Ch. 32 What is Global Warming?

"Twenty-five years ago, people could be excused

for not knowing much, or doing much, about climate change.

Today we have no excuse."

- Desmond Tutu

Global Warming (which is the cause of climate change) became a buzz term in the early 1990s. For many people, this is when awareness of climate change first began.

However, humanity has had fair warning on the effects of greenhouse gasses on global temperatures since at least 1896. That’s when Svante Arrhenius wrote his famous paper On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground. Of course, his work was largely ignored in his own time, until we reached the 1970s and the effects of greenhouse gasses were plain for all to see.

What is global warming?

"Global warming occurs when carbon dioxide (CO2) and other air pollutants collect in the atmosphere and absorb sunlight and solar radiation that have bounced off the earth’s surface. Normally this radiation would escape into space, but these pollutants, which can last for years to centuries in the atmosphere, trap the heat and cause the planet to get hotter. These heat-trapping pollutants—specifically carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, water vapor, and synthetic fluorinated gases—are known as greenhouse gases, and their impact is called the greenhouse effect." (NRDC)

Greenhouse Effect

A natural function of earth's atmosphere is to provide a warming layer of gases that insulate the planet. Otherwise the earth would be too cold. However, just like trying to keep yourself warm at night if you put on too many blankets you're going to overheat. Human activity, such as burning fossil fuels, overconsumption caused by overpopulation, are adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere at such an accelerated rate that it is overheating the planet. 

Greenhouse Gases 

In order to understand global warming, feedback loops, cascading effects, and tipping points, we need to have an understanding of the various types of greenhouse gasses. It's important to understand how long each of these gases will stay in the atmosphere, and what their relative potency is. 

• CO2 - The primary and most abundant greenhouse gas, stays in the atmosphere for 300-1,000 years
• Methane - Stays in the atmosphere for about 12 years, and is 28 times more potent than CO2
• Nitrous Oxide- Stays in the atmosphere for 121 years, and is 300 times more potent than CO2
• Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs)- Stay in the atmosphere for 15 years, and are 1,000-9,000 times more potent than CO2

These gases stay in the atmosphere for decades, centuries, and even millennia. If we want to reverse the effects of these greenhouse gases, it will take human intervention on a massive scale to stop emissions and begin the process of removing them from the atmosphere. 

Sources of Greenhouse Gases

Carbon Dioxide, or CO2 is produced through all kinds of natural activities such as human and animal respiration, decaying animals, food and vegetation, forest fires, volcanoes, ocean outgassing, etc. However, 90% of CO2 emissions come from burning fossil fuels. 

The largest source of methane in the atmosphere (60%) is related to human activity. Fossil fuels, landfill emissions and agriculture. Another 40% comes from natural emissions by wetlands, and more recently from melting permafrost. 

Nitrous Oxide is produced by agricultural uses of nitrogen fertilizers and animal waste applications, and through waste water treatment. The ocean is also a large producer of nitrous oxide. 

Hydrofluorocarbons, or HFC's are entirely human-made. They come from refrigerants found in air conditioners, refrigerators, aerosols, and insulating foams. Thousands of times more potent than CO2, one of the #1 solutions to global warming is to replace all HFC coolants with natural refrigerants. 

In 2022, humans produced more CO2 emissions than any other year in history (Bussewitz, 2023). This record was broken again in 2023. 

A Brief History of America's Response to Global Warming

Before, we talked about how in the 1970's Exxon and other fossil fuel companies were aware of the problem and spent billions of dollars to try and cover it up with disinformation campaigns.

Fast forward to the 1980's, most of which saw Reagan presiding over the White House. Reagan was dismissive of climate change. He once famously said, "Trees cause more pollution than automobiles do." (Little, 2004).

Reagan also appointed James Watt and Anne Gorsuch to head the Department of the Interior and the US EPA respectively. Gorsuch tried to gut provisions of the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. Reagan also gutted funding to the EPA, making it difficult to enforce regulations.

Reagan even went so far as to remove solar panels from the roof of the White House that his predecessor Jimmy Carter had installed. This symbolic act made it clear that Reagan was going to stick to the status quo when it came to how businesses were allowed to operate in regards to polluting the environment up. 

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) made eyebrow raising predictions in the 1990s. These predictions about rising temperatures and the impacts they would have on our environment turned out to be astonishingly accurate (Scherer, 2021). Unfortunately, when these predictions were made, there was little observable phenomenon that the average person could perceive that showed the effects of climate change.

At the time of this writing, America's relationship to global warming is largely divided along party lines. Republicans are mostly in denial. Democrats give lip service and minimal action, but at least acknowledge there is a problem. 

Now the effects of global warming are too obvious to ignore.

Some Effects of Global Warming 

Everyone notices the warmer temperatures, and the more severe storm systems. Wildfires, which used to be only an occasional problem, now have a dedicated season.

Warming oceans have long been associated with sea level rise and more severe storm systems, but a new threat is emerging. Greenhouse gasses are affecting the oceans too, replacing oxygen in the water. This has led to massive die off of fish and other sea life in places like Biscanye Bay, Florida (C., 2020).

These incidents are only the beginning. Things are going to get worse, not better, unless we take decisive action as a species.

Earth is the ONLY place we have found so far in the entire universe that we know is capable of sustaining human life. We’re in the Goldilocks Zone, which takes into account ecology and the distance from the sun where scientists believe life is most viable. If we stray from our zone too much, we can run into a situation where human life is not sustainable.

The question is, will the earth remain habitable for humans?