Possible Causes and Solutions to Global Warming Analytical Essay

Introduction

Global warming is a climate change issue that has captured global attention, thus the worldwide debates by individuals, political leaders, business-related firms and international organizations especially the environmental activists.

It is arguably the leading concern compared to other environmental issues. Researchers concerns are connecting different but conflicting views, which make it difficult, understand the global warming issue, particularly the possible causes and solutions to the matter.

Thesis Statement

This essay presents a critical analysis concerning the challenges of global warming. It provides an investigation of possible causes of the occurrence and particularly forms a critical view of the effects of population growth to global warming.

Is future population growth a major and potential consequence to the issue? The essay also forms a substantive argument in relation to researched solutions over the issue of global warming.

Some of the analyzed solutions include population growth, the possibility of reducing the emission rates through reduction of consumption rate, enhanced campaigns to inform people on the need for commitments to controlled population growth rate, and reduced pollution rates. The first part of the easy will form a general investigation of the possible causes and solutions to the problem thus elucidate facts from confusions and discussions that are not sustentative.

Challenges

Various human activities such as excessive production of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide are the root causes of global warming. The gases form part of the atmosphere and traps heat that would normally escape to the outer space. Natural occurring greenhouse gases assist in maintaining global warmth to adequate amounts that are able to support life.

Increase of greenhouse gases causes alteration of weather patterns and thus influences duration of seasons, leads to existence of severe storms such as El Nino and coastal-related floods. Use of fossil fuels also causes excessive production of carbon gases. Another significant source of global warming is the human act of deforestation. When the environment has few trees, there is production of more carbon dioxide than it is used.

Concerning the discussions concerning the effects of global warming researcher, scientists and activists often fail to incorporate the issues of population growth. According to Weiss (p.A-8), scientist have qualitative analysis concerning measures of reducing global warming effects such as floods, droughts or other climate catastrophes.

This is achievable through reduction of enormous carbon gas emissions. However, he raises a main concern over neglect of the issue of global growth rate (p.A-8). There is need to undertake an examination on effects of slowed population increase on global warming.

How the Global Population Growth Causes Severe Environmental Crisis

As commonly known, the ‘green groups’ seem to lack considerable discussions concerning the issue of human population increase. Nevertheless, various suggestions as indicated by Lyon and Barnston (p.18), shows that, a collective demand on population growth reduction would be the biggest way to confront the issues and gain higher environmental development.

In accordance with Weiss’s article (p.A-8), if people would be in a position to put into practice a growth rate control and have a less than one billion population change by mid-century as opposed to the expected two billion, then this would translate to approximately 29% emission reduction. Current scientific research predicts that 29% emission reduction rate is the requirements by 2050.

Developed Vs. Developing Countries

Is there a difference between the impacts of growth rate in third world countries against the developed countries like United States? The emission rates are higher in developed countries due to higher consumptions and consequently there is obvious excessive waste production. There are remarks from developed countries that place blame on poor agricultural practices such as horticulture in developing countries.

The U.S. has greatest influence due to the amount of emission in comparison to other countries. “An average U.S. resident emits four times as much carbon dioxide as a resident in China and twenty…times more than… an African” (Weiss, p.A-8). However, In relation to Weiss’s article (p.A-8), the population size is not the only major concern. People must change how and where they live.

According to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) (p.1), current population of people, sharing finite resources such as water and food is 6.6 billion, with an expected growth to nine billion by 2050. These environmentalists show that most, if not all environmental problems are due to worsened population growth rates.

Leaders on the other hand fail to either note this factor, or ignore it due to the heated debate it may turn out. 194 nations met to discuss the environmental agreements and establish an accord at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in December 7 to18, 2009 (Athanasiou, 1).

Each country agreed to set emission targets for 2020. According to Athanasiou of ‘The Cornell Daily Sun’ (1), United States submitted its goals to United Nations on January 28, 2010 when President Barack Obama’s commitment indicated a cut of green house emissions by four percent. These human induced emissions affect evaporation and consequently precipitation.

In relation to scientific results, unless all the other global countries follow the same style, then there is an urgent need to consider other fact such as the reduction of human population growth as a major way to reduction of resources reduction as well as excessive emission of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere (Lyon and Barnston, p.18).

Other Related Problems Brought About By the Adverse Population Growth

The adverse population growth is the main cause of increased emission of greenhouse gases as well as deforestation that lead to loss of the wildlife and thousands of plant spices. Adverse growth is also responsible of the current land developments or commercialization of more than half the earth’s land surface.

The population growth rate is a simple indication that in a couple of decades, scarcity of water due to high consumption demands will have distressing effects to more than half of the world’s population. The ecosystem imbalance is due to lack of proper measures to address top environmental issues such as population growth (Lyon and Barnston, p.18).

Status of Population Growth Rates and Possible Solutions

The developing countries lack proper family planning campaigns or mechanisms to enhance control over population expansion rates. They either lack access to control methods or suffer from traditional-related practices.

The leaders fail to tackle the issue straight on, since people are not enlightened and thus stick to cultural practices and traditional religious believes (Weiss, p.A-8). This is one of the main sources of the rapid population increase in such countries for instance, those across the Middle East, Asia and Africa. They lack access to clean water, food and adequate shelter.

Contrary in the developed countries such as the United States or Germany, the population rate is currently diminishing or levelling, but the consumption rates are high and thus a great drain of the available resources. For instance, Americans are only four per cent of the global population but consume approximately 25% of the international resources.

Developed countries are highly industrialized and are thus heavy contributors to climate and ozone depletion, compared to developing nations. The issue of immigration to developed countries is a contributor to population increase in developed countries. When the residents migrate, they also emulate the heavy-consumption and emission lifestyles. According to Weiss (p.A-8), an estimate by the U.S. Census Bureau indicates a population increment of 129 million-growth expectation by 2050, mostly resulting from immigration.

Policies that can assist to Control Global Population Growth

The current relationship between the environmental problems especially global warming and population increase requires urgent redressing. Most people wish for changes on the consumption as well as emission levels in developed countries, while there is need for reduction of population growth rate in developing countries.

Environmentalist and human right activists consider support for family planning as the most efficient way of controlling escalating human population to relieve environmental pressures as opposed to endorsement of legal clauses in support of abortion.

Conclusion

Main cause of global warming include human-related activities that cause excessive emissions of greenhouse gases, the use of fossil fuels and deforestation in the aim of attaining better development levels. One of the main concerns on the issue of global warming is ignorance by government, individuals and activists over effects of high population growth rates. Some of the common effects of global warming include distorted weather patterns, climate related catastrophes such as coastal hurricanes, floods and droughts.

The most important strategy is to project future effects of global warming from present. Current effect of global warming impact on most human aspects, spanning from human health issues to biodiversity. Immediate action may diminish the possibility of worse projected effects of global warming.

Reducing and eventually overcoming the effects of global warming requires a combination of factors such as personal commitment or implementation of viable policies by governments. Individuals have the greatest influence over factors affecting the environment such as global warming. Most important solutions to the issue include reduction of carbon gases emissions especially in developed countries, deduction of the global growth rates and control of carbon emissions.

Works Cited

Athanasiou, Katerina. Copenhagen: Sustainable of Superficial? The Cornell Daily Sun. 2010. Web.

Lyon, Bradfield. & Barnston, Anthony. International Research Institute for Climate Prediction (IRI). 2005. New Jersey, NJ: Palisades. Print.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Climate Forecasting. 2010. Web.

Weiss, Kenneth. Ideas to ease global warming by taming global population. LA Times Journal. 12 October 2010.Print.