Why do you think GW is such a difficult problem to solve?
Global Warming, in a nutshell, is basically the gradual increase in the temperature of the earth's atmosphere, due to the greenhouse effect; this is caused by increased levels of carbon dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons, and other pollutants in the Earth’s atmosphere. These so-called greenhouse gases trap infra-red radiation in the Earth’s atmosphere and prevent it from dissipating out to space. The radiation trapped in the atmosphere causes temperature changes. The reason for the massive increases of these substances in the atmosphere is mostly due to human activity, including the burning of fossil fuels. There are natural causes though, such as Methane from Cow feces, but the amount of ‘bad’ gases in the atmosphere is pre-dominantly due to humans; this is called anthropogenic interference.
Global Warming is the biggest hazard (It is a context hazard as it operates on a global scale) facing the Earth today and probably will be for decades unless something major is done about it as soon as possible. If nothing is done, a tipping point will be reached and it will change from a hazard into reality. The tipping point is the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, currently around 20ppm away from the TP (the current level is about 391.7ppm). According to estimates, the tipping point will be reached by the year 2015. Some scientists and geologists theorise that the tipping point has already been reached. When this happens, climate change will occur on a catastrophic scale due to the increased temperature of the Earth’s surface. Ocean currents will be disrupted, species will die out, there will be a massive increase in the amount of hydro-meteorological disasters (we can see this already; There has been a massive increase in flooding, windstorms & droughts in the last 40 years and there is a correlation between the increase and the change in the temperature of the Earth’s surface) and ice sheets will melt : Thousands of square miles of Arctic and Antarctic ice will melt (in turn raising sea levels and wiping out low-lying terrain, like the Maldives and Bangladesh) and ice sheets in Greenland will disappear. Also, permafrost in the northern hemisphere will melt and this will release gargantuan amounts of Methane into the atmosphere; this will make the problem even worse by increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere even further.
