Global Warming

GLOBAL WARMING:

The Reality of the Event

Jonathan R. Foster

January 28, 2009

GLOBAL WARMING: The Fallacy of Gloom and Doom

“Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.” – Marie Curie
      On any given day, the mainstream media depicts human activity as adversarial to the earth’s environment. The reports that are broadcast over radio, television, and newsprint continually suggest that the standards of living and technological successes of most industrial nations will result in a global holocaust that will soon make the world uninhabitable unless everyone changes their ways. So, instead of being optimistic and hopeful of the many accomplishments and potential, societies are manipulated into feeling guilt and pessimism through this steady diet of fear and dread. Since knowledge is power, the truth about global warming is needed in order for humanity to reach its full potential. The only way to overcome the fear concerning this controversial issue is to see the truth and conduct ourselves accordingly. Contrary to popular opinion, global warming is not a man-made environmental occurrence, therefore public opinion concerning this current climate event must change.
      What is global warming? The popular definition is the increase of the average temperature of the earth’s atmosphere which could cause an eventual global climate change. The process through which this occurrence takes place is called the Greenhouse Effect, which is the natural process that enables the earth to maintain atmospheric temperatures conducive to life. How the Greenhouse Effect works is relatively simple. Water vapor (H2O), carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), and a few other trace gases found in our atmosphere, called greenhouse gases, form a blanket. As solar energy reaches the earth’s surface and is reflected back into space, this blanket reflects much of this solar energy back to the surface, thereby retaining the heat necessary to...