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. Given that there has been 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. 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. 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. 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).
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. 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.
The theory of global warming being 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. 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. Human activities that are primarily believed to contribute to global warming revolve around the burning of fossil fuels, greenhouse gas emissions and deforestation. According to Jadhav H. (Jadhav, 2009), the development of the corporations throughout the world has led to the violations of the ecological laws in some countries. For instance, the atmosphere is spoiled with carbon dioxide. 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. The potential negative outcomes of the climate change could be connected with the death of many animal species, the issues with tsunami and tornados, the increase of the percent of droughts throughout the world (Maslin 2004).
In figure 1 below, the United States offers a good example of greater urban effects due to the high energy use (Hansen, Ruedy, Sato & Lo, 2010) . Considerable warming can be caused by energy sources and structures made by humans. However, in the long run, global temperature change as a result of the urban effect is estimated to be very minimal (Hansen, Ruedy, Sato & Lo, 2010). The small change could be as a result of a partial cancellation of the warming and cooling of the urban regions (Hansen, Ruedy, Sato & Lo, 2010).
Global warming takes a different form in the eyes of interest groups and politicians. This is evident in the documentary feature ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, produced by Al Gore. The documentary raised higher environmental concerns 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. These groups argue that global warming should not take priority over more critical causes of mortality and morbidity.
According to Goklany (2012), other factors like diseases and extreme weather events account for more deaths than global warming. In Figure 2, the estimates marked in brown show mortality caused by global warming compared to other factors (Goklany, 2012). The 2009 study on Global Health Risk by the World Health Organization estimates that global warming contributes less than 14.3% of the total number of deaths caused by hunger, extreme weather conditions and malaria (Goklany, 2012). Thus, the possibilities of global warming being the critical health risk to mankind in future is minimal, despite contrary claims (Goklany, 2012) .
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. According to their opinion, the process of the climate change could be the rational continuation of the existing trend of weather change during the centuries (Horvath, 2009). Thus, skeptics believe that governments use this trend in order to increase the budget costs and spread the bureaucracy.
Those advocating 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 a 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. As the global warming debate continues, the public will most likely take sides with those who hold the most convincing evidence as it is believed that no empirical evidence exists.
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