HowStuffWorks.com is an excellent resource for information concerning a plethora of topics and the material found there works as an excellent primer. I found this to be a good place to start when looking to understand global warming.
The site defines global warming as "a significant increase in the Earth's climatic temperature over a relatively short period of time as a result of the activities of humans." Global warming, the site explains, involves rapid warming of the planet. This could mean a temperature increase of 1° C between one and two centuries. This increase in temperature, the article explains, can have a devastating effect on the climate. The sea level is rising due to melting glaciers and storms are getting fiercer. "While scientists have not observed an increase in the number of tropical storms," the authors point out, "they have observed an increase in the intensity of such storms in the Atlantic correlated with a rise in ocean surface temperatures."
As a primer on global warming, the article does a good job at explaining multiple opinions of the issue. It explains that some people don't believe global warming is happening due to a lack of "long-term historical climate data" or misinterpretation of current data. Some consider the current climate shift as natural and/or "due to other factors than greenhouse gases." Even though most scientists are sure that global warming is happening, there are some who "don't believe that it is anything to be worried about. These scientists say that the Earth is more resistant to climate changes on this scale than we think."
One section of the article is titled "Can We Stop Global Warming?" To answer the question, the authors explain how individuals can do their part to minimize the affects of global warming. "Basically, they all boil down to this: Don't use as much of the stuff that creates greenhouse gases." The authors recommend "using less energy." The authors do not go into global solutions being looked at. However, since this is global warming, this is a global problem. To affect the kind of change that many would like to see, countries would have to work together both domestically and internationally. At the end of the article, the authors provide links to alternate sources, one of which is The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The authors clearly understand the importance of international dialogue on the subject of climate change.
Summary: http://trailfire.com/mdhaldane/trailview/75709
HowStuffWorks.com is an excellent resource for information concerning a plethora of topics and the material found there works as an excellent primer. I found this to be a good place to start when looking to understand global warming.
The site defines global warming as "a significant increase in the Earth's climatic temperature over a relatively short period of time as a result of the activities of humans." Global warming, the site explains, involves rapid warming of the planet. This could mean a temperature increase of 1° C between one and two centuries. This increase in temperature, the article explains, can have a devastating effect on the climate. The sea level is rising due to melting glaciers and storms are getting fiercer. "While scientists have not observed an increase in the number of tropical storms," the authors point out, "they have observed an increase in the intensity of such storms in the Atlantic correlated with a rise in ocean surface temperatures."
As a primer on global warming, the article does a good job at explaining multiple opinions of the issue. It explains that some people don't believe global warming is happening due to a lack of "long-term historical climate data" or misinterpretation of current data. Some consider the current climate shift as natural and/or "due to other factors than greenhouse gases." Even though most scientists are sure that global warming is happening, there are some who "don't believe that it is anything to be worried about. These scientists say that the Earth is more resistant to climate changes on this scale than we think."
One section of the article is titled "Can We Stop Global Warming?" To answer the question, the authors explain how individuals can do their part to minimize the affects of global warming. "Basically, they all boil down to this: Don't use as much of the stuff that creates greenhouse gases." The authors recommend "using less energy." The authors do not go into global solutions being looked at. However, since this is global warming, this is a global problem. To affect the kind of change that many would like to see, countries would have to work together both domestically and internationally. At the end of the article, the authors provide links to alternate sources, one of which is The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The authors clearly understand the importance of international dialogue on the subject of climate change.
This site also confronts the question of "is global warming real?" The article does not go in depth and quickly acknowledges that "as scientific knowledge has grown, this debate is moving away from whether humans are causing warming and toward questions of how best to respond."
National Geographic also provides some details on air pollution, which is credited as the leading cause of global warming. National Geographic explains: "Though living things emit carbon dioxide when they breathe, carbon dioxide is widely considered to be a pollutant when associated with cars, planes, power plants, and other human activities that involve the burning of fossil fuels such as gasoline and natural gas. In the past 150 years, such activities have pumped enough carbon dioxide into the atmosphere to raise its levels higher than they have been for hundreds of thousands of years." The page on air pollution also provides links to photo galleries that show the effect of these pollutants across the globe. The photos of smog covered skylines in China and Las Angeles are especially telling. To affect global change, countries and cities will have to work locally to cut down on these types of pollutants.
This page contains an excellent interactive guide called "Crisis Guide: Climate Change" put out by the Council on Foreign Relations. The topics are divided into chapters and subtopics and are presented through video interviews, text, and hyperlinks. It's like an interactive textbook and makes for a very good learning experience.
This site goes more in-depth about global warming than the previous two. Michael A. Levi and David G. Victor, two of the people interviewed in the guide, offer up actions governments might take to start providing a solution to climate change. Not all governments will employ the same tools, Levi explains. Some governments may choose to put a tax on carbon thus increasing the cost of actions that emit more carbon. Another action a government might take is banning incandescent light bulbs thus requiring the use of fluorescent or LED lights. These require "less energy use, which means less emission of carbon dioxide." A country like China, Levi points out, is not likely or able to use the same methods as a country like the U.S. or Japan. China is very concerned about its long-term growth and catching up with the world's most developed countries by protecting its "energy security;" so China is more likely to try something along the lines of "mandating that by 2020, 15% of its energy will come from renewable sources."
Levi also confronts the issue of coming to international agreement. The UN outlines "common but differentiated responsibilities" in confronting climate change. To sustain economic growth, developing countries can't afford to cut emissions and some can't (or aren't will to) even maintain current emission levels. China, for example, has made a lot of economic advancement while rapidly increasing pollution within its country due to the growth in the number of factories. On the other side, developed countries like the U.S. do not necessarily risk the hit to their economy by changing strategies even though they pump out the most emissions. However, developed countries would have a much easier transition to new sources of energy than developing countries.
When discussing the options for reducing the effects of climate change, the guide says "most experts and policymakers agree that the most substantial progress will result from focusing on some mix of the following: an international framework for action, emissions trading and offsets, carbon taxes, adaptation, forest management, and energy conservation." In trying to find means of cutting CO2 emissions, the guide explains that people are "looking at more nuclear power, hydro power, wind and solar, biofuels, mass transportation, and flood control."
The website for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has a lot of information on climate change. Like all the previous sites, there is basic information about climate change and greenhouse gas emissions along with the science of climate change. Most pertinent, however, is the section on "U.S. Climate Policy," which includes how the country is working with the international community to solve this problem.
Here the U.S. states its commitment to the UNFCCC and the "stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that prevents dangerous human-induced interference with the climate system."
Having pages dedicated to multilateral and bilateral solutions to climate change highlights the effects of climate change on foreign relations. This being a global issues, countries are trying to work together in a way that will mutually benefit everyone involved. To see all the actions the U.S. is taking with other countries to combat climate change, simply go to "International Cooperation" under "U.S. Climate Policy."
The site also contains a section called "Health and Environmental Effects." This section goes through the effects climate change has on human health, the food supply, ecosystems, and more. There is no shortage of negative consequences pointed out here. We could potentially see an increase in "event-related deaths, injuries, infectious diseases, and stress-related disorders," "increased potential for droughts, floods and heat waves" that can severely damage "crop production in certain regions," and the possible extinction of "20 percent to 30 percent of species." And those are just three examples. This is clearly and environmental issue on a global scale.
This page from the UNFCCC site provides information on the Kyoto Protocol. The protocol takes its name from the place it was adopted: Kyoto, Japan. This international agreement was adopted in 1997 and "entered into force on 16 February 2005." It is meant to bring the international community together by accepting a standard on cutting national emissions to stem global warming. The protocol has been ratified by 184 countries so far but the United States, the largest emitter of CO2 in the world, still has not ratified it.
Explained here are the methods the Kyoto Protocol promotes for cutting emissions and the full text of the document itself.
The 2007 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali, hosted by the Government of Indonesia, "brought together more than 10,000 participants, including representatives of over 180 countries together with observers from intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations and the media." This was a big step in terms of opening an international dialogue about climate change.
In his closing remarks, the president of the conference proclaimed, "We have a roadmap!" Even though there is still debate on what exactly countries will do to confront climate change and reduce emissions, the fact that so many countries were able to get together and have a dialogue on this global issue is important and good for international relations. All the decisions and resolutions from this conference can be found at this site.
This site contains the full publication of Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis. This publication was put together and published by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The study is meant to provide scientific evidence for climate change and how to proceed.
Some of the important points made are:
"The global average surface temperature has increased over the 20th century by about 0.6°C."
"Emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols due to human activities continue to alter the atmosphere in ways that are expected to affect the climate."
"Confidence in the ability of models to project future climate has increased."
"There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities."
The 2007 report determined that "the understanding of anthropogenic warming and cooling influences on climate has improved since the TAR, leading to very high confidence that the global average net effect of human activities since 1750 has been one of warming."
"Human influences will continue to change atmospheric composition throughout the 21st century."
"Global average temperature and sea level are projected to rise under all IPCC SRES scenarios."
Most of what is said about global warming in the first few links in this trail are backed up with scientific evidence in this report. The reports put out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are very important in this manner. They provide the backbone to the arguments for change and have rallied together much of the scientific community. However, the IPCC is not free of criticism.
After the 2001 IPCC report, Gerald E. Marsh wrote Climate Change 2001: A Critique for The National Center for Public Policy Research. Marsh uses a common critique on those so certain of global warming concerning the later increase in human activity does not account for the earlier increases. He writes, "One might ask why the temperature begins to rise so dramatically at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution before the emission of substantial amounts of carbon dioxide." A similar criticism used is that the climate reports show 1998 to be the warmest year on record, yet emissions have not decreased since then.
Marsh questions the accuracy of how certain data was collected. This includes Solar Forcing. "Total solar irradiance in the past is difficult to determine and may—for the period since the Maunder Minimum (associated with the Little Ice Age) of the mid-1600s to the early 1700s—have an uncertainty of anywhere from 1 to 15 watts per square meter (W/m2)." In addition, Marsh claims that "over the last 12,000 years every centennial time scale increase in drift ice in the north Atlantic was probably a result of reduced solar output."
The Cato Institute is a libertarian think tank. Many libertarians are skeptical about global warming as a "crisis." Cato Unbound was created to inspire a month long debate and dialogue on current hot topics. In August 2008, Cato chose global warming as the topic.
The lead essay for the global warming topic is written by Jim Manzi. In it, he rails against carbon tax or a cap-and-trade emissions as having too negative an impact on the economy to make up for any positive gain in cutting emmissions. Ultimately, Manzi comes to the conclusion that "the loss of economic and technological development that would be required to eliminate literally all theorized climate change risk would cripple our ability to deal with virtually every other foreseeable and unforeseeable risk, not to mention our ability to lead productive and interesting lives in the meantime."
Though Manzi sees a carbon tax as a poor investment and waste of money, he does offer up some other, much cheaper solutions. Manzi thinks that it might help to offer up a high cash prize (he recommends $1 billion) to find technology that will take CO2 out of the atmosphere and then offer the technology free to the rest of the world. Though this seems expensive, it would amount to "a one-time cost of less than 0.01% of U.S. GDP."
The rest of the page is full of responding essays with points and counter-points. The bottom of the page also has links to other resources. Cato tends to argue things from a unique perspective and often takes economics into account where other studies do not. Cato is very much concerned with finding solutions to problems that do not involve the devastating blow to the economy, especially when the effects of global warming are still being debated. Finding a solution to the economic problems associated with global warming solutions could be vital in finding an international consensus.
In Geoengineering the Climate: History and Prospect, David W. Keith argues for "large-scale manipulation of the environment." Should countries not do what is required or act in time to stop global warming, Keith provides a solution that involves using modern technology to change the atmosphere.
Even though geoengineering is controversial, it may get to a point where there is no other choice than to change the environment ourselves. Keith explains that a recent experiment "demonstrated that modification of albedo can compensate for increased CO2 with remarkable fidelity." One method of increasing albedo is aerosols. "Aerosols can increase albedo either directly by optical scattering or indirectly by acting as cloud condensation nuclei that increase the albedo and lifetime of clouds by decreasing the mean droplet size." Keith also explores the options of using solar shields in space.
Given the lack of consensus in the international community over what to do about global warming and if the effects wind up being bad enough, it may very well get to the point where using modern technology to maintain the earth is necessary. International consensus won't be needed because countries will use technology as they need it. It wouldn't make sense for a country to destroy itself by refusing try to alter the atmosphere. While the author meant for this to be a last resort, it could wind up being the world's best chance to agree on any specific action when it's too late for everything else.
For another view on geoengineering, I'm providing this link to a video of a lecture on the topic given by Ken Caldeira.
