The Government has warned about this, and unless very strict actions are put straight into action, the Earth will continue to heat up until there will be no future for mankind. If global warming continues as it has been so far, the average global temperature is estimated to increase by 0.5°C a decade. So by the end of the millennium, the average temperature will be too much for the human body to cope with. The result: mankind will die out. Even if we work very hard and stay to strict regimes it is probable that we will only be able to maintain this average temperature. People complain that it is too cold for them in winter, but the reality is, if we let this global warming get out of hand any more, it will seriously affect others in the world (where it is hottest) most.
Below shows a graph on how worrying our situation is already. The graph shows the increase and decrease of average temperature over the past two millennia, the main point is that until recently, all the global ‘warmings’ have evened themselves out, but all these increases in temperature have not been nearly as massive as that over the past century. There is only so much that Earth can ‘heal’ itself.
First, to tackle this problem we need to understand what actually causes global warming before we can actually tackle it. Because to tackle the problem, we need to tackle the causes.
The reason that the global temperature fluctuates so much is that the Earth goes through natural, internal processes such and external factors. These are due to solar activity, changes in the Earth’s orbit and things such as volcanic emissions. These activites bring the temperature up for a while before it goes back down. The irreversible change comes from greenhouse gas emmisions.
Greenhouse gases are substances that cause the ‘Greenhouse Effect’. These are methane, nitrous oxides, carbon dioxide (a main cause of this effect) along with ozone and water vapour. These gases stop the Sun’s solar radiation from leaving the atmosphere, it is re-emitted back to the Earth warming it further. The more Greenhouse Gases in the atmosphere the more radiation will be reflected back to further warm Earth. With the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation and factories, plenty of these gases are produced and so there is more radiation reflected back unto Earth and Global Warming is further contributed to.
The pie charts on the right here show what human processes cause the emission of Greenhouse Gases. Carbon Dioxide is by far a huge one with several tons of it being used up by each household in a year. As well as people learning to use the minimum of such sources that they need (such as turning the heating down a few degrees, ensuring that the washing machine always uses the coldest setting etc.) there needs to be changes made to things such as transportation, the disposal of waste and the processes by which items are made. Already there have been proposals of hydrogen-fueled cars etc. along with the current electrically powered trains, but even this comes with emissions. Hydrogen as a highly reactive element (in group one) is rarely found on it’s own. Energy needs to be used to separate the Hydrogen from another compound, and in this process, greenhouse gases are given off. There is truth in the fact that all these ‘improvements’ will have a significant effect in the slowing down of global warming, but with these emissions still being produced beyond an extent that can be coped with, a point will still come when mankind will no longer be able to cope. As matters are becoming more and more desperate, there have been proposals such as to use nuclear power, where a small amount of energy, exerted on certain atomic particles will give off a vast amount of energy in accordance with Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity.
This picture shows what a nuclear power plant looks like. Even this produces emissions but for the amount of energy it produces, it is very small. Also, there have been plans proposed for the ‘watering down’ of the emissions so that the gases do not escape into the atmosphere but form diluted acids.
