Trevor Boortz

Professor Heidi Juel

English 1301

February 23, 2019

Climate Change Problem Analysis

            In 2008, according to a scientific research paper by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the carbon footprint, or amount of carbon dioxide wastefully emitted into the atmosphere, of an average American citizen would be 20 metric tons, or 44,092.5 pounds (“Massachusetts”). This carbon dioxide then finds itself locked in place in our Earth’s atmosphere, trapping in heat with the gas. With this heat, the planet’s many ecosystems are being devastated as our home becomes increasingly warmer and more polluted.

            Rapid change in our Earth’s climate due to the increased amount of greenhouse gasses being emitted by modern civilization poses a serious threat to our planet, and to humanity, if left untreated. With all the excess carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emission, we are causing the melting of ice sheets and the retreat of glaciers as the ocean, and the planet, heat up. With this melting of our sea ice, the sea level has risen approximately 8 inches in the past century. On top of that, our oceans have become 30% more acidic due to the increased amount of carbon dioxide inside the water, according to NASA’s research into climate change (“Climate Change”).

            How do we know carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses we emit are directly causing climate change? In 2015, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory located in Alaska conducted research on atmospheric carbon dioxide’s ability to trap the Earth’s thermal energy. Their studies prove the greenhouse effect, or the trapping of the sun’s warmth in a planet’s lower atmosphere, to be fact. Daniel Feldman, a scientist at the laboratory, states that “…we see, for the first time in the field, the amplification of the greenhouse effect because there’s more CO2 in the atmosphere to absorb what the Earth emits in response to incoming solar radiation.” These findings show that instead of radiating back out the sun’s warmth into space, we trap it inside due to the buildup of greenhouse gasses like carbon dioxide from constant modern machine use, like cars and heating your home.

            Constant increased release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere has created an unprecedented amount of greenhouse gas buildup within our atmosphere. Use of anything that burns fuel, from coal to gasoline, releases carbon dioxide. Though we see these things as necessities, we must soon find alternatives to fuel our daily lives, so we do not continue to destroy our planet. How can we tell that we have specifically caused this buildup of particles in the air? The atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide have significantly increased after the beginning of the industrial area. Scientists with the United States Environmental Protection Agency conducted a study of the parts per million amounts of these gasses in the atmosphere and can prove such claims of increased greenhouse gas concentration, as referred to the image below, figure 1.

Before modern times, there were not any spikes in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gasses for hundreds of thousands of years. Now, once the industrial revolution began, the rising of use of coal, different types of machinery, and efficient use of petroleum as fuel, began to pollute all these different gasses into the atmosphere at astronomical rates, to the point where we are now. Carbon dioxide has nearly more than doubled in parts per million, with methane pushing way more than double its parts per million before the modern times began. These numbers are huge and are continuously increasing.

            Figure 1

Global warming, the rising of temperature throughout our planet due to increased pollution, is just one of many other terrible effects of climate change on our planet. Our planet has never been this hot, at least not for hundreds of thousands of years since the mass extinction of the dinosaurs. Consequences of this heat are shown all over, from our oceans increasing in heat though absorption, to average surface temperatures having risen almost 2 degrees. 2016 was one of the warmest years to date that NASA has ever recorded for our planet (“NASA, NOAA”).

            As ocean temperatures increase, and as carbon dioxide becomes more common in the ocean, the world’s oceans have become more toxic and acidic than ever before. NASA estimates that the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed by the oceans increases by around 2 billion tons per year. This leads to the destruction of many different types of ecosystems which thrive off the growth of coral reefs. As carbon dioxide is absorbed from the atmosphere and into the ocean, carbon dioxide blocks out the necessary ions needed for coral to properly calcify. Many different types of fish and underwater plants rely on coral reefs as their habitat, shelter, and source of food, as coral helps promote many different types of ecosystems throughout our oceans.

Another consequence of this global warming through climate change is the melting of ice. With the current shrinking of the ice sheets and retreatment of the glaciers around the world, we are expecting an even further rise in our Earth’s oceans. NASA estimates that Greenland lost an average of 281 billion tons of ice per year between 1993 and 2016, with Antarctica losing around 119 billion tons (“Climate Change”). This is crushing for many ecosystems that rely on the ice for their home, like the many species of penguin who thrive in frozen barren of Antarctica.

Even with all this conclusive evidence and observable side-effects of global warming, there are people who still do not trust the scientific data around global warming and climate change on the basis that all scientists cannot agree on whether climate change is happening. Scientists can agree that climate change is happening right now, what they can’t agree on is what direction this climate change will take us, and just how much worse things will get for life now, and future life on our planet. There are so many consequences to not taking this seriously, as the main generations this will affect are the future generations of mankind. We simply cannot ignore a problem of this magnitude.

            This entrapment of heat due to greenhouse gasses has many terrible long-lasting effects that will get worse as time goes on, especially if more people ignore the problem at hand. Our future generations will face many challenges if this major problem is left untouched, aside from the current effects we can observe today. Our governments across the world must step in to place strict regulations on emissions from cars and factories, to finding more suitable resources to use for energy in transportation and inside these factories. Species may go extinct, the ocean levels will continue to rise, and the Earth’s global temperature will continue to rise. Hurricanes will become stronger, more common, and more violent as the climate continues to heat up. If we do not take immediate action against global warming and climate change, there is no telling what is in store for the future of our planet, for the future of civilizations, and for the future of mankind. Everyone must step forward and begin making a change in their daily lives. Mankind can overcome this great obstacle and put a stop to climate change. The first step begins with recognizing climate change as a serious issue, and a serious threat for our planet.

Works Cited

“Climate Change Evidence: How Do We Know?” NASA. www.climate.nasa.gov/evidence/.

20 Feb. 2019

“Climate Change Indicators: Atmospheric Concentrations of Greenhouse Gases.” EPA,

Environmental Protection Agency. www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-atmospheric-concentrations-greenhouse-gases. 23 Jan. 2017. 20 Feb. 2019.

Feldman, Daniel. “First Direct Observation of Carbon Dioxide's Increasing Greenhouse Effect.”

Phys.org - News and Articles on Science and Technology. www.phys.org/news/2015-02-carbon-dioxide-greenhouse-effect.html. 25 Feb. 2015. 20 Feb. 2019.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Carbon Footprint Of Best Conserving Americans Is Still

Double Global Average.” ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080428120658.htm. 29 Apr. 2008. 19 Feb. 2019

“NASA, NOAA Data Show 2016 Warmest Year on Record Globally.” NASA,

www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20170118/. 22 Feb. 2019.