Global Warning

What are the Causes?

The main driver for increased global temperatures in the industrial era is human activity, with natural forces adding variability. Climate change includes both global warming driven by human emissions of greenhouse gases and the resulting large-scale shifts in weather patterns.

Greenhouse Gases

The atmosphere is composed of a few gasses such as carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane. The collective name for these gasses is greenhouse gasses. If they are in the right amount, these greenhouse gasses are good.

Garbage

As trash breaks down in landfills, it releases methane and nitrous oxide gases. Approximately eighteen percent of methane gas in the atmosphere comes from waste disposal and treatment.

Industrialization

Industrial farming and ranching releases huge levels of methane and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Farming contributes forty percent of the methane and twenty percent of the carbon dioxide to worldwide emissions.

Oil Driling

Burn-off from the oil drilling industry impacts the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere. Fossil fuel retrieval, processing and distribution accounts for roughly eight percent of carbon dioxide and thirty percent of methane pollution.

Deforestation

To use wood for building materials, paper and fuel increases global warming in two ways -- the release of carbon dioxide during the deforestation process and the reduction in the amount of carbon dioxide that forests can capture.

Fertilizers

The use of nitrogen-rich fertilizers increases the amount of heat cropland can store. Nitrogen oxides can trap up to 300 times more heat than carbon dioxide. Sixty-two percent of nitrous oxide released comes from agricultural byproducts.