The Global Warming Catastrophe Essay

The Global Warming Catastrophe
Sub-zero temperatures, ice and snow everywhere, a desolate wasteland. The ice age has fallen upon us once again; this time colder and more severe. This is what will happen if global warming continues at the rate it’s going. This is also portrayed in the movie, The Day After Tomorrow. If we don’t begin using alternative energy sources we will be in the worst ice age this world has and will ever see. The consequences of this catastrophe will be so severe it may erase all life from our planet.
Fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and gasoline from factories, automobiles, and heavy machinery. are releasing a large abundance of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere. This causes the ozone layer of our atmosphere, which protects us from the sun’s harmful rays, to deplete rapidly. Alternative energy sources need to be found and used before it is too late. Although plants break down CO2 into oxygen (O2), there is a point of too much.
Carbon dioxide is what helps keep the sun’s heat inside our atmosphere just as a greenhouse does for plants in the winter, thus creating the greenhouse effect. The more CO2 in the atmosphere, the more heat stays in and as a result we get global warming. The issue of global warming is the biggest natural problem we face right now. The year 2001 was the second-hottest year ever recorded (Linn 1) and 1998 was the hottest year of all for about 1,000 years (Jordan 2).
The world average temperature has risen about 1 degree Fahrenheit and is supposed to raise 3 to 11 more degrees within the next hundred years if it keeps going at the rate that it currently is (Linn 1). One degree Fahrenheit may not sound like much but it’s making a huge impact on the glaciers and climates around the world. If the temperature raises 3 to 11 more degrees Fahrenheit in the next hundred years then we’re all doomed. Many people won’t need to worry about it because they will be dead by then anyway but just as many people, if not more, do...