Preventing Global Warming

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Preventing Global Warming

The Earth is a dynamic, constantly changing environment in which the hydrosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere all interact. When one changes slightly the change is then felt through out the spheres. Humans need to understand that the change they cause can have a potential for a disastrous affect on the environment. From injecting the atmosphere with greenhouse gas, or deforestation, all the unnatural things done to the environment will have an unnatural affect that will have to be dealt with. We as humans have a moral responsibility to reduce global warming gasses by changing our modes of transportation, to stop deforestation, and increase government funding into research to inhibit global warming for present as well as future generations.

Global Warming gases (greenhouse gases) are mainly carbon dioxide and water vapor. They are transparent to the light energy coming from the sun, but are opaque to the infrared energy that is transmitted by the earth once the light energy hits the surface. This means that they allow the transmission of light from Sun to Earth but delay heat-energy loss to space. The gases absorb the heat and radiate back down towards the surface, reheating the lower atmosphere, which is then reflected of the surface back towards the atmosphere for the process to begin again. If the concentrations of these gases increase, more heat energy remains in the atmosphere and the temperature increases (Christopherson 309). These are just the two major gases there are others like methane, but they just contribute at a lower level.

Wealthier countries are the main contributors to Global Warming. A baby born in the United States in the year 2000, will consume about a...

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