Global Climate Change

The global climate change seriously depends on global warming. The temperature of Earth relies on the equilibrium between the energy coming in and out of the planet. The Earth system absorbs the incoming energy from the sun, which results in warming of the planet. On the other hand, if the energy of the sun is repulsed back into space, the Earth avoids warming, and it cools. Numerous agents, both natural and human (anthropogenic), can provoke alterations in Earth’s energy equilibrium. These can be the alterations in the greenhouse effect, which influences the quantity of warm repulsed by the Earth’s atmosphere.

The changes in the sun’s energy, which reaches the Earth, can also upset equilibrium. Finally, these can be the alterations in the reflectivity of the atmosphere and superficies of the Earth. Human activity and indifference are the key reasons for the current ecological situation and climate change. The climate change persuasive essay will demonstrate it analyzing major human reasons for climate change, including population expansion, air pollution, and agriculture utilization. Finally, climate change persuasive essay will demonstrate possible solutions to the problems and ways of adapting a new greener lifestyle.

Basic Scientific Processes and Research Practices

All of these agents have provoked Earth’s climate to alter for many times. Scientists have created a general picture of Earth’s climate, tracing the climate back hundreds of thousands of years. It is easy to understand the climate changes while analyzing different implied features of the climate including ice cores, tree rings, glacier duration, pollen remnants, and ocean precipitate, and investigating alterations in the orbit of the Earth around the sun (Anderson, 2012, p. 39).

The historical protocol demonstrates that the climate system differs and changes naturally over a considerable period of time. Generally speaking, climate alterations, which appeared before the Industrial Revolution of the 1700s, can be explained by natural reasons including the alterations in the solar energy, volcanic effusions, and natural shifts of the greenhouse gas concentrations (Anderson, 2012, p. 21). On the other hand, recent climate shifts cannot be outlined by natural reasons alone. The research will demonstrate that natural reasons and causes are very unlikely to outline the majority of the discovered warming, particularly warming appearing since the middle of the 20th century. Therefore, in most cases, human activities are likely to become the key reason for global warming and global climate change (Anderson, 2012, p. 24).

The Greenhouse Effect

Global warming appears as a result of the greenhouse effect. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is an atmospheric element that performs a number of imperative functions in the environment. Most importantly, it occludes infrared radiation in the atmosphere (Casper, 2010, p. 17). It performs an important function in the rock deflation. Moreover, it performs a function of the raw material for photosynthesis, and its carbon is included in the organic medium in the biosphere and can be ultimately accumulated in the Earth in a form of the fossil fuels (Casper, 2010, p. 24).

As it was already mentioned earlier, some of the sunlight is repulsed back into space, due to the level of albedo (also known as reflectivity) of the surface (Casper, 2010, p. 17). Another part of the sunlight is occluded by the Earth and retained in a form of thermal energy. Afterward, this warm is reradiated and is viewed as infrared radiation with longer wavelengths. In fact, the dominant atmospheric gases, including nitrogen and oxygen, are limpid to infrared, while the greenhouse gasses, which include water vapor (H2O), carbon dioxide (CO2), and methane (CH4), occlude some quantity of the infrared radiation. These gases gather this warm energy and retain, suspending its transmission back into space out of the Earth’s atmosphere (Casper, 2010, p. 34).

In fact, greenhouse gases have serious warming effects on the global climate as the global medium temperature is approximately 15°C (59°F) (Black, Hassenzahl & Stephens, 2013, p. 211). In the case when there would be no greenhouse gases, the global medium temperature would be much lower, approximately -18°C (0°F) (Black, Hassenzahl & Stephens, 2013, p. 211). Therefore, it is obvious that greenhouse gases induce the world's global warming and climate change. After the industrial revolution, people started to burn huge quantities of fossil fuels including oil, coal, natural gas, gasoline in all kinds of plants, transportation systems, etc. Nevertheless, people sometimes forget that this combustion exonerates carbon dioxide into the atmosphere (Black, Hassenzahl & Stephens, 2013, p. 223).

Methods of Climate Change Study

The climate of the Earth has alternated during the whole history of the planet's existence. The majority of the climate shifts are ascribed to small changes in Earth’s orbit, which alter the quantity of the solar energy that our planet obtains. The present warming tendency is of specific importance due to the fact that almost all climate changes are human-induced and are appearing at unprecedented for the last 1,300 years rate. Earth-orbiting satellites, together with other technical developments, have allowed scientists to observe a huge picture of the Earth’s problems while gathering all existing global data types concerning our planet and its climate. The analysis of this climate information gathered over the years has revealed the signals of an altering climate. In fact, it is quite easy to demonstrate that climate change is actually and truly appearing (Black, Hassenzahl & Stephens, 2013, p. 620).

• Firstly, elevated levels of greenhouse gases can be easily measured, and they obviously provoke the Earth to become warmer. In fact, the warm-trapping nature of CO2 and other gases had been demonstrated more than fifty years ago. The current ratios of all greenhouse gases are controlled and measured by various instruments flown by NASA (Black, Hassenzahl & Stephens, 2013, p. 846).
• Secondly, it is quite easy to notice climate changes with the help of ice cores. In fact, ice kernels are taken from Antarctica, Greenland, or even the tropical mountain glaciers demonstrate that the climate of the planet reacts to the alterations in greenhouse gas ratios (Black, Hassenzahl & Stephens, 2013, p. 1205).
• Thirdly, the global protocol demonstrates that the sea level increased. This level increased to approximately 17 centimeters (which is 6.7 inches) during the last hundred years. Moreover, the rise of the sea level almost doubled the previous figure only during the last decade.
• Fourthly, there is an obvious increase in global temperature. The scientific analysis demonstrates that the Earth started to become warmer since 1880. The major part of this process appeared after the 1970s. The statistics demonstrate that the 20 warmest years appeared after 1981 while 10 warmest years occurred during the last 12 years (Black, Hassenzahl & Stephens, 2013, p. 404).
• Fifthly, there is clear warming of the oceans. In fact, the oceans have occluded the major part of the elevated heat. This process caused the warming of the World ocean by 0.302 degrees Fahrenheit starting from 1969 (Black, Hassenzahl & Stephens, 2013, p. 1558).
• Sixthly, ice sheets are shrinking, which clearly portrays climate change. The Antarctic and the Greenland ice sheets have lowered in their aggregation. The data presented by NASA demonstrates that Greenland, for example, forfeited approximately 250 cubic kilometers of ice every year starting from 2002, at the same time when Antarctica forfeited approximately 152 cubic kilometers of ice annually (Black, Hassenzahl & Stephens, 2013, p. 760).
• Seventhly, climate change provokes glaciers retreating, and this natural phenomenon can be considered as one of the most important in the understanding that the climate is genuinely altering. In fact, glaciers are receding practically everywhere around the globe, including the ones in the Himalayas, Alaska, the Alps, Andes, etc.

Finally, the last sign of the climate change concerns ocean acidification (Black, Hassenzahl & Stephens, 2013, p. 1094). As a matter of fact, the acidity of the ocean waters' upper layer has been increased by more than 30 percent. This rising is the result of humans emitting higher levels of CO2 into the atmosphere; thus, the greater quantity of greenhouse gases has been absorbed by oceans. The general quantity of CO2 occluded by the upper ocean layer is growing by more than 2 billion tons each year (Black, Hassenzahl & Stephens, 2013, p. 980).

Major Anthropogenic Causes of Climate Change

Human Population Growth

The greatest sole hazard to the ecology and biodiversity of our planet concerns climate abruption caused by the expansion of the human-induced greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. People around the globe are starting to refer to this issue by lowering their carbon footprint by limiting their carbon consumption and utilization and using better technologies (Anderson, 2012, p. 45). Nevertheless, unstable human population expansion can overflow all of the above-mentioned attempts, causing people to understand that the planet requires not only smaller footprints but also a smaller amount of them.

The connection between population increase and global warming defined that the “carbon legacy” of merely one infant can generate 20 times more greenhouse gases than an individual will preserve by driving an eco-car, constantly recycling, utilizing energy-effective implements, etc. Each infant born in the US will provide additional 9,441 metric tons of CO2 to the “carbon legacy” of an average parent (Black, Hassenzahl & Stephens, 2013, p. 779).

Thus, there is no doubt that the human population expansion is a key depositor to the global warming, especially if we understand that all people utilize fossil fuels in order to actuate their progressively mechanized modes of life. A higher number of people presuppose a higher requirement of gas, oil, coal, or other fuels, which will be later burned. Therefore, the higher emission of CO2 into the atmosphere will transform the Earth into a greenhouse. The statistics demonstrate that the human population increased from 1.6 billion to 6.1 billion people within the 20th century. This moment is worth analyzing. It took thousands of years for the population to reach 1.6 billion in total, and it took only one century to increase this figure by five (Anderson, 2012, p. 16).

It definitely has negative effects on the climate and the planet itself. Thus, firstly, abrupt population expansion operates in a tandem with climate alteration for draining major natural resources including fuel, water, and soil fertility. Secondly, it can provoke an essential elevation in the demand and frequent misrule of natural resources, which are depleted as a result of environmental change and climate alterations (Maslin, 2014, p. 179).

Thirdly, population expansion aggrandizes human exposure to climate change in numerous methods and can provoke people to migrate to locations, which are not extreme in terms of the environment. For instance, population expansion in Ethiopia results in soil demission, tapering of land holdings, and decreased agricultural performance, which puts more pressure on poor people and makes them migrate either to environmentally extreme or urban locations (Maslin, 2014, p. 179). This makes them more sensitive and more likely to embrace fresh resources in an unsustainable manner, provoking a vicious cycle of penury and demission.

Air Pollution

Air pollution definitely alters the climate of our planet. Nevertheless, it is important to know that not all types of air pollution demonstrate the analogous effect. There are a number of various kinds of air pollution. Some kinds provoke the accelerating of global warming. Other types allow global warming to retard by generating a provisional cooling impact, which can last from a few days to weeks. In fact, air pollution incorporates greenhouse gases (Anderson, 2012, p. 75). Carbon dioxide is one of them, and it is widely known that CO2 is an ordinary constituent of cars and trucks exhaust. Thus, the facts show that the increase of global warming and climate change is caused by car exhaust and pollutants acquired from smoke pipes at various factories and power plants (Anderson, 2012, p. 75).

Nevertheless, it is important to remember that some pollutants decelerate global warming. In fact, vehicles and smoke pipes also discharge small fractions into the atmosphere. These small fractions are known as aerosols. They can be created of various things, including mineral fug, carbon, sulfates, or even sea salt. Some of these fractions appear in the atmosphere in a natural way. They can be fug upraised into the atmosphere from deserts, vaporizing ocean droplets, etc. The overall effect of aerosols is cooling. On the other hand, air pollution created by human beings while combusting fossil fuels has a negative effect on the atmosphere. Their influence on the atmosphere can be almost similar to the impact of greenhouse gases. The latter remains in the atmosphere for years and provoke warming around the globe. Computer frameworks demonstrate that small aerosol particles create approximately half as much cooling as greenhouse gases provoke warming.

Agriculture

Agriculture is known to be accountable for about one-third of the existing climate change. The facts indicate that 25 percent of carbon dioxide emissions are created by agricultural sources, especially deforestation, the usage of fossil fuel-grounded manures, and biomass combustion. Domestic ruminants, forest fires, marsh rice growing, and waste products generate a major part of the methane. On the other hand, conventional plowing and fertilizer utilization are responsible for 70 percent of the nitrous oxides. Human creativity resulted in technological development in agriculture, which has provoked stable growth in crop yields, which have been supposed to meet population expansion. Nevertheless, intensive agricultural modes and appliances have harmful impacts on the environment.

The agricultural sector has become the key driving vigor in gas emissions and land utilization impacts. Agriculture influences climate change in different ways. Firstly, CO2 emissions are closely connected with deforestation as the level of the gas increases in the territories, where woods and forests are ruined in order to create fields or pastures. Secondly, rice cultivations combined with the enteric fermentation in cattle increases the emission of methane. Thirdly, the usage of fertilizers elevates the ratios of nitrous oxide. When all of these influences are combined, the agricultural processes become responsible for more than 54 percent of the methane emissions, more than 80 percent of the nitrous oxide emissions, and practically all carbon dioxide emissions connected with the land usage.

Solutions and Adaptations

People already know that diving a car, utilization of electricity in order to light and heat houses, and garbage wasting provokes greenhouse gas emissions and the following changes in the climate. In order to solve the existing difficulties with ecology, people should get used to the reduction of emissions via plain operations like recycling, driving a bicycle, using less water, and saving electricity. Firstly, it is important to make the house more efficient and greener. The human houses are known to contribute a large share of the planet’s overall carbon emissions. Therefore, each individual is responsible for the current ecological situation and should make a change towards the reduction of the environmental impact of their houses or flats.

• Firstly, it is crucial to invest in double glazing because it allows for saving electricity during cold periods of the year.
• Secondly, it is important to remember to turn off everything from the socket when the appliances are not required and used.
• Thirdly, it is essential to focus on energy-efficient ecological models of domestic and electrical equipment as they allow not only limiting the environmental footprints but saving the bills.
• Fourthly, it is crucial to insulate a house or a flat, which will help to save electricity during winter.

This is only the beginning, and it is the easiest part. In order to solve the existing problem, people should think about changing the existing lifestyles to greener ones. In fact, everything people do during the day emits carbon dioxide into the air. Even a slight change in lifestyle can have a very positive effect. This effect will become even greater when the attempts of one individual will be combined with hundreds and thousands of other people.

First of all, it is important to get used to walking, cycling, taking public transport, or taking additional passengers in the car in order not to drive alone. Next, it is crucial to get used to recycling. It will take some time to adapt to a new lifestyle and to sort all kinds of waste, but it is worth it. Furthermore, it is essential to make all attempts in using less water, for instance, it is much better for the health to take showers but not baths; it saves, in addition, water and ecology. Each person can find individual possibilities of saving ecology in his/her personal lifestyle. Nevertheless, it is significant to become greener not only at home but also at work. There is a tendency of not switching appliances when employees go home from the office.

The person might be the first to do it and everybody else should support this attempt. This will help to create new green environmental policies in the company or make the existing one even greener. Last but not least is understanding that information rules the world. Therefore, it is highly important to educate future generations. The future prevention of climate change and global warming is the responsibility of the future generation; therefore, it is significant to educate them now.

The current climate change persuasive essay demonstrated that the urgent problem of climate change is very serious and, in fact, human-generated. In fact, the human population increased by almost 5 billion during one century only. Due to the rapid population growth, mankind required more food, more fossil fuels, etc., which led to an increase in CO2 emissions. Therefore, the slight change to the greener lifestyle can seriously improve the ecological state of our planet. All current ecological problems are the result of the last two generations' activity. We are responsible for these problems. In fact, we are not the last generation living on this planet; thus, we should make all the efforts to save the Earth for our children and all other future generations.

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