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Global warming refers specifically to a rise in the global average surface temperature. In Bridging the Gap’s “Role of Humans in Global Warming” it is discussed what is causing global warming and how it will affect our ecosystem. A temperature rise as fast as the one we have seen over the last 30 years has never happened before, as far as scientists can ascertain. Global warming will have a major impact on humans, not only today but especially in the future. This article explains the role we have when it comes to global warming. Human activities interfere with the way our ecosystem functions durably.
We exhaust our resources and our industrial processes release toxic substances that produce more nutrients than nutrient cycles can process efficiently. I agree that humans are the main cause of global warming and it is up to us to reduce our ecological footprint. Out of the 20 warmest years on record, 19 have occurred since 1980, 6 Of the hottest being after 1998. Because fossil fuel provides us with the energy we need to live the way we live today, we have become dependent on them. That dependence has turned into overuse and the release of CO into our earth’s atmosphere.
We re also adding CO by deforestation, which is where forests are cut and burned and the carbon from the trees is released back into the atmosphere. A quote I read on the website World Population Balance was, ‘The current global population of over 7 billion is already two to three times higher than the sustainable level. Several recent studies show that Earth’s resources are enough to sustain only about 2 billion people at a European standard of living. On average Europeans consume far more resources than any of the poorest two billion people in the world. Right now it is pretty certain that we re the main cause of the added CO that is being released into the atmosphere and the biggest cause of global warming. With all the CO being released, greenhouse gas emissions are rising more rapidly than predicted and consequently the world is warming more quickly. A simple way this was explained to me was greenhouse gases are like riding down the road with the windows up and the sun shining through the vehicle windows. The windows allow the light and heat in, but there is nowhere for it to go after it enters the vehicle, which then causes the inside of the vehicle to heat up.
This is what is happening to our atmosphere when we talk about global warming. Global warming is said to be the cause of catastrophic events such as accelerating sea level rise, droughts, floods, storms and heat waves. I think a lot of today’s environmental communities are providing some great short term goals to improve cities. We need to do our part on a smaller scale and reduce our own ecological footprint before we can tackle larger scale problems. But the question is how to take a solution global? Sustainability requires us to learn to live within our means.