Global Warming Fact or Fiction

Posted on November 20, 2009 in About Global Warming

Global Warming: a topic that has been in discussion and reports since late 80s and still continuing. It is only in the recent years that the topic has been brought to spotlight. This is mostly due to the news media hype that has sent panic in people. But they still are not working towards saving the earth. A major reason is that people are still confused between the facts and the fiction regarding global warming.

Fact or Fiction?

Fiction: Even though the earth is heating up, there is no surety if any of the activities is caused by humans.

Fact: An international scientific record states that, for the last 50 years, warming has been caused due to human activities and not naturally. Plants and animals living and dead over a million of year were compresses to form oil deposits. Coal and gas were also produced. But those million years resources were burned in little more time than 300 years. The by-products of these fossil fuels are methane, carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases. They form a thick blanket around the earth. This blanket traps heat from the sun and raises the ground temperature.
Impact: Few areas receive heavy rainfall while few areas suffer drought conditions. Melting of glaciers, warming of oceans and dying coral reefs are other effects.

Fiction: The warming of earth cannot be due to greenhouse gases. This is because the changes in temperature and greenhouse gas emissions over the century did not occur in simulation (at the same time).

Fact: The warming of the oceans makes a significant time lag between carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases. They get emitted in the atmosphere when temperature changes.
This is the main reason why we don’t see much change in temperature as it changes during greenhouse gas emission. Other factor for change is temperature is volcanic eruptions. But scientific proof shows that human made greenhouse gases are the main reason for climatic changes.

Fiction: It is very easy to remove Carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. So if global warming turns out as a problem, we can take action to remove greenhouse gases at that point of time.

Fact: Carbon dioxide is a gas formed by burning of fossil fuels and is the main human-made greenhouse gas. It is produced in large quantities. It can stay in the atmosphere for around 200 years. This shows that if we halt carbon dioxide emissions now, it would still stay in the atmosphere for centuries.

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