There are a lot of misconceptions about Global Warming. I’ve talked to everyone I know about it, and 90% of them have either been tricked into believing that it’s horrible, or don’t believe in Global Warming at all. Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth book, which was later made into a movie, is a view of Global Warming from a politician’s view. It’s loaded with facts that have been carefully chosen to completely agree with his opinion. Unfortunately this is the nature of politicians, and it’s hard to read an opinion from someone who is not trying to convince you of something, but is trying to inform you.
The Earth is constantly exposed to the suns radiation, which is in form of light waves. These light waves are capable of passing through the atmosphere. Most of this radiation is absorbed by the Earth, thus warming it. Some of the energy is radiated back into space by the earth in the form of infrared waves. Some of the outgoing infrared radiation is trapped by the Earths atmosphere and warms it further. This process is the greenhouse affect, when we emit greenhouse gases, for example carbon dioxide, this portion of the atmosphere is thickened. And thus more infrared radiation is trapped in the atmosphere, warming the planet even further.
Al Gore explained this process as exactly the same way I did, however I confirmed it on the Environmental Protection Agency’s website (www.epa.com). Based on information I found recorded on the same website “The ten hottest years recorded have all occurred in the last 14 years. And the hottest of all years was 2005.” This is surprising data, especially because the year with the most CO2 (Carbon Di-Oxide) was also 2005. This was also the year that the devastation hurricane “Katrina” hit. As oceans get warmer storms get stronger.
Another very devastation affect of Global Warming is that in areas that have drought it causes them to lose more water, and puts the water into areas of the world that already have to much water. An increase in temperature creates more evaporation off the oceans to seed the clouds. But it absorbs moister from the soil. I have witnessed such hardships, in the current state that I live in we have been fighting a drought for many years. And these conditions are only going to get worse and worse if we continue this trend of emissions.
Global Warming is obviously one of the largest problems the United States, along with the entire world community is facing. If we continue down this road people are going to start noticing the side affects locally. I recommend making sure you turn your lights off before you leave a room. And with the Christmas season approaching wearing a sweaty instead of cranking the heat up, or making a fire.