally sourced goods is responsible for about 33% of emissions in the U.S. [EPA pg. 8] With our population growing at an alarming rate, the demand for more cars and consumer goods means that we are increasing the use of fossil fuels for transportation and manufacturing. Our consumption is outpacing our discoveries of ways to mitigate the effects, with no end in sight to our massive consumer culture.
3. Global Warming Cause: Methane emissions from animals, agriculture such as rice paddies, and from Arctic seabeds
Methane is another extremely potent greenhouse gas, ranking right behind CO2. When organic matter is broken down by bacteria under oxygen-starved conditions (anaerobic decomposition) as in rice paddies, methane is produced. The process also takes place in the intestines of herbivorous animals, and with the increase in the amount of concentrated livestock production, the levels of methane released into the atmosphere is increasing. Another source of methane is methane clathrate, a compound containing large amounts of methane trapped in the crystal structure of ice. As methane escapes from the Arctic seabed, the rate of global warming will increase significantly.
4. Global Warming Cause: Deforestation, especially tropical forests for wood, pulp, and farmland
The use of forests for fuel (both wood and for charcoal) is one cause of deforestation, but in the first world, our appetite for wood and paper products, our consumption of livestock grazed on former forest land, and the use of tropical forest lands for commodities like palm oil plantations contributes to the mass deforestation of our world. Forests remove and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and this deforestation releases large amounts of carbon, as well as reducing the amount of carbon capture on the planet.
5. Global Warming Cause: Increase in usage of chemical fertilizers on croplands
In the last half of the 20th century, the use of chemical fertilizers (as opposed to the historical use of animal manure) has risen dramatically. The high rate of application of nitrogen-rich fertilizers has effects on the heat storage of cropland (nitrogen oxides have 300 times more heat-trapping capacity per unit of volume than carbon dioxide) and the run-off of excess fertilizers creates ‘dead-zones’ in our oceans. In addition to these effects, high nitrate levels in groundwater due to over-fertilization are cause for concern for human health.
6. Global Warming Effect: Rise in sea levels worldwide
Scientists predict an increase in sea levels worldwide due to the melting of two massive ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland, especially on the East coast of the U.S. However, many nations around the world will experience the effects of rising sea levels, which could displace millions of people. One nation, the Maldives, is already looking for a new home, thanks to rising sea levels.
7. Global Warming Effect: More killer storms
The severity of storms such as hurricanes and cyclones is increasing, and research published in Nature found:
“Scientists have come up with the firmest evidence so far that global warming will significantly increase the intensity of the most extreme storms worldwide. The maximum wind speeds of the strongest tropical cyclones have increased significantly since 1981, according to research published in Nature this week. And the upward trend, thought to be driven by rising ocean temperatures, is unlikely to stop at any time soon.”
8. Global Warming Effect: Massive crop failures
According to recent research, there is a 90% chance that 3 billion people worldwide will have to choose between moving their families to milder climes and going hungry due to climate change within 100 years.
“Climate change is expected to have the most severe impact on water supplies. “Shortages in future are likely to threaten food production, reduce sanitation, hinder economic development and damage ecosystems. It causes more violent swings between floods and droughts.”" – Guardian: Global warming causes 300,000 deaths a year
9. Global Warming Effect: Widespread extinction of species
According to research published in Nature, by 2050, rising temperatures could lead to the extinction of more than a million species. And because we can’t exist without a diverse population of species on Earth, this is scary news for humans.
“Climate change now represents at least as great a threat to the number of species surviving on Earth as habitat-destruction and modification.” Chris Thomas, conservation biologist at the University of Leeds
10. Global Warming Effect: Disappearance of coral reefs
A report on coral reefs from WWF says that in a worst case scenario, coral populations will collapse by 2100 due to increased temperatures and ocean acidification. The ‘bleaching’ of corals from small but prolonged rises in sea temperature is a severe danger for ocean ecosystems, and many other species in the oceans rely on coral reefs for their survival.
“Despite the oceans’s immensity — 71 per cent of the Earth’s surface with an average depth of almost 4km (2½m) — there are indications that it is approaching its tipping point. For reefs, warming waters and acidification are closing in like a pair of jaws that threaten to make them the first global ecosystem to disappear.” – Times Online: 21st-century Noah’s Ark needed to save coral reefs from extinction
Read more about global warming effects and causes:
- Global Warming Worldbook at NASA
- The Top 100 Effects of Global Warming
- Cause and effect for global warming
- Nine alien insects to cause pain, illness and even death in Britain as climate warms up
- Climate change may act as ‘threat multiplier’ in strife-torn Middle East, study shows
Images: FlyingSinger Mikael Miettinen Simone Ramella net_efekt Ben Sutherland nattu CoreBurn brankomaster Lars K. Jensen In Veritas Lux at Flickr under Creative Commons License
Global Warming Effects and Causes
1 and 2 are the same. The hypothesis is that doubling of the Co2 in the atmosphere will cause an increase of 1.6 degrees C. We are halfway to doubling the Co2 but we have only seen a warming of .4 C. That is taking the warming since the last cooling spell. It is unknown if that warming is due to Co2.
3. Methane. I have seen no hypothesis on the warming ability of Methane. Is there one?
4. Deforestation. I agree, that is a problem. Unkown if will warm or cool the earth. Are you going to fix that because of the top 4, that is the only one fixable, maybe.
5. Is there a hypothesis on the global warming ability of fertilizer?
6. Sea level rise. From 15,000 years ago to 8,000 years ago, sea level rose about 14mm/year – which is more than four times faster than the current rise rate of 3.3mm/year, as reported by the University of Colorado. During the last ice age, sea level was so low that people were able to walk from Siberia to Alaska across the Bering Strait.
7. More Killer Storms. Please, Al Gore already got in trouble for trying to link storms and global warming and had to delete that from his slide show. Hurricane number and intensity are at an all time low. Less people die now from extreme weather than at any other time in our history.
8. Massive Crop Failures. The increased Co2 in the atmosphere and the warming we had seen increased the growing season so that the earth was now able to feed the population for the first time. The bad winter and spring of 2007 caused a failure of the rice crop in China and we saw increased prices here and starvation in 73 3rd world countries. The growing season in Europe, the US and Canada fell in 2008 and it looks like the same is happening again. Not from global warming but from global cooling.
9. Widespread species extinction. 50 species become extinct every day, warming or cooling. You think you can fix that? Try to make sure humans are not one of them.
10. Dissapearance of coral reefs. Yes, in 1999, Professor Ove Hoegh-Gulberg, our leading reef alarmist and administrator of more than $30 million in warming grants, did claim the reef was threatened by warming, and much had turned white.
But he then had to admit it had made a “surprising” recovery.
Yes, in 2006 he again warned high temperatures meant “between 30 and 40 per cent of coral on Queensland’s Great Barrier Reef could die within a month”.
But he later admitted this bleaching had “minimal impact”. Yes, in 2007 he again warned that temperature changes of the kind caused by global warming were bleaching the reef.
But this month fellow Queensland University researchers admitted in a study that reef coral had once more made a “spectacular recovery”, with “abundant corals re-established in a single year”. The reef is blooming
So, Derek Markham, does somebody pay you for this?
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Derek, I think you would appreciate the recent Newsy video about global warming. It doesn’t go as in-depth as you do, but it’s all about the moral obligation we have to fight climate change.
Now, personally I don’t think it’s a moral issue any more than, say, world hunger is a moral issue. There’s only so much anyone can do. Tried putting a planet’s climates in equilibrium recently? It’s not easy even if you could simply generate or remove heat or create species out of thin air. How is a divided world of science going to do anything about it? We can take small steps, but that will never be enough just like we can donate a million dollars a month to stop world hunger without actually solving a long-term problem.
i think that global warming suks n i suk me daisy suks
If we are going to make errors let’s make them on the side of caution. All of the things listed above will make the world a better place to live whether or not they are causing global warming.
Our greatest threat is not global warming but Obama’s global warming/cap and trade scam, more fraudulent than any Nigerian scam.
Cap and trade represents huge taxes and cost increases, which will hurt mostly the poor and the middle class. Cap and trade will give dictatorial powers to Obama and will further enrich his billionaire friends (Gore, Soros, Goldman Sachs, Obama’s Chicago Climate Exchange friends, GE, etc.) — all at our expense and at the expense of our children and grandchildren.
Cap and Trade “would be the equivalent of an atomic bomb directed at the U.S. economy—all without any scientific justification,” said famed climatologist Dr. S. Fred Singer. It would significantly increase taxes and the cost of energy, forcing many companies to close, thus increasing unemployment, poverty and dependence.
Those brainwashed to the point of wanting to destroy the economy to “prevent global warming” are behaving like the most primitive human beings who were duped into believing that human sacrifices would ensure them good weather. Human beings don’t have the power to control climate! And killing the economy will not help the environment. Poor countries can’t protect the environment. Just look at Haiti!
More and more scientists and thinking people all over the world are realizing that man-made global warming is a hoax that threatens our future and the future of our children. More than 700 international scientists dissent over man-made global warming claims. They are now more than 13 times the number of UN scientists (52) who authored the media-hyped IPCC 2007 Summary for Policymakers. http://www.climatechangefraud.com/content/view/3562/218/
Additionally, more than 30,000 American scientists have signed onto a petition that states, “There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.” http://www.petitionproject.org
We pray that honest leaders – both Democrat and Republican – are able to save us from Obama’s criminal global warming/cap-and-trade scam.
Excellent arguments, Eve! No informed American believes the global warming/cap-and-trade scam. The scammers, however, continue trying to force us to swallow the scam.
Among those expecting to profit from the scam at our expense are Obama, Gore, Soros, Goldman Sachs, Obama’s Chicago Climate Exchange friends, GE, the U.N., etc.
GE, for example, has bombarded us with daily propaganda — through its NBC networks, including MSNBC and CNBC. Why? Because they stand to make BILLIONS from the scam at our expense. Not only is GE the largest wind turbine generator maker, but it may benefit as the sole “secondary market” trader of the cap and trade credits.
And the U.N., the most corrupt organization in the world, is desperate to complete the scam to get more of our money and help dictate what we should and should not do.
AntonioSosa you are an idiot. Good lord why can’t you people look past your own puny little life spans.
Global warming is real. We can debate the human impacts all we want, but what we can’t debate is the raw data…the numbers that show a DIRECT correlation of CO2 and global average temperature. We know for certain that we are increasing the levels of CO2…we know for certain that CO2 and temperature are highly correlated…
SO WHAT’s the debate about. let’s get on with trying everything in our power to fix this problem. This is the earth we are talking about people. This is a joke or a game. This is very very real. This is the future of the planet and future generations that we are screwing over with our inability to act on this issue.
John Furr you are the idiot. There is a correlation with co2 and global temp. But c02 lags behide temp by 600-800 years clearly showing that c02 is not the driving force of temp but the exact opposite. That’s what part of the debate is about.
If c02 is driving temp, why has the average temp been declining since 2002, while china and india have increased there c02 output.
The debate is how can taxes on carbon help clean up chemical spills, garbage sites, or stop humans from cutting down the jungle?