The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defines global warming as the unusual and rapid increase in the earth’s surface temperature over the past one hundred years. An increase in the earth’s surface temperature is bound to have dire consequences for earth’s inhabitants. With consequences such as drought, famine and species extinction, the threat global warming poses cannot be ignored. However, there exist multiple arguments on the current severity of global warming, its causes, effects, whether or not it is an issue of concern and the feasible methods of mitigation.
Political, social, economic and scientific communities are divided on the issue of global warming. While one side holds that global warming is a current issue that poses a significant threat, others hold that global warming is a naturally occurring event and that the earth's atmosphere has continuously been warming up for millennia (Michaels 1998). Given that there is no debate about the existence of global warming, controversies crop up when human activities are linked to the cause of and solution to global warming.
The theory of that global warming is caused by anthropogenic activity has been in existence for more than a century (Fllint 2011). Scientists support this theory with scientific data spanning more than 50 years. Since the concept of global warming was coined, it has evolved from a minor environmental issue to the most debated environmental concern currently. In today’s society, it continues to influence policies and laws on the environment, energy generation, agricultural trends, and technological innovation among other sectors.
Global warming is caused by increased solar radiation in the earth’s atmosphere, and this has been linked to both natural occurrences and human activity. Flint (2011), believes that controversies in global warming issues arise when facts and information about the matter are sourced from the media and not scientists who hold empirical evidence.
When portrayed in the eyes of interest groups and politicians, global warming takes a different form. This is evident because the documentary feature ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, produced by Al Gore, arose higher environmental concern among the public than the scientific community had through published research on global warming issues.
Such events have given politicians and interest groups a voice in the global warming debate. The mixing of sources on the matter of global warming can be seen as the cause of the debate about its cause, effect, and control. It is important to note that there are disagreements even among scientists whether or not increased amounts of greenhouse gasses such as carbon dioxide are to blame for the rise in global temperatures. These groups argue that global warming should not take priority over more critical causes of mortality and morbidity.
Powell (2012) suggests that political involvement in such environmental matters often serves only to misrepresent the real issues and either exaggerate or downplay the issue at hand. However, global warming skeptics believe that unnecessary concern about the impact of global warming is a ploy by various private and public institutions to increase funding and bureaucracy within institutions. They argue that there is little scientific evidence to call justly for drastic mitigation strategies for decarbonizing the earth through policies such as the Kyoto protocol or other multilateral agreements (The Wall Street Journal 2012).
Scientific evidence shows that industrialization has contributed significantly to the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide (Lewis 2016). However, scientists also note that it is not possible to accurately measure the extent to which anthropogenic carbon dioxide has caused global warming. Therefore controlling anthropogenic activities will reduce global warming but to an unknown extent.
Some of the consequences that raise concern are the changing climate conditions are increasing floods, droughts, famine, and heat waves (EPA 2016). Human activities that are primarily believed to contribute to global warming revolve around the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation. Those for mitigation of global warming believe that afforestation and a reduction in the use of fossil fuels is a guaranteed way of controlling global warming and its dire effects (Powell 2012). For such measures to be effective, there is need for a global shift in policies regarding the environment.
In retrospect, international organizations such as the United Nations have held a number of conventions on climate change that propose several multilateral agreements. These agreements serve to bind signatories to the various strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions (Michaels 1998). However, such strategies may not work especially with major pollution contributors such as the USA, China, India and Mexico refusing to be signatories to advocated policies.
Powell (2012), notes that there has been no evidence presented in any forum that disputes the contribution of anthropogenic activities to the problem of global warming. The measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will mostly affect developed countries whose economies strongly rely on industrialization which has been associated with the causative factors of global warming.
It is evident that different parties hold differing positions on the issue of global warming. The motivation behind their interests in the matter ranges from political, economic and seemingly noble environmental concern. As the global warming debate continues, the public will most likely take sides with those who hold the most convincing evidence.
References
Environmental Protection Agency. (2016, February 24). Climate Change: Basic Information.
Retrieved March 08, 2016, from http://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/basics/
Flint, K. (2011). Global Warming: The Hottest Debate of the Decade. DUJS, 14, 15-17.
Goklany, I. M. (2012), Is climate change the number one threat to humanity?. WIREs Clim
Change, 3: 489–508. doi: 10.1002/wcc.194
Hansen, J., R. Ruedy, M. Sato, and K. Lo (2010), Global surface temperature change, Rev.
Geophys., 48, RG4004, doi:10.1029/2010RG000345.
Lewis, M. (2016, February 29). Global Warming; May cooler heads prevail. Retrieved March
08, 2016, from http://www.globalwarming.org/
Michaels, P. J. (1998). Global Deception: The Exaggeration of the Global Warming Threat.
American Business, 146, 1-28.
Powell, J. L. (2012). The State of Climate Science: A Thorough Review of the Scientific
Literature on Global Warming. Climate Science, 15, 1-24.
The Wall Street Journal. (2012, January 27). No Need to Panic About Global Warming.
Retrieved March 08, 2016, from http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204301404577171531838421366
