What is Global Warming, and How is it Anthropogenic?
“I don’t believe in global warming, ” said Michael LaFemina, who is part the Alliance for Climate Education, an organization that travels around the Chicago Public School District educating students of the science behind our changing climate and the concern that should come with the newfound awareness.
LaFemina spoke at Loyola’s 350 Day of Action that was held on Oct. 24. He started out the speech by telling everyone that he didn’t believe in global warming.
Now, there was an obvious populace bias that was in attendance, and I know everyone (including myself) was horrified to hear one of the premier speakers denounce the sole purpose of why we were all there. To everyone’s relief, he went on to illustrate why there is nothing to “believe” in, for global warming is scientific theory that is constructed of countless scientific, peer-reviewed articles that have come to a singular, and striking conclusion: “Warming of the climate system is unequivocal.”
Before we dive into Climate Science 101, I find it important to re-affirm what LaFemina said. Anthropogenic (or human-induced) global warming is a scientific theory—not a belief system, not a cult or religious following, but a theory that has propagated from seemingly endless research, and a general scientific community consensus. But through mainstream attention and ultimately political attention, the issue of anthropogenic global warming has become believer versus skeptic.
Like most scientific issues that gain public attention, the side opposed to the science has a very unique bond to large industry or interest affiliates. My personal favorite is the FACES of Coal campaign. FACES of Coal is an organization that advocates for the mythical “clean coal” via “an alliance of people from all walks of life.” James Hoggan, author of Climate Cover Up and founder of DeSmogBlog.com, dug into this “grassroots” organization and found some conspicuous ties to the coal and fossil fuel industry, while delivering a final blow illustrating how the “faces” of coal were pictures taken from iStockPhoto, not real supporters.
To better grasp the subject, it is necessary to establish some key terms first. Global warming is merely the documented increase of global temperature, while climate change is the observed change in climatic events from hurricanes frequency and intensity to simply change in temperatures. Simple enough, right? Getting into the current climate change we are seeing though, proves to be a little more difficult and robust. It is necessary to establish that the earth’s climate is ever-changing and cyclically goes through warming and cooling periods. We have all seen Ice Age right? But the concern is that even with the understood cyclical changes, the seen changes in the last hundred years are occurring at an exponential, and unprecedented rate.
Although global temperatures were not recorded thousands of years ago like they are today, through ice core and tree ring analysis, scientists have been able to interpret past temperatures with precision. Using the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age as known markers, the scientists generated the results that proved to correspond to these periods just based on the ice core and tree ring data.
Greenhouse gases (GHG) are gases present in our upper atmosphere that play a key role in absorbing and re-emitting the sun’s radiation—or heat—back to the earth. Theses gases are a necessity for the existence of life, if the level were drastically lower, most of the heat would not be re-radiated, causing a significant decrease in temperature. As we are seeing now, a significant increase in greenhouse gases cause temperatures to rise, also known as the greenhouse effect. So, there is a happy median, we have co-existed with it for millennia, but now we are beginning to stray from those levels, ever so slightly.
So why the rise in greenhouse gases? Some of the most prominent greenhouse gases are carbon-dioxide, methane, water vapor and ozone. Carbon emissions are again a naturally occurring by-product of life. We exhale carbon-dioxide, while our oceans and plant life sequester it. But we have seen exponential increases in carbon emissions since the Industrial Revolution, when humans began using fossil fuels to power our entire infrastructure.
Any type of combustion, whether it is from an automobile, airplane, coal fired power plant, or steel manufacturer, produces carbon-dioxide as a by-product. In 2008, the Energy Information Administration found that the
Methane, which is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon-dioxide, has increased as well, due to a higher global demand for meat. Livestock production, particularly cattle, is a dual contributor to emissions because it not only produces methane (a very potent GHG) in excess, but also has contributed to massive clear-cutting of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil to meet the ever-growing demand. The Amazon is the lungs of the planet, a place where the carbon-dioxide is absorbed, and through botanical mechanisms is transformed into breathable oxygen. Needless to say, we probably should keep the Amazon around.
Alright, so we have increasing amounts of greenhouse gases entering our atmosphere from human consumption of fossil fuels, forming a reflective blanket and warming our planet. Longer summers right? Well, I admit that the earth’s temperature has only rose by 1.08 to 1.62 degrees Fahrenheit in the last 100 years, but that seemingly insignificant rise has had some significant impact. Sea levels have rose by 0.56 feet, the arctic ice mass has entered a exponential decay receding to the point of near extinction in the summer months, climatic events have reached a new level of ferocity and oceans are not only being acidified by carbon dioxide dissolving in the water forming carbonic acid, but also warming and disrupting the natural cycle of ecosystems. We are already seeing water shortages in California and massive droughts have consumed Australia, which will then be followed by massive food shortages. Viruses, like malaria, that have certain climate-ranges have been seen to be increasing as well.
But, a word of relief, the sky is not falling yet. In December, leaders from all nations will be meeting to discuss a global climate treaty. Hopefully, our collective voice will be heard and we might finally see some meaningful environmental policy to help counteract and remediate what our species has already done. Obviously, this is a mere tip of the climate science realm, but the depth at which this subject penetrates could not be covered in a single post, but through the course of sifting through topics, maybe then you might gain a better understanding of the whole picture.
