Honestly, do you know the consequences of air pollution and global warming?

Question

I'm doing a research project for 8th grade Social Studies. To help answer my thesis question, I would like to take a poll. Please, no spam answers or effortless answers.

Do you know that air pollution and global warming could lead to:

Trillions of dollars wasted on attempts to stop global warming
Damage to our lakes, causing fish to die and slowing our eco-system

Increased death rates from deadly fumes in the air (4.6 million people die per year today!)

Increased temperature resulting in the number and intensity of floods, droughts, hurricanes, heat waves, and species extinction

This is not all. There are many things that will hurt us. Please answer honestly.

Aks other people you know if they know about these effects. I need a lot of results.

Answer 1

You've linked together two topics that are not necessarily interrelated.

Air pollution can be defined as any particulate or gas in the atmosphere that is not naturally occurring. If you look at it that way almost everything that we would see as pollution is excluded. Smog (O3) and the bulk of CO2, SO2, and particulates are naturally occurring (volcanoes and wind). The big things that man contributes are the various types of acid rain (water is naturally mildly acidic, but additions of carbon, sulfur, and methane can make various types of acid, but again man-made input is miniscule compared to natural inputs), but while these affect quality of life, they have nothing to do with global warming.

Your teacher will have told you to talk about man-made CO2 input. Recent UN data shows that man-made input of CO2 to the atmosphere is less than 2% of the total CO2. When Mt Pinatubo erupted in the 1980s it put more CO2 into the atmosphere in one afternoon than man has during all of industrialization.

Back to your question though:

I do think that Global Warming (which is a natural, cyclical process) will lead to trillions of dollars being wasted on attempts to control it. It will lead to loss of individual freedom in attempts to control it.

Global warming will not damage our lakes and seas, it may cause species to shift to other locations, but it will not cause extinctions.

Most of the people that die from deadly fumes are those that are in third world countries with economies that are very poor. They are deforesting their land for fire wood, they are using slash and burn agricultural techniques that lead to desertification, and thanks to Rachel Carson and Silent Spring, they are increasingly exposed to malaria, a disease that kills millions of people a year, but is completely controllable.

Increased temperature should broaden the temperature zones around the globe. This should actually lead to calmer weather since severe weather is caused by the impact of conflicting airmasses at temperature boundaries (the broader the zones the less severe the weather). Areas that are currently arid will probably become more arid, but areas that are currently frigid will become more habitable (as the Vikings found Greenland when they first settled there).

The biggest thing that can harm us due to Global Warming is our ignorance and us doing stupid things based on it.

Pollution can and does hurt us, but in almost all cases it is not linked to global warming.

At the end of the day we should all strive to be good stewards of this land that we have. We should maximize its use, but we should also protect it as a resource.

Answer 2

PERMH20 I´m also an environmental consultant and here is my post:

Ok first air pollution and global warming are related (not very intensively) since the dust we release cools a very little bit the planet off.

Due to the increased CO2, coral reefs ARE disappearing.

Just so you know... the word GREEN-LAND was a LIE in an attempt to attract colonist, with the very little success we know.

Answer 3

I'm aware of the points you mentioned and a many others. I've studied climate change and global warming since 1983.

The last question I answered includes some of the causes and effects of global warming, you might find some useful points in it... http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AgQYRDfZxMxY85Z3FPbeYo3sy6IX?qid=20070306130337AAuO6SW&show=7#profile-info-9HUp7kKzaa

Answer 4

I'm fairly well-informed about air-pollution and 'global warming', so I'm aware those are things that COULD happen, worst-case, yes.

Whether or not they will happen, is another thing entirely.

Answer 5

yes, i'm in ecology and one of our recent topics was global warming, but before that i had no idea.

Answer 6

Yes I do, please feel free to i.m. or e-mail me if you have any questions.