OPPapers.com

Global Warming

The challenge is not lack of knowledge of global warming, people are aware of what global warming is and many people even know the causes and what they can do to help the environment. One of the challenges we face is to educate people on the importance of doing something now, not waiting for the problem to be more obvious. As R. Kates explains in Turning the Corner (n.d.) “…62 percent of Americans now believe that global warming is an urgent threat requiring immediate and drastic action…48 percent now believe that global warming is already or soon will be dangerous…” (para. 4). The fact is, global warming is already dangerous, and immediate and drastic action needs to happen now.
Global warming is caused by gasses such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, chlorofluorocarbons, and tropospheric ozone building up in the atmosphere due to our, as humans, actions (Global Atmospheric Changes, n.d., pg. 217). What happens is these gasses absorb heat energy given off by the Earth’s surface; instead of the heat going back into space, some gets trapped in the Earth’s lower atmosphere warming the Earth. The gases listed are known as greenhouse because they “…trap the sun’s infrared radiation somewhat like glass does in a greenhouse…” (Global Atmospheric Changes, n.d., pg 218).
Unless social marketing efforts make the urgency and certainty of global warming more obvious, it may be several years before climactic events are such that North Americans are jerked from their lethargic indifference and recognize that their lifestyles have put them in peril.
(Bird, 2008, para. 19)
“We are witnessing a collision between our civilization and the Earth,” (A. Gore, 2006, An Inconvenient Truth). As we go on burning carbon-containing fossil fuels, we continue to add to the most human-made carbon dioxide (Global Atmospheric Changes, pg.217). The emissions automobiles give off are “…not only carbon dioxide but also nitrous oxide, which triggers the production of...