Humans are an incredible race of species compared to the rest of the animal kingdom on our Earth. We have the ability to manipulate our environment to our advantage: we build skyscrapers and cities, we mine out entire mountains, and we also dam up rivers. This power to shape the world in new ways is a gift of our intelligence, but with any great power such as this there is the potential for unintended consequences. We can shape the whole world to our purpose, but what if doing so were changing the environment in a way that would lead to our demise?
Global warming could be an prime example of global consequences following from changing the environment to meet our needs. During the 20th century the average global temperature rose an unprecedented …show more content…
This might not seem like a lot, but this is a huge difference for the global average. It is also very closely related to the rise in human industrial age. Someone might argue that this is a direct cause for global warming, and we should take this seriously, determining whether the apparent correlation is a causative relation between industry and temperature. For this, we are able to examine the composition of the Earth’s atmosphere going back 800,000 years by analyzing ice cores drilled in Greenland and Antarctica (Ferguson). By doing so, we can compare changes in global temperature and the levels of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, and take note whether there are any similar correlations that can be found in prehistoric times. If there are any similar correlations, then we would have evidence that such a sudden shift in the Earth’s climate is not necessarily due to human cause. It isn’t conclusive, but these techniques will help to shed light on whether humans are the cause of climate change (Ferguson).
One last argument which might be made against global warming, and which seems highly probable, is that the Earth’s climate is too complex for us to understand . There are too many variables we can not control, the weather models we use to understand climate are regularly contradictory by real world data, and even if there were global warming going on we really have no idea what the consequences will be. The climate is always changing, so the fact of change can not be presented as an error in itself, because the climate is not a static system. So how could a scientist
Global warming could be an prime example of global consequences following from changing the environment to meet our needs. During the 20th century the average global temperature rose an unprecedented …show more content…
This might not seem like a lot, but this is a huge difference for the global average. It is also very closely related to the rise in human industrial age. Someone might argue that this is a direct cause for global warming, and we should take this seriously, determining whether the apparent correlation is a causative relation between industry and temperature. For this, we are able to examine the composition of the Earth’s atmosphere going back 800,000 years by analyzing ice cores drilled in Greenland and Antarctica (Ferguson). By doing so, we can compare changes in global temperature and the levels of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, and take note whether there are any similar correlations that can be found in prehistoric times. If there are any similar correlations, then we would have evidence that such a sudden shift in the Earth’s climate is not necessarily due to human cause. It isn’t conclusive, but these techniques will help to shed light on whether humans are the cause of climate change (Ferguson).
One last argument which might be made against global warming, and which seems highly probable, is that the Earth’s climate is too complex for us to understand . There are too many variables we can not control, the weather models we use to understand climate are regularly contradictory by real world data, and even if there were global warming going on we really have no idea what the consequences will be. The climate is always changing, so the fact of change can not be presented as an error in itself, because the climate is not a static system. So how could a scientist