Can you give me some info on what you know about global warming?

Question

how does it impact the environment?

who causes the problem, and what are their positive benefits?

who suffers from it, and what are their negative benefits?

who tries to help it

what are current plans for resolving this issue?

Answer 1

Is this for school?

There was a documentary that aired last night on the National Geographic channel.

It impacts the environment in many ways, and will continue for years to come. It's currently causing giant glaciers and polar ice caps to melt which is in turn giving less room for polar bears. It's been reported that many are dying every year from drowning, because it's harder for them to find solid pieces of floating ice. It's also causing the sea level to rise which if not stopped will cause cities to become flooded. The rise in sea levels and temperatures is also causing more intense natural disasters. Hurricanes like Katrina will be more common and continents will see drought and famine much like the 1930's Dust Bowl, but on a much larger scale.

Global warming is caused by people. CO2 is being pumped into the air at a disturbing rate by coal plants, cars, and even the animals we use for food. China alone releases 12,000 new cars to the road each day. Although trees and other photosynthesizing plants use CO2 and turn it into oxygen, research is being done that seems to show that with the amount that is being processed, trees are not photosynthesizing as they should and are actually releasing CO2 back into the atmosphere, and not oxygen. This is speeding up the global warming process. Coral reefs are also dying because of global warming. The temperature rising is making the ocean more acidic and causing the temperature rise as well. When this happens, thousands of other species die. The entire oceanic food chain could be destroyed.

So far plants, animals and even people have started to suffer because of this problem, and this is just the very beginning of the problem.

Currently scientists are working hard to try and create ways to turn this around before it's too late. The big changes that need to be made are things like alternate energy sources. Using wind-powered electricity instead of coal and cutting down on the use of cars are some of the big ones. But other things like recycling, unplugging things that don't need to be plugged in, turning things off that are on, conserving water, or using canvas or reusable grocery bags instead of paper or plastic could make a huge difference.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

I'm going to answer the stuff about theories of cooling in the early 70s that keeps getting mentioned here.  

So there was a theory for a short time that said that.  No extensive research was done compared to the research about global warming.   An international consortium studying global warming for about 20 years, involving hundreds of scientists and many scientific foundations both public and private, and which investigated the claims of the skeptics in the process and had three different assessments of those studies over the last 20 years or so, is quite different from speculations by a few scientists over 35 years ago.  My friends and I have been discussing global warming since about 1975.  

Now we have pretty substantial evidence that we were right to be concerned.

  Sorry for not answering your question better, but the information is readily available.

http://realclimate.org/  is one source

There is a movie made in 1989 called After the Warming that you can watch online at:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=...

Answer 3

IF global warming is TRUE and projections are 100% CORRECT:

Environment: Global AVERAGE temperatures will be higher, mostly affecting the poles. Equator temperatures will stay the same. Polar ice caps will melt excessively causing floods that will destroy major cities. Crops will die. Diseases will spread. Economy will collapse. People will become sick. Life on Earth may end as we know it.

Who causes the problem: YOU do, along with everybody who uses any electricity, or anything that directly or indirectly is powered by the burning of fossil fuels.

Who suffers: Everybody. It's a GLOBAL problem. Not just the US will suffer, every single country will.

Who tries to help it: Anybody who wants too. Al Gore thinks he can try by promoting awareness. Everyday people help by switching to incandescent lightbulbs, and planting trees.

Current Plans: Reducing CO2 emissions. That's all.

Personally, I think it's fake and deserves no attention. It's apart of a natural cycle and just think that 30 years ago, we were talking about global cooling. Sources are very unreliable and you cannot predict the future.