|
|
|
| Current Issue |
|
|
| Resources |
|
|
|
The Science and Politics of Global Warming
| Article
# : |
20299 |
|
|
Section : |
SPECIAL SECTION
|
| Issue
Date : |
7 / 1992 |
3,117 Words |
| Author
: |
Michael H. Glantz
Michael H. Glantz is head of the Environmental and
Societal Impacts Group at the National Center for Atmospheric
Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado. |
In reassessing the social currents of the past few decades, one could effectively argue that people around the world have entered an age of environmental enlightenment. Indeed, it is somewhat brash to make such a statement, for certainly no one, centuries ago, proclaimed, "we are now entering the Renaissance" or the age of exploration. People did what they felt compelled to do and, later, historians anointed those periods with descriptive labels.
Nevertheless, concern about the state of local, national, and global environments has become widespread: People, from the very young to the elderly, are becoming sensitized to environmental issues. Government leaders, too, are taking environmental issues more seriously, as evidenced by the largest environmental convention ever, at what the Brazilians call ECO '92, the Earth Summit.
Popular attention has focused primarily on three key environmental issues of global concern: global warming of the atmosphere, depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer, and tropical deforestation. These issues are connected to each other. Deforestation and fire have been integrally linked to increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide. The chemicals that deplete stratospheric ozone, called chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs, are also efficient greenhouse gases.
People have become interested in the global warming issue because of its potential impacts on ecosystems and economies. For most of the 1980s, the possible consequences of global warming that were reported in the media could be classified as worst-case possibilities. In the late 1980s, however, there was a backlash against the speculation that global warming was occurring, and human activity was to blame in that warming. Now the global warming issue is plagued by scientific controversy.
Each month there is a growing number of suggestions, often called scenarios, of how agricultural production, sea level, water resources, and human activities might be affected by global warming. How valid are these suggestions? How seriously should they by taken by decisionmakers?
Global Warming: What Is The Problem?
There has been a great deal of discussion in the past few years about the possible consequences of a warming of the earth's lower atmosphere. This expected warming (a human-induced enhancement of the naturally occurring greenhouse effect) has primarily been blamed on
...
Read Full Article
Look for this article in Ask.com
|
|
