Global Warming Persuasive

For the past several decades people have continued to pump dangerous emissions into the atmosphere and rapidly remove vital resources from the earth, and as a result it is slowly depleting. Some people have begun taking responsibility for their actions, but the world is still not doing enough. Although many people may not agree that this problem exists, the world population needs to act now against global warming or the earth will continue to suffer from harsh environmental changes. So how do the people plan to stop it?

Since the beginning of the industrial revolution greenhouse gases have greatly increased and are continuing to increase at a considerable rate. People have burned large amounts of fossil fuels, sprayed harmful chemicals, and torn down forests; this has all contributed to the global warming problem. The fuels burned to heat homes and businesses, run cars, and power factories are responsible for 98% of carbon dioxide, 24% of methane, and 18% of nitrous oxide. That shows how much of the greenhouse gases are completely unnecessary. Global warming has occurred because the atmosphere traps outgoing energy to heat the earth, but because people have pumped unnatural gases into the air they are being trapped in the atmosphere making it very difficult for heat to escape and causing the global temperature to slowly increase. The 20th century’s ten warmest years have all occurred within the past fifteen years.

With this increase in temperature will come many environmental problems. Holes in the ozone layer are slowly spreading. In the southern and northern hemispheres the homes to many animals are rapidly melting. As a result the sea level will rise four to eight inches, species will die off, and eco-systems will be ruined. Also because of high temperatures evaporation has increased, leading to drought in some places and heavy rain fall in others. Infectious and contagious diseases are also expected to increase because of mosquitoes and other bugs that carry diseases. Severe and more frequent heat waves will threaten human health and existing deserts will spread; the consequences are nearly endless. If the world population does not do something now, global warming will do more damage than has any other man made pollution problem.

Accepting the Kyoto Treaty and putting it to work is the fist step to stop global warming. In 1997 many countries came together in Kyoto, Japan and signed a treaty to reduce their greenhouse emissions. Though the U.S. has so far failed to ratify it. “Even if the U.S. never ratifies the Kyoto Treaty, the diplomatic and in some cases legal powers of these organizations will limit the legitimate exercise of U.S. sovereign decision making in the world”, says Richard Burt and twelve others (97). Today all sorts of hazardous gases are being pumped into the atmosphere such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, purfleurocarbons, and sulfur hexofluoride. To this day, the largest amounts of pollution are being created by the wealthiest countries. The oil, coal, and other fossil fuel industries are strongly opposing this treaty because it would greatly effect their business.

The treaty calls for different levels of reduction for each country depending on their economic status. They plan for the treaty to take force in 2008 and hopefully be accomplished over a five year period of time. The Kyoto Protocol has a plan for developing countries to participate in projects that will reduce their emissions. They have two projects in mind. The first project is transferring technology to developing countries. With this they can grow without the dependency of fossil fuels and depend on renewable energy technology such as wind and solar power. The second project is preserving and restoring forests. This would greatly contribute to saving different types of eco-systems. Right now developing countries are insisting that industrial countries make the first reductions. All countries will need to participate if the world hopes to put an end to global warming.

There are other possible solutions to global warming, though America has so far failed to recognize their importance. For example “sinks”. “Sinks” are places or areas with a lot of trees or plants. They are called sinks because they collect carbon dioxide, but because the government is so selfish they have continued to allow deforestation. With this shortage of trees the air is unable to be cleaned and an overabundance of carbon dioxide is building up in the atmosphere. A great way to avoid this is to use hemp as a resource for all the products our country uses trees for. Hemp can be made into a very hard and durable plastic as well as paper. One acre of hemp would produce as much paper as four acres of trees would produce. Some of the main pollutants causing our greenhouse effect are the chemicals used on cotton.

But hemp grows herbicide, fungicide, and pesticide free making those extra chemicals unnecessary. Another main source of pollution is the burning of fossil fuels. If hemp was converted into a fuel with a process called pyrolyses pollution would radically decrease because biomass fuels put off no sulfur whereas fossil fuels do. Because of this there would be no more acid rain. The only waste put off by hemp fuel is used up by next year’s crop. “America is accomplishing nothing but harm by banning this miraculous plant”, says Sarah Shanty (00).

Apparently the fossil fuel industries and other main contributors of world pollution don’t feel the issue is important enough to change their ways. Hopefully they’ll soon realize the consequences resulting from their actions and do their part to make a difference.