Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis (S 23)

This reading talks about the various drivers of climate change. The reading is made up mostly of facts, numbers and graphs comparing recent years to previous centuries. Firstly, the reading talks about carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide levels have had the most prominent change in recent history. The reading also talks about methane levels increasing in recent history. Methane levels rising are a result of agricultural practices. Next the article talks about the steady rising sea levels, global temperature and the steady downfall of snow in the arctic. The reading states that the more changes have been seen from 1995-2005 than all the way from 1960-1995, this is mainly due to our extremely high use of fossil fuels in recent years. As a result of climate change, weather has been much more extreme in recent years and there have been “highs and lows seen like never before”. The reading also states that even though most of the climate changes are due to human activities, the earth does have natural changes on its own so we cannot be certain that ALL changes are human induced. 

Below is a graph that shows the direct correlation between the rise of carbon dioxide emissions and temperature over the past 1000 years.

This pie chart represents the leading contributors to greenhouse gas emissions in 2015. In the pie chart, it shows that carbon dioxide is the leading contributor (65%), followed by methane (16%).

This graph shows the methane increase over the past 1000 years.

This graph shows the sea level change, and the projected change due to climate change. 

The steps for preventing further climate change are beneficial in many other ways. One of the most innovative ideas to prevent climate change, is the plan for a renewable energy system. Regardless of if global warming is a serious issue or not; creating a renewable energy source is a much more economical decision in the long run. Also, we are not sure when the earths oil supply will run out, so creating a solution long before we run out of oil would be greatly beneficial. Furthermore, increased carbon dioxide levels are not good for human health regardless of if they are causing climate change. Too reduce methane levels, we would need to greatly reduce the number of animals that are produced each year for meat consumption. By greatly reducing the number of animals produced each year, we are decreasing the amount of “factory farms” where animals often suffer.