HUMANS: IS IT ALL OUR FAULT?
Climate Change
Is human activity a substantial cause for global climate change?
Human activity, such as driving and smoking, might be causing global climate changes and it is an issue because it affects the environment and animals' habitats. Animals are dying and losing their homes because of the global changes, and our environment is becoming unhealthy, making us sicker and lowering the quality of our lives.
Pros
- Human-produced CO2 (carbon dioxide, a gas which we exhale) is warming the earth, not the natural CO2 released from the ocean and other "carbon sinks".
- Human greenhouse gases will continue to accumulate in the atmosphere causing climate changes because the earth's forests, oceans, and other "carbon sinks" cannot adequately absorb them all. As of 2009, these carbon sinks were only absorbing about 50% of the human-produced CO2. The other 50% is accumulating in the atmosphere.
- Nearly all the climate change studies show humans as the main cause, and studies which contradict this claim are often funded by petroleum companies, making their conclusions suspect given the obvious conflict of interest.
Cons
- Many organizations believe that nature, not human activity, is primarily responsible for climate change.
- Changes in ocean currents are primarily responsible for the melting Greenland ice sheet, Arctic Sea ice, and Arctic permafrost.
- Deep ocean currents cause climate warming and cooling in long term cycles. The minor Greenhouse Effect of human-produced CO2 pales in comparison.
My Side
I side with the view that human activity is a major cause of global climate change (pros side). I think that things we do everyday are a big part of global warming. Pollution caused by activities, like driving and smoking, makes the earth a lot warmer and most of us don't even realize we're damaging the environment. Neither the U.S Bill of Rights nor the Texas Bill of Rights has an amendment that protects global climate issues. As a result, activists feel the government should make more and better laws limiting human activities that lead to global warming and to any global climate change. As a result, global warming is a hot political topic and is always a part of politician campaigning.
calm... I like it
Nice and cool... no harming, no pollution anywhere to be felt or seen.
stop the global warming!
This is fun dramatization of global warming... the scoop of Earth is melting on a hot day.
poor polar bear
This sad little guy has just a little ice left... that's why they are coming extinct, I bet.
Citations
Text:
http://www.texascrimelaw.com/Texas-Bill-of-Rights.html
www.radical.org/co-globalize/BillOfRights.html#1
All pictures from Bing images.