Global Warming: Are Humans Affecting The Earth?

Global warming is a huge problem that is currently affecting the entire Earth. However, this climate change has been present for millions and millions of years, but recently it has been rapidly increasing. Many people are unaware of the resulting consequences of global warming, how they really are affecting this Earth, and what steps to take to create a solution. Many people also question who is to blame for this rapid increase. Are humans solely to blame for global warming, or is it bound to happen by natural causes? Scientific evidence and much research are giving that answer. Human behaviors are the source of the rapid increase in global warming. Global warming can be described in many ways. By definition, global warming is the unusually rapid increase in Earths average surface temperature over the past century primarily due to the greenhouse gasses released by people burning fossil fuels (3). In other words, carbon dioxide and other global warming pollutants are collection in the atmosphere like a thickening blanket, trapping the suns heat and causing the planet to heat up (7). All in all, global warming is one of the world’s most pressing problems (9). It cannot just be ignored. Human …show more content…
However, these causes are not anything like the human causes. There are very few natural causes of global warming that come into play. Also, these contributors’ influences are too small and occur too slowly to even come close to explaining the rapid warming seen in recent decades (3). The sun is one natural contributor (4). The sun does produce heat to the Earth, but not even close to enough heat to affect us or the Earth in a very long time (4). Another contributor is volcanic eruptions (3). Eruptions emit a mixture of gasses into the air that in return have a cooling effect reflecting sunlight away from the Earth. These eruptions also contribute to the greenhouse effect by emitting carbon dioxide which causes global