Nowadays television and other mass media are constantly bombarding us with news on floods, earthquakes, tsunamis and other natural disasters. Indeed, climate has been experiencing severe changes during the last 50 years. It is caused by a constantly increasing speed of economic development and technical progress which are followed by an increasing amount of air and water pollutions, cutting down of rainforests. This, itself leads to ozone holes and greenhouse effect, which cause global warming. Consequently, the question of global warming and its impact on environment has become one of the hottest issues of international affairs.
“Global Warming” has been introduced by the scientific community and the media as the term that encompasses all potential changes in climate that result from higher average global temperatures.
The Earth’s climate is a result of complex interactions among the atmosphere, the oceans, the land masses, and living organisms, which are all warmed daily by the sun's energy. For the past 150 years, though, the atmospheric concentrations of such gases, as carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane have been rising. As a result, more heat is being trapped than previously, which in turn is causing the global temperature to rise. Climate scientists have connected the increased levels of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere to human activities, in particular the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas for heating and electricity; gasoline for transportation), deforestation, cattle ranching, and rice farming. The negative impact of global warming on the environment is so obvious, that the world community has reached an agreement on common measures against global warming that have to be taken at the level of global scales. As a result of a long-lasting process of international negotiations initiated by the United Nations Organization, a major agreement linked to the United Nations Convention on Climate Changes, the Kyoto Protocol, was reached in 1997.
Scientists have different views on how big the temperature increase can be. The increase may be between 1.5° C and 6° C by the year 2100. Warmer weather will make ice caps and glaciers melt which, consequently, would make sea levels rise dramatically.
"Carbon dioxide pollution spewing from our cars and power plants is building up in the atmosphere and causing global warming," said Alex Veitch, a conservation organizer for the Sierra Club's global warming and energy program. "Scientists predict that global warming will damage our coasts and crops, encourage the spread of infectious diseases and lead to the extinction of many plant and animal species." (Letcher, p. 180)
But, even though global warming and human contribution to it are a well-known fact, the topic still remains rather controversial, and there are not only supporters, as well protagonists of global warming issues. There are scientists, that deny global warming negative effects on environment and who support their opinion by statements, that: carbon dioxide has never lead temps, but followed temperature; the current troposphere temps are below 1981 levels currently; the Atlantic is not warming or losing ice overall; the glaciers supposedly melting like Himalayas …