Global Warming: Analyzing Causes, Effects & Potential Solutions

This essay provides a comprehensive overview of global warming, examining its causes, effects, and potential solutions. The essay identifies key causes such as the burning of fossil fuels for electricity, deforestation, and over-farming, highlighting the significant contribution of human activities to t...Read More

Running Head: GLOBAL WARMING 0
Causes and Effects of Global Warming

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Global Warming: causes, effects and solutions
Global warming is a phenomenon of increment in the average air temperature near
the surface of the earth. It occurs when air pollutant, green house gases, and carbon dioxide
get collected in the atmosphere that further absorbs the sunlight as well as solar radiation
(Desmet & Rossi-Hansberg, 2015). The radiation will escape but the pollutant remains in the
atmosphere that traps the heat and makes the planet hot.
In United States, for making electricity, burning of fossil fuels is the source of heat
trapping pollution. It produces near two Billion tons of carbon dioxide each year. There are
various causes of global warming. From all the causes, burning of fossil fuel is one such
cause. Burning of fossil fuels like gas and coal to generate electricity, people release pollution
in the form of CO2 In the environment. Among all the countries, Australia is the biggest
producer of CO2 pollution. In Australia, per person CO2 pollution is doubled from all other
developed nation. The main reason besides burning of fossil fuel is to generate electricity.
Nearly 73% of the total electricity comes by burning coal. Besides this, 13% comes from the
burning gas and the remaining 14% is from sources of renewable energy such as solar, hydro,
wind. In addition, emission of harmful gases also making the environment hotter. Due to this
reason only, climate changes are occurring frequently (WWF, 2018).
Deforestation is also one such important cause of global warming. Plants are
important to keep the environment cool and clean. It also plays a crucial role to regulate the
climate because plants absorb the carbon dioxide directly from air and release the oxygen into
it. Forests are important for keeping the global warming to 1.5⁰C (Gough et al, 2018). Human
activities are the main cause for deforestation as they clear the wider area of vegetation for
farming. People are cutting the tress for their personal benefit or use. They are not aware
about the increasing temperature of the country. Sometimes, forests are being cut for making
the palm oil and timber that indirectly put serious impacts on the nature. It is obvious that
when vegetation is burnt or removed, carbon that is stored will release back into the
atmosphere in the form of CO2 (Hausfather, 2017). In the report of forest wildlife, it is
founded that one fifth of the pollution comes from the forest degradation or deforestation.
Therefore, it becomes important to take necessary actions for decreasing the level of global
warming.

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Over Farming also contributes to global warming. Livestock such as cattle or sheep
produce the methane that is a greenhouse gas. In various parts of the world, livestock are
grazed at larger scale that is the biggest contributor in increasing the level of global warming.
Framers use their land for grazing their animals as well as livestock. Due to this, lands are
becoming arid which is increasing the global temperature and making the environment hotter.
Farming in Australia contributes 16% of the total emission of greenhouse gases (Crutzen,
Mosier, Smith & Winiwarter, 2016).
Most of the scientist believes that human activities are the major cause of global
warming. In the fifth assessment report of IPCC, it is stated that almost 95% of modern
warming was due to the human activities (Pachauri et al, 2014). Pollution is one such factor
that is making the environment warmer. The increasing use of vehicles emits the harmful
gases, which is destroying the environment and nature.
Global warming is negatively affecting the environment as well as human beings.
Increase in global temperature is causing various changes. The rising temperature results into
hotter waves, heavier rainfall, frequent droughts and powerful hurricanes. In 2016, “National
Academies of Science” announced that if this condition will not improve, all the problem are
likely to double in near future. Due to global warming, extreme heat waves have occurred
and it caused thousands of death in the whole world. Due to the global warming, glaciers are
melting and causing drought. Duet to this, water shortage and risk of wildfire is increasing at
greater phase. With the spreading of temperature and pollution, environment is getting
polluted day by day. The common diseases from this problem are asthma, allergies, and
various infectious diseases. China is at first in the global warming pollution whereas United
State holds the second position. The main effect of global warming is the occurrence of
hurricanes that cause damages to houses. Due to the hurricanes, many people are dying and
some are getting various diseases (Trenberth et al, 2014).
A healthier and greener world is required by all the people to eliminate those practices
that are warming the environment and polluting it. First, it is important for all the people to
become fossil fuel free. The major coal, gas, and oil companies are penetrating to business as
usual. An increasing number of investors have understood that the business model of
industries is dissenting with what scientists are telling to stop global warming (Baer &
Singer, 2016).Therefore, the first step is required to taken up by the industries who are
emitting various harmful gases and polluting the environment.

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Besides this, it also becomes essential to protect the World’s tropical forest. Global
warming can be reduced by plantings more and more tress and reducing the grazing of plants
in the forest. Farmers should also understand the harmful effects of cutting down trees for
their personal use. Use of different stock feed techniques can reduce the farming contribution
in climatical change. A clean power plan should be adopt by industries to reduce the emission
of harmful gases. It is seen that burning of fossil fuel for generating electricity is the most
common practice that is adopted by people (Harvey, 2016).Therefore, generating electricity
from renewable energy sources like wind and solar is one such method for addressing the
problem of global warming. Preventing the deforestation and planting of more tress through
afforestation is also an important action for fighting against the problem of global warming.
For reducing the problem of global warming, government can take various measures. It
should formulate some strict policy for those who are misusing the fossil fuels and cutting
down trees. In addition, it can also take strict actions for the industries to reduce the emission
of harmful gases (Binzer, Guill, Rall & Brose, 2016).

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References
Baer, H., & Singer, M. (2016). Global warming and the political ecology of health: Emerging
crises and systemic solutions. United Kingdom: Routledge.
Binzer, A., Guill, C., Rall, B. C., & Brose, U. (2016). Interactive effects of warming,
eutrophication and size structure: impacts on biodiversity and food‐web
structure. Global change biology, 22(1), 220-227.
Crutzen, P. J., Mosier, A. R., Smith, K. A., & Winiwarter, W. (2016). N 2 O release from
agro-biofuel production negates global warming reduction by replacing fossil fuels.
In Paul J. Crutzen: A pioneer on atmospheric chemistry and climate change in the
anthropocene (pp. 227-238). Springer, Cham.
Desmet, K., & Rossi-Hansberg, E. (2015). On the spatial economic impact of global
warming. Journal of Urban Economics, 88, 16-37.
Harvey, L. D. (2016). Global warming. United Kingdom: Routledge.
Hausfather, (2017). Analysis: Why scientists think 100% of global warming is due to humans.
Retrieved from: https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-why-scientists-think-100-of-
global-warming-is-due-to-humans
Trenberth, K. E., Dai, A., Van Der Schrier, G., Jones, P. D., Barichivich, J., Briffa, K. R., &
Sheffield, J. (2014). Global warming and changes in drought. Nature Climate
Change, 4(1), 17.
WWF. (2018). Causes of global warming. Retrieved from: http://www.wwf.org.au/what-we-
do/climate/causes-of-global-warming#gs.570LVoY
Gough, C., Garcia-Freites, S., Jones, C., Mander, S., Moore, B., Pereira, C., & Welfle, A.
(2018). Challenges to the use of BECCS as a keystone technology in pursuit of 1.5
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