The Debate on Global Warming

We need to look at "The debate on global warming, framed on one side by those who see a long-term gradual warming or global surface temperatures and on the other side by those who see only small and potentially beneficial changes…" (MacDonald 2001 51)

There seems to be no doubt that global warming is a man-made phenomenon. The major questions to be debated here are: (1) is it a logical outgrowth of population growth and industrial development, or (2) is it a preventable despoilment of the natural resources and atmosphere on Earth long before the advent of Man?

The very word "environment", from the French environer, to surround, makes it obvious that every part of the land on which we stand, the air we breathe, and the vegetation on which we depend for sources of nourishment, are not just "surrounding" us, but interrelated. Changes in one usually affects the other, and so on.

Climate change, of course, has occurred throughout the Earth's history. There is evidence, of course, of various Ice Ages, sea level fluctuations, and associated changes in plant and animal life because of these alterations in climate. But, these are natural occurrences. It was not until the late 19th century that some scientists reckoned that Man had some influence on climate changes. The Industrial revolution, for one, had brought the increasing use of coal and its carbon emissions into the atmosphere. It took nearly a century to begin to measure the beginning of what we now call "The Greenhouse Effect". Gases, whether carbon dioxide, methane, or nitrous oxide, began to blanket the atmosphere, containing the heat radiating from the Earth, and causing an increasing warming of the Earth. Add to this effect the massive emissions from automobiles, the use of aerosol sprays world-wide, ever-spreading industrialization without rational planning, and the climate is no longer in the sole hands of "Mother Nature". It is almost as if Mother had gone to a rest home, while her next generation of numbers-cruncher offspring have taken over.

ARGUMENT FOR GLOBAL WARMING AS A MAJOR PROBLEM: