Human Activity and Climate Change: Is There a Significant Correlation?

Human Activity and Climate Change: Is There a Significant Correlation?

        The Earth’s drastic temperature and climate change is a widely controversial topic of discussion between environmentally-concerned individuals. Scientists are rushing to discover the main causes of climate change like detectives, collecting as much proof to cancel out current theories and inquiries, including the idea that humans have little to no impact on climate change. Centuries of research prove that human activity is responsible for a large percentage of climate change visible over the last 100 years, as the increase of atmospheric CO2 struck at a much faster rate than natural climate change could allow. The average temperature of the land over the past 100 years has advanced at a rate faster than any time in the past 11,300 years (Jian-Bin et al. 39). Also, natural changes in the sun’s activity cannot logically explain 20th century climate change because the sun only had a small effect on the atmosphere over the past 1,000 years (Taylor et al. 400-402). Ultimately, measurements in the upper atmosphere from 1979-2009 proved that the sun’s energy fluctuates with no net increase, proving that the quick escalation in quantities of atmospheric greenhouse gasses are a direct result of human activities, such as burning fossil fuels (Jankovic and Schultz 34).

The global industrial revolution changed the world forever for the human race. Overall, fossil fuels are a relic presented upon us by the biosphere long-ago. Photosynthetic organisms like algae, absorbed most of the CO2, and used it to create copious amounts organic substances (Taylor et al. 403-404). When these photosynthetic systems perished, they submerged inside of the earth and gradually evolved into coal and oil. Humans burned large amounts of these fossil fuels to fire the engines of their emerging technical and global societies since the 1800s. Consequently, the released CO2 from the fuels went straight into the atmosphere, creating a rise in the levels of atmospheric CO2 (Jankovic and Schultz 29). Carbon dioxide makes up a tiny part of the atmosphere, and no predicted escalation would affect the respiratory system, but CO2 has another noteworthy trait: it absorbs heat. The other major components, like oxygen and nitrogen gas, do not (Jian-Bin et al. 42). Global carbon dioxide concentrations have increased by roughly 125 parts-per notation. Currently, three billion tons of CO2 are inserted into the Earth’s atmosphere every year (Hennes et al. 763-765). Scientists can reasonably come to the conclusion that Earth’s global temperatures should rise along with the concentrations specifically because carbon dioxide is a powerful greenhouse gas. In circumstance, climatologists detected a rise in worldwide temperatures throughout the past decades, finding that six of the last ten years experienced the hottest average temperatures in history so far (Jankovic and Schultz 31-32).

The global warming controversy concerns the public debate over whether or not the rise in worldwide average temperatures is caused primarily by human activity. The pro-side of scientists believe that human impact on the climate system is transparent because anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases are currently the record high in history (Jian-Bin et al. 44). They argue that new climate transformations have caused widespread impacts on both human and natural structures. Pro-scientists claim that many of the detected fluctuations are unparalleled over decades to millennia. Also, they assert that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions levels enlarged heavily since the pre-industrial era, compelled mainly by technological and populace development, and are currently at their highest level in history (Hennes et al. 757-758). Pro-scientists trust that this specifically has led to high atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane and their consequences, collected with those of supplementary anthropogenic motorists, were noticed in the climate structure and are exceedingly probable to be the dominant cause of the witnessed warming since the 20th century (Jankovic and Schultz 27). In contrast, con-scientists argue that there is not enough scientific verifications that anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide are the leading source of the warming of the Earth’s atmosphere throughout the past several decades. They use the circumstance that an Ice Age occurred 450 million years ago when CO2 was 10 times higher than today (Hennes et al. 768-769). Con-scientists believe that there is little to no proof to back a straight fundamental correlation amongst CO2 and global warmth throughout the ages. To con-scientists, higher temperatures and an Ice Age directly at the same time while CO2 emissions were at their highest contradicts the idea that human-caused CO2 emissions are the main cause of global temperature increase (Jian-Bin et al. 40).

 Unfortunately for con-scientists that believe that the earth goes through natural solar temperature fluctuations, the rapid increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide over the last century alone was evidently caused by human activity, mainly because it occurred at a frequency far speedier than ordinary climate changes alone could yield (Hennes et al. 756-758). According to “Atmosfear: Communicating the Effects of Climate Change on Extreme Weather”, the tremendous increase in the rate at which carbon dioxide levels are rising is unmatched. A surge of 10 parts-per million would have needed roughly one millennium to pass as a normal climate change fluctuation (Jankovic and Schultz 28-32). On top of that, the specific type of carbon dioxide that is increasing in the atmosphere is straightforwardly linked to anthropogenic emissions (Jankovic and Schultz 34-35). Carbon dioxide formed by the heating of fossil fuels, like coal and oil, can be separated in the atmosphere from natural carbon dioxide due to its’ individual isotopic proportion. According to 20th century measurements of carbon dioxide isotope proportions, the rising carbon dioxide levels are confirmed to be the result of human activity, not natural processes, such as volcanic commotion (Taylor et al. 411-412).

There are numerous ways to contribute to the reduction of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, but the type and the amount of energy consumed are the most impactful. The first challenge would be to eliminate the burning of fossil fuels and natural gas. This is the most overwhelming task, as most nations rely on products produced from fossilized fuels. Oil is the base of the global budget, buried in numerous universal objects, like plastic and corn, and vital to the transport of both shoppers and merchandise (Hennes et al. 756-757). Coal supplies a major part of the energy in the U.S. alone and approximately half globally. In place of using fossilized fuels, employing substitutes like biodiesel and wind energy, the earth could halt and eventually regulate the increase in temperatures worldwide (Taylor et al. 394). Although alternative energy seems like the best way to combat global warming, biofuels can drive up food prices making it even harder for developing countries to catch up to the current modernized world (Taylor et al. 397-398). But even converting only the developed nations to bio-energy would heavily support the reduction of anthropogenic emissions. An even simpler method would be to encourage citizens of each developed nation to consume less energy. Citizens of almost all developed nations have normalized the idea of wasting energy, going out of their way to leave lights on and even speed in gas-guzzling sports vehicles. Simply employing more efficient refrigerators and air conditioners can also reduce the anthropogenic footprint of developed nations (Hennes et al. 765-67). To help encourage these changes, governments should grant incentives for industries, neighborhoods, and individuals who choose to convert to atmosphere-friendly methods of energy through tax breaks for contributing to the reduction of global dependency on fossil fuels.

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