Global warming is the process in which sunlight that is being redirected back into space gets trapped inside of the Earth’s atmosphere due to the abundance of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The more heat that is trapped and absorbed by such gases causes the overall temperature of Earth to rise. It is natural and anthropogenic – human induced – climate changes that are attributed to increased gases in the greenhouse effect, though anthropogenic changes play a larger role in global warming. Despite the fact that humans have been a major role in speeding up global warming, there are mitigation methods that would slow the rate of global warming, such as carbon taxing and clean coal technology. Thus, if countries are held more accountable
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As Holli Riebeek states, “The global average surface temperature rose 0.6 to 0.9 degrees Celsius (1.1 to 1.6° F) between 1906 and 2005, and the rate of temperature increase has nearly doubled in the last fifty years” (2010). If global warming was not actually taking place, such sudden jumps in surface temperature over the past fifty years wouldn’t have occurred. Instead, there would most likely have only been subtle increases as natural climate change would not have affected the earth in such ways. Riebeek goes on to explain that, “As the Earth moved out of ice ages over the past million years, the global temperature rose a total of 4 to 7 degrees Celsius over about 5,000 years. In the past century alone, the temperature has climbed 0.7 degrees Celsius, roughly ten times faster than the average rate of ice-age-recovery warming” (2010). This further shows that global warming is occurring due to the fact that surface temperatures are escalating much quicker over a much shorter period of time than in the past. Another point made by Riebeek is that natural climate changes are still occurring today as in the past, but their impact on earth’s atmosphere is either too insignificant or too prolonged to affect surface temperatures in such a way that has been …show more content…
These implementations are known as mitigation strategies. One mitigation strategy is known as clean coal technology. Coal is one of the most abundant fossil fuels used in the world; however it produces very large quantities of carbon dioxide into the air. Thus, if there was a way to make coal ‘clean’, it would be an efficient mitigation strategy. According to the World Nuclear Association, “The most promising 'clean coal ' technology involves using the coal to make hydrogen from water, then burying the resultant carbon dioxide by-product and burning the hydrogen,” (2015). However, they go on to say that, “The greatest challenge is bringing the cost of this down sufficiently for ‘clean coal’ to compete with nuclear power on the basis of near-zero emissions for base-load power. There is typically at least a 20% energy penalty involved in 'clean coal ' processes,” (2015). While clean coal technology sounds like a good mitigation strategy due to lower carbon dioxide emissions, the cost and lessened energy output would make it much less effective than using regular
As Holli Riebeek states, “The global average surface temperature rose 0.6 to 0.9 degrees Celsius (1.1 to 1.6° F) between 1906 and 2005, and the rate of temperature increase has nearly doubled in the last fifty years” (2010). If global warming was not actually taking place, such sudden jumps in surface temperature over the past fifty years wouldn’t have occurred. Instead, there would most likely have only been subtle increases as natural climate change would not have affected the earth in such ways. Riebeek goes on to explain that, “As the Earth moved out of ice ages over the past million years, the global temperature rose a total of 4 to 7 degrees Celsius over about 5,000 years. In the past century alone, the temperature has climbed 0.7 degrees Celsius, roughly ten times faster than the average rate of ice-age-recovery warming” (2010). This further shows that global warming is occurring due to the fact that surface temperatures are escalating much quicker over a much shorter period of time than in the past. Another point made by Riebeek is that natural climate changes are still occurring today as in the past, but their impact on earth’s atmosphere is either too insignificant or too prolonged to affect surface temperatures in such a way that has been …show more content…
These implementations are known as mitigation strategies. One mitigation strategy is known as clean coal technology. Coal is one of the most abundant fossil fuels used in the world; however it produces very large quantities of carbon dioxide into the air. Thus, if there was a way to make coal ‘clean’, it would be an efficient mitigation strategy. According to the World Nuclear Association, “The most promising 'clean coal ' technology involves using the coal to make hydrogen from water, then burying the resultant carbon dioxide by-product and burning the hydrogen,” (2015). However, they go on to say that, “The greatest challenge is bringing the cost of this down sufficiently for ‘clean coal’ to compete with nuclear power on the basis of near-zero emissions for base-load power. There is typically at least a 20% energy penalty involved in 'clean coal ' processes,” (2015). While clean coal technology sounds like a good mitigation strategy due to lower carbon dioxide emissions, the cost and lessened energy output would make it much less effective than using regular