Pollution, like CO2 emissions, are a leading cause of climate change
CO2 (carbon dioxide) emissions are a major contributor to global warming. This is because CO2 is a greenhouse gas and also what materials, like wood or fossil fuel, give off when burned. These greenhouse gasses absorb heat from the sun and trap it in the atmosphere, heating up the planet.
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The Argument
In the past, the planet didn’t have to worry about CO2 emissions causing major changes in climate. However, the discovery of ‘fuel’ changed that.
In the past wood and coal were used as fuel for fires, and still are, but they’ve been replaced by things like gasoline. Gasoline is used to power machines like cars, but also factories. While electricity is promoting solar and wind power many factories still burn fuel to produce it.[1]
In 2018, the planet generated 37.1 gigatonnes of CO2. In 2010 it was only 33.1 gigatonnes. Back in the 1940’s though it was only starting to reach 5 gigatonnes.[2] [3](One gigaton equals 1 billion metric tons. 1 to 1,000,000,000)
We have been increasing our emission exponentially ever since the 1950’s. During this time America was in a space race with Russia and this spurred on a technological explosion and exploration. The planet has only gotten more advanced as time continued on. American car culture also started in the 1950’s. These advances caused an increase in demand for fuel as more models, rockets, cars or otherwise, continued to be improved.
The planets overall temperature has only increased by about 2 degrees Fahrenheit (a little more than 1 degree Celsius) in the last 100 years. With how it took the earth millions of years to do the same, humans are to blame for speeding up this change.
Counter arguments
CO2 emissions aren't as controllable as people like to believe. While cars are a contributor to the emissions, things like forest fires which also cause them.[4] They are also far more uncontrollable.
The amount of emissions are also rather regular for the increase in population over the past few centuries. It's not odd that the level of emissions has risen. While emissions have risen so too have the peoples responses to counteract it. Green energy, electric cars, and the innovations don't stop there as scientists and companies will continue to turn out new ways to help protect the planet.
The concept is scary but humans have time to figure things out to better take care of the planet and be ready for whatever changes do occur. People are already changing to react to it. This climate change, whether it's man made or Mother Nature at work, the most important thing is that humans will be able to face it when the time comes.
Proponents
Premises
[P1] Humans are dumping billions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere
[P2] The temperatures changing at a pace too rapid to be natural
Rejecting the premises
References
- https://chemistry.elmhurst.edu/vchembook/193sources.html
- https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions
- https://www.wri.org/blog/2018/12/new-global-co2-emissions-numbers-are-they-re-not-good
- https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/csl/factsheets/csdWildfiresFIREX.pdf