What really is global warming? and why is it so bad for the Earth?

Answer 1

In short, heat getitng trapped in the earths atmosphere and melting the polar ice caps of the planet. That throws off sea levels, makes bad storms, messes up currents.

Pretty much just throws the earth off its usuall cycle.

Answer 2

Global Warming refers to the overall increase in average global temperature thought to be caused by an increase in the Greenhouse Effect, the natural phenomenon responsible for a more "livable" range of temperatures.

Anthropogenic Global Warming refers to the portion of the Greenhouse Effect enhanced by man's contribution of gases like CO2 and CH4, the result of burning fossil fuels.

It's the second definition that is causing most of the controversy.

Whether it is bad or how bad is certainly up for debate. If you look at the current IPCC findings you will see predictions of sea level rise of 8 inches to 2 feet over the next 100 years. They claim an increase in the number of intense storms, although they have not done any studies to attribute this to man. Keep in mind that we are leaving a period called the Little Ice Age, ending about 150 years ago; during that time, global temperatures have risen less than 1 degree, and this is seen mostly in the numbers of nights that are less cool, and in the loss of the number of cold days.

Personally, I don't believe that man is significantly affecting climate, but that doesn't stop me from doing my part to help the environment.

Things you can do to help the environment are, not so coincidentally, also the same kinds of things that will allegedly slow down GW:
Conserve energy - changing driving habits, car-pooling, efficient cars, energy-saving home appliances, reassessing your heating and cooling needs, and many more...
Reducing consumption - reassess your true needs - the less you consume, the less energy expended by factories, farms, and transportation; the more resources available to others who may not be fortunate to have plentiful resources; grow your own produce, buy locally, buy in season; buy used, recycle, sell, or give away items you no longer have a need for; again, many more...

Keep in mind that some people will do more than you, some quite a bit less or not at all. Don't let that distract you from doing the best you can. When you can, volunteer your time or resources towards the environment. Many neighborhoods organize in an effort to make your portion of the community as clean and green as possible.

You don't have to wear the environmental equivalent of a "hair shirt" or take some vow of poverty. Maintain the priorities in life that make you feel purposeful, just try to include a concern for the planet we all share.

Answer 3

Pollutants put into the atmosphere by cars and industry, to name a few, are causing our polar ice caps to melt at an alarming rate. This is not something dreamed up by ecological conspirators or Al Gore on drugs. This is a fact measured by scientists all over the world. In the last 30 years we have lost ice mass off the polar shelves greater in area than the state of Texas. Why does this matter? Because it is the Earth's ice caps that help reflect some of the sun's energy back into space. The Earth's reflectivity index, its albedo, determines how warm a planet will get. A high albedo (lots of reflected light) keeps a planet cooler than one with a low albedo (lots of absorption of the sun's energy). The real fear is that it may get to a point where the ice melting is irreversible, and then the process will become a runaway disaster. Venus is closer to the sun, true, but only half as close as Mercury. The fact is that Venus is hotter than Mercury at twice the distance from the sun. Why? Because of runaway greenhouse effect caused by its thick atmosphere, which was the result of outgassing and volcanism. The surface temperature on Venus is 800 degrees Fahrenheit. As a point of comparison, paper catches fire at 451 degrees Fahrenheit. If the Earth got only half as hot as Venus (400 degrees), all the oceans would boil off. That is why global warming is bad for the Earth.

Answer 4

i could give you a full nine page raport on it and why it is bad but that would be a long read, it is basically when more thermal radiation is trapped in the earth because of the CFC and emissions that are blocking it from leaving and so this thermal energy warms the surface and the polar ice caps melt causing massive global water level rises and this will reduce living space in many nations. as people have to move closer to eachother diseases will spread a lot more efficiently and it will be a very big impact on the population. as climates change, species die out and diseases are more likely to adapt to the different climates, there is a lot more info on the movie listed below

Answer 5

Increased greenhouse gas concentration in earths atmosphere due to human activity is trapping more heat that would otherwise escape into space.


If the heat is transferred to ice caps they melt
If the heat is transferred to oceans, storms increase in intensity.

global warming has happened before, and it too was caused by increased [ghg], only this time the increase is coming from a human source, not oceans, volcano's, methane deposits, or other.

Eventually the oceans will begin releasing their disolved CO2 as temperature rises. Methane clathrates in arctic ice shelfs will decompose and the earth will undergo a "runaway greenhouse effect". This scenario has played out before in earths history, and the result is mass extinction.

Answer 6

this is just why it is bad for us

the planet will survive
one degree rise in temperature already means 10% crop loss.
there are many factors included,
great changes are happening on microscopic levels that are having their effects all the way up the food chains ,which affects us in the end
species of flora and fauna going extinct.
Agriculture will be greatly affected,and we could face famine in the future
also because the world population has doubled in the last 50 years and continues to accelerate
there will be water shortage for potable water .
living conditions will become more drastic ,
Already 150.000 people die annually because of global warming .
this is expected to double soon.

and we could have very bad coastal floodings and so force millions of people to move upwards
this in it self will cause great conflicts.

Answer 7

Life on earth will surely go on for another billion years,global warming or no global warming!It's just modern civilization,especially the western way of life as we know it,that's being threatened,in no small part to our Chinese friends whom keep spewing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.I think Global Warming is a Chinese plot to undermine the West after all the crap we did to them in the last 200 years!

Answer 8

global warming is when green house gases build up in the earth's atmosphere and it keeps heat in and heats up the earth. it bad cuz it could melt the polar ice caps and flood the ocean so we not only lose the ice caps we lose arctic animals and land there wont be a thing know as winter anymore

Answer 9

Some gases ("greenhouse gases") let sunlight in, which warms the Earth, and then block that heat from leaving. That's the "greenhouse effect", and it's a natural thing, mostly caused by water vapor.

Man is making excessive amounts of greenhouse gases, mostly by burning fossil fuels. That causes the delicate natural balance to go out of whack and the Earth warms. That's global warming.

It won't be a Hollywood style disaster. Gradually coastal areas will flood and agriculture will be damaged. But it will be very bad. Rich countries will cope, but it will take huge amounts of money. In poor countries many people will die of starvation, but not all of them.

Most scientists say, in 20-50 years. But we need to start right now to fix it, fixing it will take even longer than that.

More information here:

http://profend.com/global-warming/

Lots of numerical scientific data proving it real here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Climate_Change_Attribution.png
http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf

Answer 10

The earth is getting too hot , the water will dry up and you may never be able to go out doors till after dark......seems so fictional though, the water is pulled from the earth to create rain, right so therefore with melting glaciers the earth with flood . gee i don't know, i will look it up in my search seems like a fun something to do !