What is Global Warming, how is it caused,and what does it affect? Global Warming is the rise of temperature in Earth’s atmosphere. The temperature increase comes from an increase of carbon dioxide, methane, and fossil fuels found at an increasing rate. Global Warming can also be asked about in reference to a drastic climate change. Fossil fuels include combustion from cars, buildings, factories, and power plants all throughout the world. Over the last century, the global temperature averages have increased so high that they are starting to set historic records. “And experts say the trend is accelerating: All but one of the sixteen hottest years in NASA’s 134-year record have occurred since 2000.”(MacMillan)
Climate change controversialist have argued that there has been a steady consistent increase in rising global temperatures. And scientists say that unless we restrain global-warming outpouring, average U.S. temperatures could enlarge by at least fifteen degrees Fahrenheit over the next one hundred or more years. Global warming occurs when carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases collect in the atmosphere and soak up sunlight that has bounced off the earth’s surface. Normally, this radiation would escape into space ,but these pollutants, confine the heat. Since that happens it causes the planet and its atmosphere to get hotter.
That’s what’s known as the greenhouse effect. In the United States, the burning of fossil fuels to make electricity is the largest source of calefaction-trapping pollution, producing about over one million tons of carbon dioxide each year. Coal-burning power plants are by far the biggest polluters. “The country’s second-largest source of carbon pollution is the transportation sector, which generates about 1.7 billion tons of CO2 emissions a year.”( Curbing dangerous climate change requires very deep cuts in emissions, as well as the use of alternatives to fossil fuels worldwide.
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Carbon dioxide emissions in the United States actually decreased from 2005 to 2014, thanks in part to new, energy-efficient technology and the use of cleaner fuels. And scientists continue to develop new ways to modernize power plants, generate cleaner electricity, and burn less gasoline while we drive. The challenge is to be sure these solutions are put to use and widely adopted. (MacMillan) As temperatures change, many species are on the move. Some butterflies, foxes, and alpine plants have migrated farther north or to higher, cooler areas. Precipitation has increased across the globe, on average.
Yet some regions are experiencing more severe drought, increasing the risk of wildfires, lost crops, and drinking water shortages. Some species including mosquitoes, ticks, jellyfish, and crop pest are thriving. Booming populations of bark beetles that feed on spruce and pine trees, for example, have devastated millions of forested acres in the U.S.(national geographic) With the rise of insects increasing because of precipitation is bringing in more diseases especially the mosquito-borne malaria. Also with the atmosphere getting warmer the area with ice is starting to melt faster and faster causing polar bears and other animals that live out in the arctic ecosystem to struggle to survive and are becoming extinct as we speak at this moment. Hurricanes, Tornados, and other natural disasters are most likely to become stronger with rise of water levels continuously.
The melting glaciers that affect the polar bears also affect the marine animals that live beneath it because when the glacier melts it forces those animals to rise and may be forced to live in a habit where their predators live, that they try to stay away from on a regular basis.
A poem that corresponds greatly with the theme of global warming is “Fire and Ice” by Robert Frost. Everyone knows the world will end at some time but no one knows how. This poem put forward fire or ice, then fire and ice, as the likely causes of the world’s expiration.
And to bring the idea into the human knowledge, the speaker links the elements to human feelings- fire is desire, ice is hate – and the speaker has experienced them each of the feelings of fire and ice. An example of a way that fire is found in global warming is through wildfires. Higher spring and summer temperatures and earlier spring snowmelt typically cause soils to be drier for a longer period of time, increasing the likelihood of drought and a longer wildfire season, particularly in the pacific coast of the United States.
These hot, dry conditions also increase the likelihood that wildfires will be more intense and burn longer once they are started by lightning strikes or human error. Wildfires in the western United States have been increasing in frequency and duration since the mid-1980s. Between 1986 and 2003, wildfires occurred nearly four times as often, burned more than six times the land area, and lasted almost five times as long when compared to the period between 1970 and 1986. (Is Global Warming Fueling Increased Wildfire Risks?)
Nonetheless, because temperatures and precipitation levels are projected to alter further over the course of the 21st century, the overall potential for wildfires in the western United States is projected to increase. As temperatures increase, you can expect to see more and more wildfires yearly. Everywhere on Earth ice is changing. The famed snows of Kilimanjaro have melted more than 80 percent since 1912. Glaciers in the Garhwal Himalaya in India are retreating so fast that researchers believe that most central and eastern Himalayan glaciers could virtually disappear by 2035.
Arctic sea ice has thinned significantly over the past half century, and its extent has declined by about 10 percent in the past 30 years. NASA’s repeated laser altimeter readings show the edges of Greenland’s ice sheet shrinking. Spring freshwater ice breakup in the Northern Hemisphere now occurs nine days earlier than it did 150 years ago, and autumn freeze-up ten days later. Thawing permafrost has caused the ground to subside more than 15 feet in parts of Alaska. From the Arctic to Peru, from Switzerland to the equatorial glaciers of Man Jaya in Indonesia, massive ice fields, monstrous glaciers, and sea ice are disappearing fast.
When temperatures rise and ice melts, more water flows to the seas from glaciers and ice caps, and ocean water warms and expands in volume. This combination of effects has played the major role in raising average global sea level between four and eight inches in the past hundred years.
Another poem that corresponds with the theme of global warming is “Nothing Gold Can Stay” by Robert Frost. The poem starts by talking about the colors of spring, saying that nature is first gold, then green. Leaves, the poem says, start out as flower buds. But these golden flowers don’t stick around for long—they turn green and become leaves. According to our speaker, this natural process is related to the fall of the Garden of Eden, as well as the change of dawn to day. Then the poem wraps itself up, reminding us that the beauty of gold is only momentary.
In line 1 of the poem “Nature’s first green is gold”, the speaker, though, says this first green is actually gold. This makes us think of trees like the willow, which are golden early in the year, before they grow to green later in the same year. But it also makes us think of the morning, when the sun rises and makes everything a bit brighter than the rest of the day, all soaked in the dawn light.
In line 3 of the poem “Her early leaf’s a flower”, is said because Frost is really getting into his poetic routine here, when he includes a metaphor into this line. The first flowers of spring aren’t actually leaves in disguise. The speaker is using figurative language to intentionally make vague the line between flowers and leaves. Eventually, in real life, the old leaves die and fall off the trees, making room for the new leaves, which come to soak in sustenance from the sun. In line 6 of the poem “so Eden sank to grief,”,the speaker is comparing mankind’s fall from the Garden of Eden to the change from gold to green he described in the first half of the poem.
Just like the flowers fall back, or were downgraded to become leaves, Eden also sinks. This refers to the biblical fall of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. When Eve ate forbidden fruit, she and Adam, and all their descendents, were forever punished by being extradited from Eden and subject to all of the grief and sorrow that we humans know today. Both these events may seem like a big tragedy, but keep in mind that the fall of Adam and Eve is often viewed as a fortunate fall, because even though it was tragic that humans sinned, their sin set the stage for all of history to be set in motion.
In other words, if Adam and Eve hadn’t gotten the munchies, it would not be compared to global warming and temperature continuing to rise. So, the poem suggests, just as it was tragic that the first biblical humans were expelled from the Garden of Eden, it’s tragic that the early golden flowers of spring and dawn grow into mere leaves. But it’s possible that there’s an upside to all this sorrow, too. Or at the very least, it’s the way it goes, and we can’t change it. T
his poem corresponds to global warming because the poem makes the audience sad ,mad ,and wishing things would stay the same as always. Just like with global warming people wish and literally pray for global warming to come to an end because they are tired of burning up and not having cold enough winters to save them.
