Introduction
One of the core issues on today’s eco agenda is whether global warming is affected by manmade factors or is it a purely natural phenomenon. Recent scientific reports and statistical numbers prove that humans are causing climate to change 170 times faster than natural forces. This view is supported by the overwhelming majority of scientists arguing that global warming is due to human activity.
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"Do We Know That Humans Are The Major Cause Of Global Warming?".
Body
Manmade factors have driven exceptionally rapid rates of change in the Earth system.
The continuous industrialization of the world economy has caused serious impacts on the global climate system. Various manmade forces cause climate changes and result in global warming. According to the U.S. government researchers, human activities are the major cause of global warming. The NPR states that the past 115 years have been the warmest in modern history. At that, the warmest 12-year-period has lasted since 1998. Reportedly, the change per century amounts to estimated 0.01 degrees Celsius (Joyce 1). The anthropogenic effects cause climate change and global warming that provoke serious shifts in global ecosystem. The major threat is the constantly increasing emissions of CO2 in atmosphere resulting in the rise of temperature levels.
While we witness the burning of the Amazon rainforests, millions of tons of CO2 emissions get into the atmosphere. The process will assumingly end in a substantial temperature rise by the end of the century. The opposing view popular among many scientists is that the CO2 emissions do not directly impact the atmospheric shifts in temperature. Providing that CO2 causes the warming of the Earth, the temperature rise levels should be the highest in tropics. These pro-natural assumptions tend to indicate that human forces do not affect the global warming. Nonetheless, such an assumption is purely hypothetical. It is part of conspiracy while the mainstream trend is that global warming is due to manmade factors that provoke carbon dioxide CO2 emissions to the atmosphere.
The agricultural, industrial and other human activities have led to the increased concentrations of greenhouse gases. There is a great deal of empirical evidence proving CO2 effects on the continuously rising temperatures. The burning of fossil fuels (including coal and oil) over the last century has led to the increased concentration carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere. As a result of the burning process, carbon mixes with oxygen and result in CO2 emissions. Because of the excessive CO2 emissions, the Earth gets warmer gradually. Hence, the most adverse manmade effect is burning of fossil fuels leading to the increased amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere.
The manmade greenhouse gas emissions over the past 45 years caused the temperature rise to 1.7 degrees Celsius per century. This number alone proves a staggering climate change being 170 times faster compared to the natural forces. The average temperature increase of 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit is mainly due to the greenhouse gases received from agriculture and industry. In its turn, the Climate Science Special Report issued by National Climate Assessment (NCA) acknowledges the continuation of threatening trend of the global climate warming. The amount of greenhouse gases (including carbon dioxide) is the major indicator. The implementation of actions aimed at major reductions in emissions is the optimal scenario to cease further rise in global temperatures. According to the Climate Science Special Report, the rising temperatures have also led to heavy rain falls, hurricanes, the increase of forest fires, and the sea level rise. The 3 inches increase since 1993 has marked the fastest rate in the past 2,800 years (Joyce 2).
The best way out is to imply environmental taxes to reduce socio-economic disruptions. According to the Stern Review, global GDP can be saved from the adverse effects of climate change by spending 1% per annum. In the Report (2006) Nicholas Stern insisted on significant emission cuts on the international scale. Climate changes, if not reduced, would increase climate sensitivity to greenhouse gases and intensify global warming. Stern’s stance proves that the current climate change is the direct result of human activities. Market forces work on and deploy low quality carbon technologies which cause rapid climate changes. Thus, the promotion of ethics and more sustainable corporate environmental responsibility is a must considering the threatening trends of global warming. It is, therefore, high time policymakers and companies took immediate action to radically cope with the increasing problem. In 2006, Stern’s Report showed the realistic state of affairs by emphasizing major global warming threats.
However, many of the radical measures proposed by Stern were harshly criticized. The critics claimed that the immediate response offered by Stern would have required considerable emission cuts on the global scale. Despite Stern used incorrect discount rate, the proponents of the Report agreed with the fact that he drawn conclusions were justified. Eventually, the imposition of carbon tax received approval back then. By mid-2008, however, the situation had worsened due to the rapidly increasing climate change tendencies. Consequently, Stern recommended the increase up to 2% of global GDP (Sterner and Persson, 2008).
Conclusion
The climate change issues are high on the global agenda and present a tough issue to the environmental experts, economists and policymakers. The international community should come up with effective responses to the atmospheric challenges due to manmade forces. This paper proves that the latter negatively affect the environment and economies on the international scale. Socio-economic shifts due to the increasing climate changes threaten sustainable development in many regions across the world. While changing the impact of the natural factors on climate change and global warming is a tough task, still the world leaders and stakeholders should try their best to reduce the hazardous effects of the manmade activities on the environment.
Overall, the majority of climate change experts argue that manmade effects that boost the climate changes present the major hazard. Therefore the challenging task is to pursue feasible mechanisms to optimize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere and eliminate the hazardous anthropogenic effects on the global climate system. The elimination of greenhouse gases is still the number one problem which indicates the anthropological impact on climate change.
The research findings prove that human activities cause more intensive impact on the climate change than the natural forces. This fact calls for committed actions and responses on all possible levels. He world leaders, international institutions, governments, companies and organizations should pursue more environmentally responsible (eco-friendly) policies. Beyond the declarative actions, the world’s ecosystem needs firm actions that would reduce CO2 emissions and atmospheric shifts. This is a crucial strategic task to safeguard the life on planet for future generations.
- Joyce, Christopher. “Massive Government Report Says Climate Is Warming And Humans Are The Cause,” NPR, 2017. Web. http://www.npr.org
- Stern, Nicholas. The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2006. Print.
- Sterner, T. and Persson, U. “An Even Sterner Review: Introducing Relative Prices into the Discounting Debate”. Review of Environmental Economics and Policy 2(1): 61–76. 2008.
