problem solution of global warming essay

Essay on Global Warming – Causes and Solutions

500+ words essay on global warming.

Global Warming is a term almost everyone is familiar with. But, its meaning is still not clear to most of us. So, Global warming refers to the gradual rise in the overall temperature of the atmosphere of the Earth. There are various activities taking place which have been increasing the temperature gradually. Global warming is melting our ice glaciers rapidly. This is extremely harmful to the earth as well as humans. It is quite challenging to control global warming; however, it is not unmanageable. The first step in solving any problem is identifying the cause of the problem. Therefore, we need to first understand the causes of global warming that will help us proceed further in solving it. In this essay on Global Warming, we will see the causes and solutions of Global Warming.

Causes of Global Warming

Global warming has become a grave problem which needs undivided attention. It is not happening because of a single cause but several causes. These causes are both natural as well as manmade. The natural causes include the release of greenhouses gases which are not able to escape from earth, causing the temperature to increase.

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Further, volcanic eruptions are also responsible for global warming. That is to say, these eruptions release tons of carbon dioxide which contributes to global warming. Similarly, methane is also one big issue responsible for global warming.

So, when one of the biggest sources of absorption of carbon dioxide will only disappear, there will be nothing left to regulate the gas. Thus, it will result in global warming. Steps must be taken immediately to stop global warming and make the earth better again.

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Global Warming Solutions

As stated earlier, it might be challenging but it is not entirely impossible. Global warming can be stopped when combined efforts are put in. For that, individuals and governments, both have to take steps towards achieving it. We must begin with the reduction of greenhouse gas.

Furthermore, they need to monitor the consumption of gasoline. Switch to a hybrid car and reduce the release of carbon dioxide. Moreover, citizens can choose public transport or carpool together. Subsequently, recycling must also be encouraged.

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For instance, when you go shopping, carry your own cloth bag. Another step you can take is to limit the use of electricity which will prevent the release of carbon dioxide. On the government’s part, they must regulate industrial waste and ban them from emitting harmful gases in the air. Deforestation must be stopped immediately and planting of trees must be encouraged.

In short, all of us must realize the fact that our earth is not well. It needs to treatment and we can help it heal. The present generation must take up the responsibility of stopping global warming in order to prevent the suffering of future generations. Therefore, every little step, no matter how small carries a lot of weight and is quite significant in stopping global warming.

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FAQs on Global Warming

Q.1 List the causes of Global Warming.

A.1 There are various causes of global warming both natural and manmade. The natural one includes a greenhouse gas, volcanic eruption, methane gas and more. Next up, manmade causes are deforestation, mining, cattle rearing, fossil fuel burning and more.

Q.2 How can one stop Global Warming?

A.2 Global warming can be stopped by a joint effort by the individuals and the government. Deforestation must be banned and trees should be planted more. The use of automobiles must be limited and recycling must be encouraged.

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What Are the Solutions to Climate Change?

Some solutions are big and will require billions in investment. Some are small and free. All are achievable.

Bundei Hidreka (left), a member of the Orissa Tribal Women's Barefoot Solar Engineers Association, holds up a solar lantern in Tinginaput, India.

Abbie Trayler-Smith/DFID, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

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Thinking about climate change can be overwhelming. We’ve been aware of its causes for decades now, and all around us, we bear witness to its devastating effects on our communities and ecosystems.

But the good news is that we now know exactly what it will take to win the fight against climate change, and we’re making measurable, meaningful progress. Game-changing developments in clean energy, electric vehicle technology, and energy efficiency are emerging every single day. And countries—including Canada , China , India , and the United States —are coordinating and cooperating at levels never seen before in order to tackle the most pressing issue of our time.

The bottom line: If the causes and effects of our climate crisis are clearer than ever, so are the solutions.

Ending our reliance on fossil fuels

Greater energy efficiency, renewable energy, sustainable transportation, sustainable buildings, better forestry management and sustainable agriculture, conservation-based solutions, industrial solutions, technological solutions, our choices.

The single-most important thing that we can do to combat climate change is to drastically reduce our consumption of fossil fuels . The burning of coal, oil, and natural gas in our buildings, industrial processes, and transportation is responsible for the vast majority of emissions that are warming the planet —more than 75 percent, according to the United Nations. In addition to altering the climate , dirty energy also comes with unacceptable ecological and human health impacts.

We must replace coal, oil, and gas with renewable and efficient energy sources. Thankfully, with each passing year, clean energy is making gains as technology improves and production costs go down. But according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C , in order to meet the goal of reducing global carbon emissions by at least 45 percent below 2010 levels before 2030—which scientists tell us we must do if we’re to avoid the worst, deadliest impacts of climate change—we must act faster.

There are promising signs. Wind and solar continue to account for ever-larger shares of electricity generation. In 2021, wind and solar generated a record 10 percent of electricity worldwide. And modeling by NRDC has found that wind, solar, hydro, and nuclear could account for as much as 80 percent of U.S. electricity by the end of this decade . (We can also fully realize our clean energy potential if we invest in repairing our aging grid infrastructure and installing new transmission lines.) While this transformation is taking place, automakers—as well as governments—are preparing for a future when the majority of vehicles on the road will produce zero emissions.

Technicians from Solaris Energy carry out the first-annual servicing and cleaning on a heat pump that was installed into a house originally built in the 1930s, in Folkestone, United Kingdom.

Andrew Aitchison / In pictures via Getty Images

Energy efficiency has been referred to as “the first fuel”; after all, the more energy efficient our systems are, the less actual fuel we have to consume, whether rooftop solar energy or gas power. Considered this way, efficiency is our largest energy resource. As the technology harnessing it has advanced over the past 40 years, efficiency has contributed more to the United States’s energy needs than oil, coal, gas, or nuclear power.

What’s more, energy efficiency strategies can be applied across multiple sectors: in our power plants, electrical grids, factories, vehicles, buildings, home appliances, and more. Some of these climate-friendly strategies can be enormously complex, such as helping utility companies adopt performance-based regulation systems , in which they no longer make more money simply by selling more energy but rather by improving the services they provide. Other strategies are extraordinarily simple. For example, weatherproofing buildings, installing cool roofs , replacing boilers and air conditioners with super-efficient heat pumps , and yes, switching out light bulbs from incandescent to LED can all make a big dent in our energy consumption.

Transitioning from fossil fuels to clean energy is the key to winning the fight against climate change. Here are the most common sources of renewable energy —and one source of decidedly nonrenewable energy that often gets included (falsely) in the list.

Engineer Steve Marchi and his team perform a final review of rooftop solar panels as part of the solar expansion project at the Wayne National Forest Welcome Center, in Ohio.

Alex Snyder/Wayne National Forest

Solar energy

Solar energy is produced when light from the sun is absorbed by photovoltaic cells and turned directly into electricity. The solar panels that you may have seen on rooftops or at ground level are made up of many of these cells working together. By 2030, at least one in seven U.S. homes is projected to have rooftop solar panels, which emit no greenhouse gases or other pollutants, and which generate electricity year-round (in hot or cold weather) so long as the sun is shining. Solar energy currently accounts for just under 3 percent of the electricity generated in the United States—enough to power 18 million homes —but is growing at a faster rate than any other source. By 2035, it could account for as much as 40 percent of electricity generation. From 2020 through 2026, solar will account for more than half of new electricity generation worldwide.

What to do when the sun doesn’t shine, you might ask. Alongside the boom in solar has been a surge in companion battery storage: More than 93 percent of U.S. battery capacity added in 2021 was paired with solar power plants. Battery storage is key to the clean energy revolution—and adapting to a warming world. Not only are batteries important at night when the sun isn’t out, but on hot days when homes draw a lot of electricity to power air conditioners, battery storage can help manage the energy demand and control the threat of power failures.

Turbines on Block Island Wind Farm, located 3.8 miles from Block Island, Rhode Island, in the Atlantic Ocean

Dennis Schroeder/NREL, 40481

Wind energy

Unlike solar panels, which convert the sun’s energy directly into electricity, wind turbines produce electricity more conventionally: wind turns the blades of a turbine, which spin a generator. Currently, wind accounts for just above 9 percent of U.S. electricity generation, but it, like solar, is growing fast as more states and utilities come to recognize its ability to produce 100 percent clean energy at a remarkably low cost. Unsurprisingly, states with plenty of wide-open space—including Kansas , Oklahoma , and Texas —have huge capacity when it comes to wind power, but many analysts believe that some of the greatest potential for wind energy exists just off our coasts. Offshore wind even tends to ramp up in the evenings when home electricity use jumps, and it can produce energy during the rainy and cloudy times when solar energy is less available. Smart planning and protective measures , meanwhile, can ensure we harness the massive promise of offshore wind while limiting or eliminating potential impacts on wildlife.

Svartsengi geothermal power plant in Iceland

Daniel Snaer Ragnarsson/iStock

Geothermal and hydroelectric energy

Along with sunlight and wind, water—under certain conditions—can also be a source of renewable energy. For instance, geothermal energy works by drilling deep underground and pumping extremely hot water up to the earth’s surface, where it is then converted to steam that, once pressurized, spins a generator to create electricity. Hydroelectric energy uses gravity to “pull” water downward through a pipe at high speeds and pressures; the force of this moving water is used to spin a generator’s rotor.

Humans have been harnessing heat energy from below the earth’s surface for eons—just think of the hot springs that provided warmth for the people of ancient Rome. Today’s geothermal plants are considered clean and renewable so long as the water and steam they bring up to the surface is redeposited underground after use. Proper siting of geothermal projects is also important, as recent science has linked some innovative approaches to geothermal to an increased risk of earthquakes.

Hydroelectric plants, when small-scale and carefully managed, represent a safe and renewable source of energy. Larger plants known as mega-dams, however, are highly problematic . Their massive footprint can disrupt the rivers on which people and wildlife depend .

Biomass energy

With very few exceptions, generating electricity through the burning of organic material like wood (sourced largely from pine and hardwood forests in the United States), agricultural products, or animal waste—collectively referred to as biomass —does little to reduce carbon emissions, and in fact, does far more environmental harm than good. Unfortunately, despite numerous studies that have revealed the true toll of this form of bioenergy , some countries continue to buy the biomass industry’s false narrative and subsidize these projects. Attitudes are changing but, given the recent wood pellet boom, there is a lot more work to be done.

A new electric bus on King Street in Honolulu, on June 16, 2021

Marco Garcia for NRDC

Transportation is a top source of greenhouse gases (GHG), so eliminating pollution from the billions of vehicles driving across the planet is essential to achieving net-zero global emissions by 2050, a goal laid out in the 2015 Paris climate agreement .

In 2021, electric vehicles (EVs) accounted for less than 8 percent of vehicle sales globally; by 2035 , however, it’s estimated that they’ll account for more than half of all new sales. Governments around the world aren’t just anticipating an all-electric future; they’re bringing it into fruition by setting goals and binding requirements to phase out the sale of gas-powered internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles. That year, 2035, is expected to mark a turning point in the adoption of EVs and in the fight against climate change as countries around the world—as well as numerous automakers—have announced goals to phase out gas-powered cars and light trucks. This shift will also benefit our grid: EVs are like a “ battery on wheels ” and have the potential to supply electricity back to the network when demand peaks, helping to prevent blackouts.

It’s also critical that we consider all of the different ways we get around and build sustainability into each of them. By increasing access to public transportation—such as buses, ride-sharing services, subways, and streetcars—as well as embracing congestion pricing , we can cut down on car trips and keep millions of tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere every year. And by encouraging zero-emission forms of transportation, such as walking and biking, we can reduce emissions even more. Boosting these alternate forms of transportation will require more than just talk. They require funding , planning, and the building out of supportive infrastructure by leaders across the local, state, and national levels.

To address the full set of impacts of the transportation sector, we need holistic and community-led solutions around things like land-use policies and the way we move consumer goods. Communities closest to ports , truck corridors, rail yards, and warehouses are exposed to toxic diesel emissions and face a high risk of developing acute and chronic public health diseases. Like all climate solutions, long-lasting change in the transportation sector requires building the power of historically marginalized communities.

An Association for Energy Affordability (AEA) worker installs a new energy-efficient window at an apartment in the South Bronx, New York City.

Natalie Keyssar for NRDC

The energy used in our buildings—to keep the lights on and appliances running; to warm them and cool them; to cook and to heat water—makes them the single-largest source of carbon pollution in most cities across the United States. Making buildings more energy efficient, by upgrading windows and adding insulation to attics and walls, for example, will bring these numbers down. That’s why it’s all the more important that we raise public awareness of cost- and carbon-saving changes that individuals can make in their homes and workplaces, and make it easier for people to purchase and install energy-efficient technology, such as heat pumps (which can both heat and cool spaces) and certified appliances through programs like Energy Star in the United States or EnerGuide in Canada.

Beyond the measures that can be taken by individuals, we need to see a dedication from private businesses and governments to further building decarbonization , which simply means making buildings more efficient and replacing fossil fuel–burning systems and appliances with clean-powered ones. Policy tools can help get us there, including city and state mandates that all newly constructed homes, offices, and other buildings be outfitted with efficient all-electric systems for heating, cooling, and hot water; requirements that municipalities and states meet the latest and most stringent energy conservation standards when adopting or updating their building codes would also be impactful. Indeed, many places around the world are implementing building performance standards , which require existing buildings to reduce their energy use or carbon emissions over time. Most important, if these changes are going to reach the scale needed, we must invest in the affordable housing sector so that efficient and decarbonized homes are accessible to homeowners and renters of all incomes .

Nicolas Mainville joins a canoe trip with youth from the Cree First Nation of Waswanipi on a river in Waswanipi Quebec, Canada, which is part of the boreal forest.

Nicolas Mainville/Greenpeace

Some of our strongest allies in the fight against climate change are the trees, plants, and soil that store massive amounts of carbon at ground level or underground. Without the aid of these carbon sinks , life on earth would be impossible, as atmospheric temperatures would rise to levels more like those found on Venus.

But whenever we clearcut forests for timber or rip out wetlands for development, we release that climate-warming carbon into the air. Similarly, the widespread overuse of nitrogen-based fertilizers (a fossil fuel product) on cropland and generations of industrial-scale livestock farming practices have led to the release of unprecedented amounts of nitrous oxide and methane, powerful greenhouse gases, into our atmosphere.

We can’t plant new trees fast enough to replace the ones we clearcut in carbon-storing forests like the Canadian boreal or the Amazon rainforest —nor can rows of spindly young pines serve the same function as old-growth trees. We need a combination of responsible forestry policies, international pressure, and changes in consumer behavior to put an end to deforestation practices that not only accelerate climate change but also destroy wildlife habitat and threaten the health and culture of Indigenous communities that live sustainably in these verdant spaces. At the same time, we need to treat our managed landscapes with as much care as we treat wild ones. For instance, adopting practices associated with organic and regenerative agriculture —cover crops, pesticide use reduction, rotational grazing, and compost instead of synthetic fertilizers—will help nurture the soil, yield healthier foods, and pay a climate dividend too.

A school of fish swimming through a mangrove forest in the Caribbean Sea, off Belize

Intact ecosystems suck up and store vast amounts of carbon: Coastal ecosystems like wetlands and mangroves accumulate and store carbon in their roots; our forests soak up about a third of annual fossil fuel emissions; and freshwater wetlands hold between 20 and 30 percent of all the carbon found in the world’s soil. It’s clear we’re not going to be able to address climate change if we don’t preserve nature.

This is one reason why, along with preserving biodiversity, climate experts are calling on global leaders to fully protect and restore at least 30 percent of land, inland waters, and oceans by 2030 , a strategy endorsed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. To help us reach that goal, we must limit industrial impacts on our public lands and waters, continue to protect natural landscapes, support the creation of marine protected areas, uphold bedrock environmental laws, and follow the lead of Indigenous Peoples, many of whom have been faithfully and sustainably stewarding lands and waters for millennia .

Emissions rise from the Edgar Thomson Steel Works, a steel mill in the Braddock and North Braddock communities near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Getty Images

Heavy industry—the factories and facilities that produce our goods—is responsible for a quarter of GHG emissions in the United States and 40 percent globally, according to the EPA. Most industrial emissions come from making a small set of carbon-intensive products: basic chemicals, iron and steel, cement, aluminum, glass, and paper. (Industrial plants are also often major sources of air and water pollutants that directly affect human health.)

Complicating matters is the fact that many industrial plants will stay in operation for decades, so emissions goals for 2050 are really just one investment cycle away. Given these long horizons for building and retrofitting industrial sites, starting investments and plans now is critical. What would successfully decarbonized industrial processes look like? They should sharply reduce heavy industry’s climate emissions , as well as local pollution. They should be scalable and widely available in the next decade, especially so that less developed nations can adopt these cleaner processes and grow without increasing emissions. And they should bolster manufacturing in a way that creates good jobs.

Technology alone won’t save us from climate change (especially not some of these risky geoengineering proposals ). But at the same time, we won’t be able to solve the climate crisis without researching and developing things like longer-lasting EV batteries , nonpolluting hydrogen-based solutions , and reliable, safe, and equitable methods for capturing and sequestering carbon . Because, while these tools hold promise, we have to make sure we don’t repeat the mistakes of the past. For instance, we can take actions to reduce local harms from mining lithium (a critical component of electric vehicle batteries), improve recycling opportunities for solar cells, and not use carbon capture as an excuse to pollute. To accelerate research and development, funding is the critical third leg of the stool: Governments must make investing in clean energy technologies a priority and spur innovation through grants, subsidies, tax incentives, and other rewards.

A protester rings a bell in front of P&G’s headquarters in Cincinnati; the company’s toilet paper brand, Charmin, uses wood pulp from virgin trees in Canada's boreal forest.

Finally, it should go without saying that we, as individuals, are key to solving the climate crisis—not just by continuing to lobby our legislators and speak up in our communities but also by taking climate actions in our daily lives . By switching off fossil fuels in our homes and being more mindful of the climate footprint of the food we eat, our shopping habits, how we get around, our use of plastics and fossil fuels, and what businesses we choose to support (or not to support), we can move the needle.

But it’s when we act collectively that real change happens—and we can do even more than cut down on carbon pollution. Communities banding together have fought back fracking , pipelines , and oil drilling in people’s backyards . These local wins aren’t just good news for our global climate but they also protect the right to clean air and clean water for everyone. After all, climate change may be a global crisis but climate action starts in your own hometown .

We have a responsibility to consider the implications of our choices—and to make sure that these choices are actually helping to reduce the burdens of climate change, not merely shifting them somewhere else. It’s important to remember that the impacts of climate change —which intersect with and intensify so many other environmental, economic, and social issues—fall disproportionately on certain communities, namely low-income communities and communities of color. That’s why our leaders have a responsibility to prioritize the needs of these communities when crafting climate policies. If those on the frontlines aren’t a part of conversations around climate solutions, or do not feel the benefits of things like cleaner air and better job opportunities, then we are not addressing the roots of the climate crisis.

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November 26, 2007

10 Solutions for Climate Change

Ten possibilities for staving off catastrophic climate change

By David Biello

Mark Garlick Getty Images

The enormity of global warming can be daunting and dispiriting. What can one person, or even one nation, do on their own to slow and reverse climate change ? But just as ecologist Stephen Pacala and physicist Robert Socolow, both at Princeton University, came up with 15 so-called " wedges " for nations to utilize toward this goal—each of which is challenging but feasible and, in some combination, could reduce greenhouse gas emissions to safer levels —there are personal lifestyle changes that you can make too that, in some combination, can help reduce your carbon impact. Not all are right for everybody. Some you may already be doing or absolutely abhor. But implementing just a few of them could make a difference.

Forego Fossil Fuels —The first challenge is eliminating the burning of coal , oil and, eventually, natural gas. This is perhaps the most daunting challenge as denizens of richer nations literally eat, wear, work, play and even sleep on the products made from such fossilized sunshine. And citizens of developing nations want and arguably deserve the same comforts, which are largely thanks to the energy stored in such fuels.

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Oil is the lubricant of the global economy, hidden inside such ubiquitous items as plastic and corn, and fundamental to the transportation of both consumers and goods. Coal is the substrate, supplying roughly half of the electricity used in the U.S. and nearly that much worldwide—a percentage that is likely to grow, according to the International Energy Agency. There are no perfect solutions for reducing dependence on fossil fuels (for example, carbon neutral biofuels can drive up the price of food and lead to forest destruction, and while nuclear power does not emit greenhouse gases, it does produce radioactive waste), but every bit counts.

So try to employ alternatives when possible—plant-derived plastics, biodiesel, wind power—and to invest in the change, be it by divesting from oil stocks or investing in companies practicing carbon capture and storage.

Infrastructure Upgrade —Buildings worldwide contribute around one third of all greenhouse gas emissions (43 percent in the U.S. alone), even though investing in thicker insulation and other cost-effective, temperature-regulating steps can save money in the long run. Electric grids are at capacity or overloaded, but power demands continue to rise. And bad roads can lower the fuel economy of even the most efficient vehicle. Investing in new infrastructure, or radically upgrading existing highways and transmission lines, would help cut greenhouse gas emissions and drive economic growth in developing countries.

Of course, it takes a lot of cement, a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, to construct new buildings and roads. The U.S. alone contributed 50.7 million metric tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere in 2005 from cement production, which requires heating limestone and other ingredients to 1,450 degrees Celsius (2,642 degrees Fahrenheit). Mining copper and other elements needed for electrical wiring and transmission also causes globe-warming pollution.

But energy-efficient buildings and improved cement-making processes (such as using alternative fuels to fire up the kiln) could reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the developed world and prevent them in the developing world.

Move Closer to Work —Transportation is the second leading source of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. (burning a single gallon of gasoline produces 20 pounds of CO 2 ). But it doesn't have to be that way.

One way to dramatically curtail transportation fuel needs is to move closer to work, use mass transit, or switch to walking, cycling or some other mode of transport that does not require anything other than human energy. There is also the option of working from home and telecommuting several days a week.

Cutting down on long-distance travel would also help, most notably airplane flights, which are one of the fastest growing sources of greenhouse gas emissions and a source that arguably releases such emissions in the worst possible spot (higher in the atmosphere). Flights are also one of the few sources of globe-warming pollution for which there isn't already a viable alternative: jets rely on kerosene, because it packs the most energy per pound, allowing them to travel far and fast, yet it takes roughly 10 gallons of oil to make one gallon of JetA fuel. Restricting flying to only critical, long-distance trips—in many parts of the world, trains can replace planes for short- to medium-distance trips—would help curb airplane emissions.

Consume Less —The easiest way to cut back on greenhouse gas emissions is simply to buy less stuff. Whether by forgoing an automobile or employing a reusable grocery sack, cutting back on consumption results in fewer fossil fuels being burned to extract, produce and ship products around the globe.

Think green when making purchases. For instance, if you are in the market for a new car, buy one that will last the longest and have the least impact on the environment. Thus, a used vehicle with a hybrid engine offers superior fuel efficiency over the long haul while saving the environmental impact of new car manufacture.

Paradoxically, when purchasing essentials, such as groceries, buying in bulk can reduce the amount of packaging—plastic wrapping, cardboard boxes and other unnecessary materials. Sometimes buying more means consuming less.

Be Efficient —A potentially simpler and even bigger impact can be made by doing more with less. Citizens of many developed countries are profligate wasters of energy, whether by speeding in a gas-guzzling sport-utility vehicle or leaving the lights on when not in a room.

Good driving—and good car maintenance, such as making sure tires are properly inflated—can limit the amount of greenhouse gas emissions from a vehicle and, perhaps more importantly, lower the frequency of payment at the pump.

Similarly, employing more efficient refrigerators, air conditioners and other appliances, such as those rated highly under the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Energy Star program, can cut electric bills while something as simple as weatherproofing the windows of a home can reduce heating and cooling bills. Such efforts can also be usefully employed at work, whether that means installing more efficient turbines at the power plant or turning the lights off when you leave the office .

Eat Smart, Go Vegetarian? —Corn grown in the U.S. requires barrels of oil for the fertilizer to grow it and the diesel fuel to harvest and transport it. Some grocery stores stock organic produce that do not require such fertilizers, but it is often shipped from halfway across the globe. And meat, whether beef, chicken or pork, requires pounds of feed to produce a pound of protein.

Choosing food items that balance nutrition, taste and ecological impact is no easy task. Foodstuffs often bear some nutritional information, but there is little to reveal how far a head of lettuce, for example, has traveled.

University of Chicago researchers estimate that each meat-eating American produces 1.5 tons more greenhouse gases through their food choice than do their vegetarian peers. It would also take far less land to grow the crops necessary to feed humans than livestock, allowing more room for planting trees.

Stop Cutting Down Trees —Every year, 33 million acres of forests are cut down . Timber harvesting in the tropics alone contributes 1.5 billion metric tons of carbon to the atmosphere. That represents 20 percent of human-made greenhouse gas emissions and a source that could be avoided relatively easily.

Improved agricultural practices along with paper recycling and forest management—balancing the amount of wood taken out with the amount of new trees growing—could quickly eliminate this significant chunk of emissions.

And when purchasing wood products, such as furniture or flooring, buy used goods or, failing that, wood certified to have been sustainably harvested. The Amazon and other forests are not just the lungs of the earth, they may also be humanity's best short-term hope for limiting climate change.

Unplug —Believe it or not, U.S. citizens spend more money on electricity to power devices when off than when on. Televisions, stereo equipment, computers, battery chargers and a host of other gadgets and appliances consume more energy when seemingly switched off, so unplug them instead.

Purchasing energy-efficient gadgets can also save both energy and money—and thus prevent more greenhouse gas emissions. To take but one example, efficient battery chargers could save more than one billion kilowatt-hours of electricity—$100 million at today's electricity prices—and thus prevent the release of more than one million metric tons of greenhouse gases.

Swapping old incandescent lightbulbs for more efficient replacements, such as compact fluorescents (warning: these lightbulbs contain mercury and must be properly disposed of at the end of their long life), would save billions of kilowatt-hours. In fact, according to the EPA, replacing just one incandescent lightbulb in every American home would save enough energy to provide electricity to three million American homes.

One Child —There are at least 6.6 billion people living today, a number that is predicted by the United Nations to grow to at least nine billion by mid-century. The U.N. Environmental Program estimates that it requires 54 acres to sustain an average human being today—food, clothing and other resources extracted from the planet. Continuing such population growth seems unsustainable.

Falling birth rates in some developed and developing countries (a significant portion of which are due to government-imposed limits on the number of children a couple can have) have begun to reduce or reverse the population explosion. It remains unclear how many people the planet can comfortably sustain, but it is clear that per capita energy consumption must go down if climate change is to be controlled.

Ultimately, a one child per couple rule is not sustainable either and there is no perfect number for human population. But it is clear that more humans means more greenhouse gas emissions.

Future Fuels —Replacing fossil fuels may prove the great challenge of the 21st century. Many contenders exist, ranging from ethanol derived from crops to hydrogen electrolyzed out of water, but all of them have some drawbacks, too, and none are immediately available at the scale needed.

Biofuels can have a host of negative impacts, from driving up food prices to sucking up more energy than they produce. Hydrogen must be created, requiring either reforming natural gas or electricity to crack water molecules. Biodiesel hybrid electric vehicles (that can plug into the grid overnight) may offer the best transportation solution in the short term, given the energy density of diesel and the carbon neutral ramifications of fuel from plants as well as the emissions of electric engines. A recent study found that the present amount of electricity generation in the U.S. could provide enough energy for the country's entire fleet of automobiles to switch to plug-in hybrids , reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the process.

But plug-in hybrids would still rely on electricity, now predominantly generated by burning dirty coal. Massive investment in low-emission energy generation, whether solar-thermal power or nuclear fission , would be required to radically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And even more speculative energy sources—hyperefficient photovoltaic cells, solar energy stations in orbit or even fusion—may ultimately be required.

The solutions above offer the outline of a plan to personally avoid contributing to global warming. But should such individual and national efforts fail, there is another, potentially desperate solution:

Experiment Earth —Climate change represents humanity's first planetwide experiment. But, if all else fails, it may not be the last. So-called geoengineering , radical interventions to either block sunlight or reduce greenhouse gases, is a potential last resort for addressing the challenge of climate change.

Among the ideas: releasing sulfate particles in the air to mimic the cooling effects of a massive volcanic eruption; placing millions of small mirrors or lenses in space to deflect sunlight; covering portions of the planet with reflective films to bounce sunlight back into space; fertilizing the oceans with iron or other nutrients to enable plankton to absorb more carbon; and increasing cloud cover or the reflectivity of clouds that already form.

All may have unintended consequences, making the solution worse than the original problem. But it is clear that at least some form of geoengineering will likely be required: capturing carbon dioxide before it is released and storing it in some fashion, either deep beneath the earth, at the bottom of the ocean or in carbonate minerals. Such carbon capture and storage is critical to any serious effort to combat climate change.

Additional reporting by Larry Greenemeier and Nikhil Swaminathan .

• Solving Climate Change

Humans have warmed the planet by approximately 1.0°C (1.8°F) in the past 150 years, which has increased the risk of wildfires, hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, and floods. Sea level is rising, and ice is melting. All of this is making life on Earth much more difficult.

We caused the problem by increasing the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, but we have the ability to keep the amount of warming low enough to be survivable. Communities and nations around the world are taking action to solve climate change. There’s much more that needs to be accomplished, so keep reading to learn what can be done to keep our planet as cool as possible.

Global Warming Targets

If we keep the amount of climate warming low enough, we can adapt, finding ways to live and even thrive. But what is low enough? The planet has already warmed 1°C. How much more can we handle?

Since the 1990s, scientists and policymakers around the world had considered the goal to be a limit of 2°C (3.6°F) above pre-industrial levels (which was before we started burning fossil fuels). But in 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported on what we know about the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C (2.7°F) compared to 2°C.

They found that with a warming of 2°C, the impacts are more severe than 1.5°C. For example, heat waves would be hotter, rains would be heavier, and sea level would rise more. There are higher risks to health, the food supply, water, ecosystems, and economic growth with 2°C warming compared with 1.5°C. Overall, 1.5°C warming gives us a better chance of adapting to climate change, although there are impacts, like the loss of some ecosystems, which may be long-lasting or irreversible.

Many communities are adding bike lanes and sidewalks to encourage residents to make transportation choices that help decrease emissions of greenhouse gases and other air pollutants. Credit:  Daniel Lobo

How Can We Tackle Climate Change?

There are several different strategies when it comes to dealing with climate change. Reducing greenhouse gases  is a direct way to help slow or stop climate change since excess greenhouse gases are what are causing the climate to warm. This can mean switching to power sources that don’t emit greenhouse gases and taking carbon dioxide out of the air by planting forests and conserving ecosystems. New research on ways to pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere could potentially provide other solutions in the future. Researchers are also studying whether we could safely limit the amount of sunlight that gets to Earth in the future while we are reducing emissions.

Unfortunately, the planet is already warming and we are seeing the impacts of climate change. Even if we stop emitting greenhouse gases in the next decade or two, we will be facing more climate change this century, which is why finding ways to adapt to climate change is also important to keep our planet as livable as possible.  

How Can We Limit Warming to 1.5°C?

To keep the total warming limited to 1.5°C, we need to act quickly to change energy sources, how land is used, how industry operates, and our urban environments, including buildings and transportation. For example, industries can reduce emissions with new and existing technologies and practices, such as switching power sources, using sustainable materials like bioplastic, and capturing carbon emissions at factories so they don’t make it into the atmosphere.

There are many ways that we can do this. The IPCC 2018 report analyzed different scenarios that would help us meet the 1.5°C target. Below are descriptions of four scenarios that would meet the target, and a graph showing how much each could reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

• The innovation scenario (P1): We develop innovations that lead to lower energy demand while living standards rise, especially in the Southern Hemisphere. Needing less energy helps us make the transition to renewable energy. More forests are planted to take carbon dioxide out of the air .
• The sustainability scenario (P2): We use less energy to produce goods and provide services, there is more international cooperation, and there are shifts toward sustainable consumption patterns. A switch to mostly renewable energy helps us emit less carbon dioxide, and there is also some carbon capture and storage technology used at power plants to stop CO 2 from getting into the atmosphere. Land is well-managed and there are lower emissions from farms.
• The middle-of-the-road scenario (P3): There is more energy demand in the future, but we increase renewable energy and nuclear power and decrease fossil fuel use so that we can decrease emissions. Where there are still fossil fuels burned at power plants, carbon capture and storage are used. Bioenergy power plants are also developed, which burn plants like switchgrass to create electricity, and then capture the CO 2 .
• The energy-intensive scenario (P4): Economic growth and globalization cause more people to have a lifestyle that emits lots of greenhouse gases — for example, by driving cars, taking flights, and eating meat. In this scenario, energy comes from oil, gas, nuclear power, and renewables. We have a lot of emissions to reduce and some catching up to do because we have high emissions in the next couple of decades. We do this with carbon capture and storage and removing carbon from the air with bioenergy power plants that capture CO 2 .

The graph above shows the amount of carbon dioxide emissions per year through the 21st century for each scenario that limits global warming to 1.5°C (described above: P1 to P4). The shaded area shows the full range of options studied in the IPCC 2018 report. Credit: IPCC

• Why Earth Is Warming
• Can We Limit the Amount of Sunlight that Gets to Earth and Stop Climate Change?
• How Do We Reduce Greenhouse Gases?
• Classroom Activity: Solving the Carbon Dioxide Problem

A problem built into our relationship with energy itself. Photo by Ferdinando Scianna/Magnum

Deep warming

Even if we ‘solve’ global warming, we face an older, slower problem. waste heat could radically alter earth’s future.

by Mark Buchanan   + BIO

The world will be transformed. By 2050, we will be driving electric cars and flying in aircraft running on synthetic fuels produced through solar and wind energy. New energy-efficient technologies, most likely harnessing artificial intelligence, will dominate nearly all human activities from farming to heavy industry. The fossil fuel industry will be in the final stages of a terminal decline. Nuclear fusion and other new energy sources may have become widespread. Perhaps our planet will even be orbited by massive solar arrays capturing cosmic energy from sunlight and generating seemingly endless energy for all our needs.

That is one possible future for humanity. It’s an optimistic view of how radical changes to energy production might help us slow or avoid the worst outcomes of global warming. In a report from 1965, scientists from the US government warned that our ongoing use of fossil fuels would cause global warming with potentially disastrous consequences for Earth’s climate. The report, one of the first government-produced documents to predict a major crisis caused by humanity’s large-scale activities, noted that the likely consequences would include higher global temperatures, the melting of the ice caps and rising sea levels. ‘Through his worldwide industrial civilisation,’ the report concluded, ‘Man is unwittingly conducting a vast geophysical experiment’ – an experiment with a highly uncertain outcome, but clear and important risks for life on Earth.

Since then, we’ve dithered and doubted and argued about what to do, but still have not managed to take serious action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which continue to rise. Governments around the planet have promised to phase out emissions in the coming decades and transition to ‘green energy’. But global temperatures may be rising faster than we expected: some climate scientists worry that rapid rises could create new problems and positive feedback loops that may accelerate climate destabilisation and make parts of the world uninhabitable long before a hoped-for transition is possible.

Despite this bleak vision of the future, there are reasons for optimists to hope due to progress on cleaner sources of renewable energy, especially solar power. Around 2010, solar energy generation accounted for less than 1 per cent of the electricity generated by humanity. But experts believe that, by 2027, due to falling costs, better technology and exponential growth in new installations, solar power will become the largest global energy source for producing electricity. If progress on renewables continues, we might find a way to resolve the warming problem linked to greenhouse gas emissions. By 2050, large-scale societal and ecological changes might have helped us avoid the worst consequences of our extensive use of fossil fuels.

It’s a momentous challenge. And it won’t be easy. But this story of transformation only hints at the true depth of the future problems humanity will confront in managing our energy use and its influence over our climate.

As scientists are gradually learning, even if we solve the immediate warming problem linked to the greenhouse effect, there’s another warming problem steadily growing beneath it. Let’s call it the ‘deep warming’ problem. This deeper problem also raises Earth’s surface temperature but, unlike global warming, it has nothing to do with greenhouse gases and our use of fossil fuels. It stems directly from our use of energy in all forms and our tendency to use more energy over time – a problem created by the inevitable waste heat that is generated whenever we use energy to do something. Yes, the world may well be transformed by 2050. Carbon dioxide levels may stabilise or fall thanks to advanced AI-assisted technologies that run on energy harvested from the sun and wind. And the fossil fuel industry may be taking its last breaths. But we will still face a deeper problem. That’s because ‘deep warming’ is not created by the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. It’s a problem built into our relationship with energy itself.

F inding new ways to harness more energy has been a constant theme of human development. The evolution of humanity – from early modes of hunter-gathering to farming and industry – has involved large systematic increases in our per-capita energy use. The British historian and archaeologist Ian Morris estimates, in his book Foragers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels: How Human Values Evolve (2015), that early human hunter-gatherers, living more than 10,000 years ago, ‘captured’ around 5,000 kcal per person per day by consuming food, burning fuel, making clothing, building shelter, or through other activities. Later, after we turned to farming and enlisted the energies of domesticated animals, we were able to harness as much as 30,000 kcal per day. In the late 17th century , the exploitation of coal and steam power marked another leap: by 1970, the use of fossil fuels allowed humans to consume some 230,000 kcal per person per day. (When we think about humanity writ large as ‘humans’, it’s important to acknowledge that the average person in the wealthiest nations consumes up to 100 times more energy than the average person in the poorest nations.) As the global population has risen and people have invented new energy-dependent technologies, our global energy use has continued to climb.

In many respects, this is great. We can now do more with less effort and achieve things that were unimaginable to the 17th-century inventors of steam engines, let alone to our hominin ancestors. We’ve made powerful mining machines, superfast trains, lasers for use in telecommunications and brain-imaging equipment. But these creations, while helping us, are also subtly heating the planet.

All the energy we humans use – to heat our homes, run our factories, propel our automobiles and aircraft, or to run our electronics – eventually ends up as heat in the environment. In the shorter term, most of the energy we use flows directly into the environment. It gets there through hot exhaust gases, friction between tires and roads, the noises generated by powerful engines, which spread out, dissipate, and eventually end up as heat. However, a small portion of the energy we use gets stored in physical changes, such as in new steel, plastic or concrete. It’s stored in our cities and technologies. In the longer term, as these materials break down, the energy stored inside also finds its way into the environment as heat. This is a direct consequence of the well-tested principles of thermodynamics.

Waste heat will pose a problem that is every bit as serious as global warming from greenhouse gases

In the early decades of the 21st century , this heat created by simply using energy, known as ‘waste heat’, is not so serious. It’s equivalent to roughly 2 per cent of the planetary heating imbalance caused by greenhouse gases – for now. But, with the passing of time, the problem is likely to get much more serious. That’s because humans have a historical tendency to consistently discover and produce things, creating entirely new technologies and industries in the process: domesticated animals for farming; railways and automobiles; global air travel and shipping; personal computers, the internet and mobile phones. The result of such activities is that we end up using more and more energy, despite improved energy efficiency in nearly every area of technology.

During the past two centuries at least (and likely for much longer), our yearly energy use has doubled roughly every 30 to 50 years . Our energy use seems to be growing exponentially, a trend that shows every sign of continuing. We keep finding new things to do and almost everything we invent requires more and more energy: consider the enormous energy demands of cryptocurrency mining or the accelerating energy requirements of AI.

If this historical trend continues, scientists estimate waste heat will pose a problem in roughly 150-200 years that is every bit as serious as the current problem of global warming from greenhouse gases. However, deep heating will be more pernicious as we won’t be able to avoid it by merely shifting from one kind energy to another. A profound problem will loom before us: can we set strict limits on all the energy we use? Can we reign in the seemingly inexorable expansion of our activities to avoid destroying our own environment?

Deep warming is a problem hiding beneath global warming, but one that will become prominent if and when we manage to solve the more pressing issue of greenhouse gases. It remains just out of sight, which might explain why scientists only became concerned about the ‘waste heat’ problem around 15 years ago.

O ne of the first people to describe the problem is the Harvard astrophysicist Eric Chaisson, who discussed the issue of waste heat in a paper titled ‘Long-Term Global Heating from Energy Usage’ (2008). He concluded that our technological society may be facing a fundamental limit to growth due to ‘unavoidable global heating … dictated solely by the second law of thermodynamics, a biogeophysical effect often ignored when estimating future planetary warming scenarios’. When I emailed Chaisson to learn more, he told me the history of his thinking on the problem:

It was on a night flight, Paris-Boston [circa] 2006, after a UNESCO meeting on the environment when it dawned on me that the IPCC were overlooking something. While others on the plane slept, I crunched some numbers literally on the back of an envelope … and then hoped I was wrong, that is, hoped that I was incorrect in thinking that the very act of using energy heats the air, however slightly now.

The transformation of energy into heat is among the most ubiquitous processes of physics

Chaisson drafted the idea up as a paper and sent it to an academic journal. Two anonymous reviewers were eager for it to be published. ‘A third tried his damnedest to kill it,’ Chaisson said, the reviewer claiming the findings were ‘irrelevant and distracting’. After it was finally published, the paper got some traction when it was covered by a journalist and ran as a feature story on the front page of The Boston Globe . The numbers Chaisson crunched, predictions of our mounting waste heat, were even run on a supercomputer at the US National Center for Atmospheric Research, by Mark Flanner, a professor of earth system science. Flanner, Chaisson suspected at the time, was likely ‘out to prove it wrong’. But, ‘after his machine crunched for many hours’, he saw the same results that Chaisson had written on the back of an envelope that night in the plane.

Around the same time, also in 2008, two engineers, Nick Cowern and Chihak Ahn, wrote a research paper entirely independent of Chaisson’s work, but with similar conclusions. This was how I first came across the problem. Cowern and Ahn’s study estimated the total amount of waste heat we’re currently releasing to the environment, and found that it is, right now, quite small. But, like Chaisson, they acknowledged that the problem would eventually become serious unless steps were taken to avoid it.

That’s some of the early history of thinking in this area. But these two papers, and a few other analyses since, point to the same unsettling conclusion: what I am calling ‘deep warming’ will be a big problem for humanity at some point in the not-too-distant future. The precise date is far from certain. It might be 150 years , or 400, or 800, but it’s in the relatively near future, not the distant future of, say, thousands or millions of years. This is our future.

T he transformation of energy into heat is among the most ubiquitous processes of physics. As cars drive down roads, trains roar along railways, planes cross the skies and industrial plants turn raw materials into refined products, energy gets turned into heat, which is the scientific word for energy stored in the disorganised motions of molecules at the microscopic level. As a plane flies from Paris to Boston, it burns fuel and thrusts hot gases into the air, generates lots of sound and stirs up contrails. These swirls of air give rise to swirls on smaller scales which in turn make smaller ones until the energy ultimately ends up lost in heat – the air is a little warmer than before, the molecules making it up moving about a little more vigorously. A similar process takes place when energy is used by the tiny electrical currents inside the microchips of computers, silently carrying out computations. Energy used always ends up as heat. Decades ago, research by the IBM physicist Rolf Landauer showed that a computation involving even a single computing bit will release a certain minimum amount of heat to the environment.

How this happens is described by the laws of thermodynamics, which were described in the mid-19th century by scientists including Sadi Carnot in France and Rudolf Clausius in Germany. Two key ‘laws’ summarise its main principles.

The first law of thermodynamics simply states that the total quantity of energy never changes but is conserved. Energy, in other words, never disappears, but only changes form. The energy initially stored in an aircraft’s fuel, for example, can be changed into the energetic motion of the plane. Turn on an electric heater, and energy initially held in electric currents gets turned into heat, which spreads into the air, walls and fabric of your house. The total energy remains the same, but it markedly changes form.

We’re generating waste heat all the time with everything we do

The second law of thermodynamics, equally important, is more subtle and states that, in natural processes, the transformation of energy always moves from more organised and useful forms to less organised and less useful forms. For an aircraft, the energy initially concentrated in jet fuel ends up dissipated in stirred-up winds, sounds and heat spread over vast areas of the atmosphere in a largely invisible way. It’s the same with the electric heater: the organised useful energy in the electric currents gets dissipated and spread into the low-grade warmth of the walls, then leaks into the outside air. Although the amount of energy remains the same, it gradually turns into less organised, less usable forms. The end point of the energy process produces waste heat. And we’re generating it all the time with everything we do.

Data on world energy consumption shows that, collectively, all humans on Earth are currently using about 170,000 terawatt-hours (TWh), which is a lot of energy in absolute terms – a terawatt-hour is the total energy consumed in one hour by any process using energy at a rate of 1 trillion watts. This huge number isn’t surprising, as it represents all the energy being used every day by the billions of cars and homes around the world, as well as by industry, farming, construction, air traffic and so on. But, in the early 21st century , the warming from this energy is still much less than the planetary heating due to greenhouse gases.

Concentrations of greenhouse gases such as CO 2 and methane are quite small, and only make a fractional difference to how much of the Sun’s energy gets trapped in the atmosphere, rather than making it back out to space. Even so, this fractional difference has a huge effect because the stream of energy arriving from the Sun to Earth is so large. Current estimates of this greenhouse energy imbalance come to around 0.87 W per square meter, which translates into a total energy figure about 50 times larger than our waste heat. That’s reassuring. But as Cowern and Ahn wrote in their 2008 paper, things aren’t likely to stay this way over time because our energy usage keeps rising. Unless, that is, we can find some radical way to break the trend of using ever more energy.

O ne common objection to the idea of the deep warming is to claim that the problem won’t really arise. ‘Don’t worry,’ someone might say, ‘with efficient technology, we’re going to find ways to stop using more energy; though we’ll end up doing more things in the future, we’ll use less energy.’ This may sound plausible at first, because we are indeed getting more efficient at using energy in most areas of technology. Our cars, appliances and laptops are all doing more with less energy. If efficiency keeps improving, perhaps we can learn to run these things with almost no energy at all? Not likely, because there are limits to energy efficiency.

Over the past few decades, the efficiency of heating in homes – including oil and gas furnaces, and boilers used to heat water – has increased from less than 50 per cent to well above 90 per cent of what is theoretically possible. That’s good news, but there’s not much more efficiency to be realised in basic heating. The efficiency of lighting has also vastly improved, with modern LED lighting turning something like 70 per cent of the applied electrical energy into light. We will gain some efficiencies as older lighting gets completely replaced by LEDs, but there’s not a lot of room left for future efficiency improvements. Similar efficiency limits arise in the growing or cooking of food; in the manufacturing of cars, bikes and electronic devices; in transportation, as we’re taken from place to place; in the running of search engines, translation software, GPT-4 or other large-language models.

Even if we made significant improvements in the efficiencies of these technologies, we will only have bought a little time. These changes won’t delay by much the date when deep warming becomes a problem we must reckon with.

Optimising efficiencies is just a temporary reprieve, not a radical change in our human future

As a thought experiment, suppose we could immediately improve the energy efficiency of everything we do by a factor of 10 – a fantastically optimistic proposal. That is, imagine the energy output of humans on Earth has been reduced 10 times , from 170,000 TWh to 17,000 TWh . If our energy use keeps expanding, doubling every 30-50 years or so (as it has for centuries), then a 10-fold increase in waste heat will happen in just over three doubling times, which is about 130 years : 17,000 TWh doubles to 34,000 TWh , which doubles to 68,000 TWh , which doubles to 136,000 TWh , and so on. All those improvements in energy efficiency would quickly evaporate. The date when deep warming hits would recede by 130 years or so, but not much more. Optimising efficiencies is just a temporary reprieve, not a radical change in our human future.

Improvements in energy efficiency can also have an inverse effect on our overall energy use. It’s easy to think that if we make a technology more efficient, we’ll then use less energy through the technology. But economists are deeply aware of a paradoxical effect known as ‘rebound’, whereby improved energy efficiency, by making the use of a technology cheaper, actually leads to more widespread use of that technology – and more energy use too. The classic example, as noted by the British economist William Stanley Jevons in his book The Coal Question (1865), is the invention of the steam engine. This new technology could extract energy from burning coal more efficiently, but it also made possible so many new applications that the use of coal increased. A recent study by economists suggests that, across the economy, such rebound effects might easily swallow at least 50 per cent of any efficiency gains in energy use. Something similar has already happened with LED lights, for which people have found thousands of new uses.

If gains in efficiency won’t buy us lots of time, how about other factors, such as a reduction of the global population? Scientists generally believe that the current human population of more than 8 billion people is well beyond the limits of our finite planet, especially if a large fraction of this population aspires to the resource-intensive lifestyles of wealthy nations. Some estimates suggest that a more sustainable population might be more like 2 billion , which could reduce energy use significantly, potentially by a factor of three or four. However, this isn’t a real solution: again, as with the example of improved energy efficiency, a one-time reduction of our energy consumption by a factor of three will quickly be swallowed up by an inexorable rise in energy use. If Earth’s population were suddenly reduced to 2 billion – about a quarter of the current population – our energy gains would initially be enormous. But those gains would be erased in two doubling times, or roughly 60-100 years , as our energy demands would grow fourfold.

S o, why aren’t more people talking about this? The deep warming problem is starting to get more attention. It was recently mentioned on Twitter by the German climate scientist Stefan Rahmstorf, who cautioned that nuclear fusion, despite excitement over recent advances, won’t arrive in time to save us from our waste heat, and might make the problem worse. By providing another cheap source of energy, fusion energy could accelerate both the growth of our energy use and the reckoning of deep warming. A student of Rahmstorf’s, Peter Steiglechner, wrote his master’s thesis on the problem in 2018. Recognition of deep warming and its long-term implications for humanity is spreading. But what can we do about the problem?

Avoiding or delaying deep warming will involve slowing the rise of our waste heat, which means restricting the amount of energy we use and also choosing energy sources that exacerbate the problem as little as possible. Unlike the energy from fossil fuels or nuclear power, which add to our waste energy burden, renewable energy sources intercept energy that is already on its way to Earth, rather than producing additional waste heat. In this sense, the deep warming problem is another reason to pursue renewable energy sources such as solar or wind rather than alternatives such as nuclear fusion, fission or even geothermal power. If we derive energy from any of these sources, we’re unleashing new flows of energy into the Earth system without making a compensating reduction. As a result, all such sources will add to the waste heat problem. However, if renewable sources of energy are deployed correctly, they need not add to our deposition of waste heat in the environment. By using this energy, we produce no more waste heat than would have been created by sunlight in the first place.

Take the example of wind energy. Sunlight first stirs winds into motion by heating parts of the planet unequally, causing vast cells of convection. As wind churns through the atmosphere, blows through trees and over mountains and waves, most of its energy gets turned into heat, ending up in the microscopic motions of molecules. If we harvest some of this wind energy through turbines, it will also be turned into heat in the form of stored energy. But, crucially, no more heat is generated than if there had been no turbines to capture the wind.

The same can hold true for solar energy. In an array of solar cells, if each cell only collects the sunlight falling on it – which would ordinarily have been absorbed by Earth’s surface – then the cells don’t alter how much waste heat gets produced as they generate energy. The light that would have warmed Earth’s surface instead goes into the solar cells, gets used by people for some purpose, and then later ends up as heat. In this way we reduce the amount of heat being absorbed by Earth by precisely the same amount as the energy we are extracting for human use. We are not adding to overall planetary heating. This keeps the waste energy burden unchanged, at least in the relatively near future, even if we go on extracting and using ever larger amounts of energy.

Covering deserts in dark panels would absorb a lot more energy than the desert floor

Chaisson summarised the problem quite clearly in 2008:

I’m now of the opinion … that any energy that’s dug up on Earth – including all fossil fuels of course, but also nuclear and ground-sourced geothermal – will inevitably produce waste heat as a byproduct of humankind’s use of energy. The only exception to that is energy arriving from beyond Earth, this is energy here and now and not dug up, namely the many solar energies (plural) caused by the Sun’s rays landing here daily … The need to avoid waste heat is indeed the single, strongest, scientific argument to embrace solar energies of all types.

But not just any method of gathering solar energy will avoid the deep warming problem. Doing so requires careful engineering. For example, covering deserts with solar panels would add to planetary heating because deserts reflect a lot of incident light back out to space, so it is never absorbed by Earth (and therefore doesn’t produce waste heat). Covering deserts in dark panels would absorb a lot more energy than the desert floor and would heat the planet further.

We’ll also face serious problems in the long run if our energy appetite keeps increasing. Futurists dream of technologies deployed in space where huge panels would absorb sunlight that would otherwise have passed by Earth and never entered our atmosphere. Ultimately, they believe, this energy could be beamed down to Earth. Like nuclear energy, such technologies would add an additional energy source to the planet without any compensating removal of heating from the sunlight currently striking our planet’s surface. Any effort to produce more energy than is normally available from sunlight at Earth’s surface will only make our heating problems worse.

D eep warming is simply a consequence of the laws of physics and our inquisitive nature. It seems to be in our nature to constantly learn and develop new things, changing our environment in the process. For thousands of years, we have harvested and exploited ever greater quantities of energy in this pursuit, and we appear poised to continue along this path with the rapidly expanding use of renewable energy sources – and perhaps even more novel sources such as nuclear fusion. But this path cannot proceed indefinitely without consequences.

The logic that more energy equals more warming sets up a profound dilemma for our future. The laws of physics and the habits ingrained in us from our long evolutionary history are steering us toward trouble. We may have a technological fix for greenhouse gas warming – just shift from fossil fuels to cleaner energy sources – but there is no technical trick to get us out of the deep warming problem. That won’t stop some scientists from trying.

Perhaps, believing that humanity is incapable of reducing its energy usage, we’ll adopt a fantastic scheme to cool the planet, such as planetary-scale refrigeration or using artificially engineered tornadoes to transport heat from Earth’s surface to the upper atmosphere where it can be radiated away to space. As far-fetched as such approaches sound, scientists have given some serious thought to these and other equally bizarre ideas, which seem wholly in the realm of science fiction. They’re schemes that will likely make the problem worse not better.

We will need to transform the human story. It must become a story of doing less, not more

I see several possibilities for how we might ultimately respond. As with greenhouse gas warming, there will probably be an initial period of disbelief, denial and inaction, as we continue with unconstrained technological advance and growing energy use. Our planet will continue warming. Sooner or later, however, such warming will lead to serious disruptions of the Earth environment and its ecosystems. We won’t be able to ignore this for long, and it may provide a natural counterbalance to our energy use, as our technical and social capacity to generate and use ever more energy will be eroded. We may eventually come to some uncomfortable balance in which we just scrabble out a life on a hot, compromised planet because we lack the moral and organisational ability to restrict our energy use enough to maintain a sound environment.

An alternative would require a radical break with our past: using less energy. Finding a way to use less energy would represent a truly fundamental rupture with all of human history, something entirely novel. A rupture of this magnitude won’t come easily. However, if we could learn to view restrictions on our energy use as a non-negotiable element of life on Earth, we may still be able to do many of the things that make us essentially human: learning, discovering, inventing, creating. In this scenario, any helpful new technology that comes into use and begins using lots of energy would require a balancing reduction in energy use elsewhere. In such a way, we might go on with the future being perpetually new, and possibly better.

None of this is easily achieved and will likely mirror our current struggles to come to agreements on greenhouse gas heating. There will be vicious squabbles, arguments and profound polarisation, quite possibly major wars. Humanity will never have faced a challenge of this magnitude, and we won’t face up to it quickly or easily, I expect. But we must. Planetary heating is in our future – the very near future and further out as well. Many people will find this conclusion surprisingly hard to swallow, perhaps because it implies fundamental restrictions on our future here on Earth: we can’t go on forever using more and more energy, and, at the same time, expecting the planet’s climate to remain stable.

The world will likely be transformed by 2050. And, sometime after that, we will need to transform the human story. The narrative arc of humanity must become a tale of continuing innovation and learning, but also one of careful management. It must become a story, in energy terms, of doing less, not more. There’s no technology for entirely escaping waste heat, only techniques.

This is important to remember as we face up to the extremely urgent challenge of heating linked to fossil-fuel use and greenhouse gases. Global warming is just the beginning of our problems. It’s a testing ground to see if we can manage an intelligent and coordinated response. If we can handle this challenge, we might be better prepared, more capable and resilient as a species to tackle an even harder one.

Folk music was never green

Don’t be swayed by the sound of environmental protest: these songs were first sung in the voice of the cutter, not the tree

Richard Smyth

Nations and empires

A United States of Europe

A free and unified Europe was first imagined by Italian radicals in the 19th century. Could we yet see their dream made real?

Fernanda Gallo

Stories and literature

On Jewish revenge

What might a people, subjected to unspeakable historical suffering, think about the ethics of vengeance once in power?

Shachar Pinsker

Building embryos

For 3,000 years, humans have struggled to understand the embryo. Now there is a revolution underway

John Wallingford

Consciousness and altered states

How perforated squares of trippy blotter paper allowed outlaw chemists and wizard-alchemists to dose the world with LSD

Last hours of an organ donor

In the liminal time when the brain is dead but organs are kept alive, there is an urgent tenderness to medical care

Ronald W Dworkin

What can we do to slow or stop global warming?

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to stopping or slowing global warming, and each individual, business, municipal, state, tribal, and federal entity must weigh their options in light of their own unique set of circumstances.  Experts say  it is likely many strategies working together will be needed. Generally speaking, here are some examples of mitigation strategies we can use to slow or stop the human-caused global warming ( learn more ):

• Where possible, we can switch to renewable sources of energy (such as solar and wind energy) to power our homes and buildings, thus emitting far less heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere.
• Where feasible, we can drive electric vehicles instead of those that burn fossil fuels; or we can use mass transit instead of driving our own cars.
• Where affordable, we can conserve energy by better insulating our homes and buildings, and by replacing old, failing appliances with more energy-efficient models.
• Where practicable, we can counterbalance our annual carbon dioxide emissions by investing in commercial services that draw down an equal amount of carbon out of the atmosphere, such as through planting trees or  carbon capture and storage  techniques.
• Where practical, we can support more local businesses that use and promote sustainable, climate-smart practices such as those listed above.
• We can consider placing an upper limit on the amount of carbon dioxide we will allow ourselves to emit into the atmosphere within a given timeframe.

Note that NOAA doesn’t advocate for or against particular climate policies. Instead, NOAA’s role is to provide data and scientific information about climate, including how it has changed and is likely to change in the future depending on different climate policies or actions society may or may not take. More guidance on courses of action can be found in the National Academy of Sciences' 2010 report, titled  Informing an Effective Response to Climate Change . Also learn more  here,   here,  and  here .

Thanks to low friction between train wheels and tracks, and level train tracks with gradual turns, trains have high energy efficiency. Photo from National Park Service Amtrak Trails and Rails .

Stabilizing global temperature near its current level requires eliminating all emissions of heat-trapping gases or, equivalently, achieving a carbon-neutral society in which people remove as much carbon from the atmosphere as they emit. Achieving this goal will require substantial societal changes in energy technologies and infrastructure that go beyond the collective actions of individuals and households to reduce emissions.

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• ENVIRONMENT

How global warming is disrupting life on Earth

The signs of global warming are everywhere, and are more complex than just climbing temperatures.

Our planet is getting hotter. Since the Industrial Revolution—an event that spurred the use of fossil fuels in everything from power plants to transportation—Earth has warmed by 1 degree Celsius, about 2 degrees Fahrenheit.  

That may sound insignificant, but 2023 was the hottest year on record , and all 10 of the hottest years on record have occurred in the past decade.  

Global warming and climate change are often used interchangeably as synonyms, but scientists prefer to use “climate change” when describing the complex shifts now affecting our planet’s weather and climate systems.  

Climate change encompasses not only rising average temperatures but also natural disasters, shifting wildlife habitats, rising seas , and a range of other impacts. All of these changes are emerging as humans continue to add heat-trapping greenhouse gases , like carbon dioxide and methane, to the atmosphere.

What causes global warming?

When fossil fuel emissions are pumped into the atmosphere, they change the chemistry of our atmosphere, allowing sunlight to reach the Earth but preventing heat from being released into space. This keeps Earth warm, like a greenhouse, and this warming is known as the greenhouse effect .  

Carbon dioxide is the most commonly found greenhouse gas and about 75 percent of all the climate warming pollution in the atmosphere. This gas is a product of producing and burning oil, gas, and coal. About a quarter of Carbon dioxide also results from land cleared for timber or agriculture.  

Methane is another common greenhouse gas. Although it makes up only about 16 percent of emissions, it's roughly 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide and dissipates more quickly. That means methane can cause a large spark in warming, but ending methane pollution can also quickly limit the amount of atmospheric warming. Sources of this gas include agriculture (mostly livestock), leaks from oil and gas production, and waste from landfills.  

What are the effects of global warming?  

One of the most concerning impacts of global warming is the effect warmer temperatures will have on Earth's polar regions and mountain glaciers. The Arctic is warming four times faster than the rest of the planet. This warming reduces critical ice habitat and it disrupts the flow of the jet stream, creating more unpredictable weather patterns around the globe.  

( Learn more about the jet stream. )

A warmer planet doesn't just raise temperatures. Precipitation is becoming more extreme as the planet heats. For every degree your thermometer rises, the air holds about seven percent more moisture. This increase in moisture in the atmosphere can produce flash floods, more destructive hurricanes, and even paradoxically, stronger snow storms.  

The world's leading scientists regularly gather to review the latest research on how the planet is changing. The results of this review is synthesized in regularly published reports known as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports.  

A recent report outlines how disruptive a global rise in temperature can be:

• Coral reefs are now a highly endangered ecosystem. When corals face environmental stress, such as high heat, they expel their colorful algae and turn a ghostly white, an effect known as coral bleaching . In this weakened state, they more easily die.  
• Trees are increasingly dying from drought , and this mass mortality is reshaping forest ecosystems.
• Rising temperatures and changing precipitation patterns are making wildfires more common and more widespread. Research shows they're even moving into the eastern U.S. where fires have historically been less common.
• Hurricanes are growing more destructive and dumping more rain, an effect that will result in more damage. Some scientists say we even need to be preparing for Cat 6 storms . (The current ranking system ends at Cat 5.)

How can we limit global warming?  

Limiting the rising in global warming is theoretically achievable, but politically, socially, and economically difficult.  

Those same sources of greenhouse gas emissions must be limited to reduce warming. For example, oil and gas used to generate electricity or power industrial manufacturing will need to be replaced by net zero emission technology like wind and solar power. Transportation, another major source of emissions, will need to integrate more electric vehicles, public transportation, and innovative urban design, such as safe bike lanes and walkable cities.  

( Learn more about solutions to limit global warming. )

One global warming solution that was once considered far fetched is now being taken more seriously: geoengineering. This type of technology relies on manipulating the Earth's atmosphere to physically block the warming rays of the sun or by sucking carbon dioxide straight out of the sky.

Restoring nature may also help limit warming. Trees, oceans, wetlands, and other ecosystems help absorb excess carbon—but when they're lost, so too is their potential to fight climate change.  

Ultimately, we'll need to adapt to warming temperatures, building homes to withstand sea level rise for example, or more efficiently cooling homes during heat waves.  

For Hungry Minds

Related topics.

• CLIMATE CHANGE
• ENVIRONMENT AND CONSERVATION
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10 (page 173) p. 173 Conclusion

• Published: November 2008
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The ‘Conclusion’ confirms that global warming is the major challenge for our global society. There is very little doubt that global warming will change our climate in the next century. So what are the solutions to global warming? First, there must be an international political solution. Second, funding for developing cheap and clean energy production must be increased, as all economic development is based on increasing energy usage. We must not pin all our hopes on global politics and clean energy technology, so we must prepare for the worst and adapt. If implemented now, a lot of the costs and damage that could be caused by changing climate can be mitigated.

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The Problem of Global Warming and Ways of Its Solution

Introduction and explanation of the problem, the likely solution to global warming, gas offsetting/mitigation, geoengineering, regenerative organic farming.

Global warming is the rise in the usual temperature on earth in the near-surface of air. This global warming is believed to have been caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gases. Cline (p.87) argues that greenhouse gases have been believed to have been responsible for the mid-twentieth century temperature increase. The other natural causes like solar variation and volcanoes have also contributed to global warming. This was concluded by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changes. Most studies have shown that global warming will still rise during the twenty-first century. This is due to the un-estimated greenhouse gas emissions.

The outcomes of greenhouse were exposed within 1824 through Joseph Fourier in addition to being examined by Svante Arrhenius during 1896. Greenhouse gases entailed the incorporation, as well as discharge of infrared waves via atmospheric gases, moreover warmed the planet near to the ground atmosphere plus surface. The greenhouse gases are comprised of water vapor, methane, carbon dioxide as well as ozone. Even human activities are also believed to have contributed to global warming. Most human activities have caused temperatures to rise hence causing global warming. Industrial human activities increase the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere which leads to rising radioactivity.

Fossil fuel burning is the largest contributor to greenhouse gases. Deforestation has also increased temperature. The combination of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases has caused the temperature on the earth to rise each day because their emission is also increased. The climate changes experienced in recent years have been due to global warming and increasing emissions by the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Variation in solar output has been recommended to have caused climatic changes. Sun is also believed to have caused the increase in global temperature.

Global warming has been the most challenging problem facing a good number of countries today. It is now known to be a global environmental problem. All countries should work hard to ensure that the health and well-being of the economy are protected now and in the future. Low (p.30) affirms that people should be advised to apply the current technology and other possible solutions available to reduce the gases emitted. By doing so, heat-trapping gases will decrease hence reducing atmospheric temperatures.

Gases such as carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions should be reduced for us to solve the global warming problem. People should stop reliance on fossil fuels and use other available energy that can be renewed. If people can avoid the use of fossils then the greenhouse gas emission will be reduced. This will lead to a positive effect because it will reduce the atmospheric temperature. People should also look for some other kind of energy that can substitute the use of fossil fuel and satisfy their energy needs.

Quick industrialization has increased the need and use of fossil fuels. Countries should look for other sources of energy such as wind energy, solar energy, Boi, nuclear so as to reduce the use of fossil fuel. This form of energy exists but it is only that most countries have been reluctant to implement their use. If this other energy is put into use, the emission of gases such as carbon and greenhouse gases will be reduced.

Since the emissions of greenhouse gases and carbon dioxide cannot be eliminated absolutely, people should look for a possible solution that will be long-lasting and that this solution will help to improve the economy. The problem of gas emission should be handled with much concern because if these gases are not controlled they will keep on increasing (Simms, p.6).

The United Nations in 1998 proposed a framework that was going to tackle the problem of global warming and environmental-climate changes. This framework is known as the “Kyoto Protocol.” It was aimed at reducing the causes of global warming.

The ‘Kyoto Protocol’ is based on the principle that people must buy a right to pollute the environment. People are required to offset the gases that they emit to the environment. A company that produces carbon dioxide is required to invest in a green project of the same amount as the pollution caused. The same applies to all countries for the amount of carbon dioxide to be controlled. All countries are required to plant green plants equivalent to the amount of carbon dioxide emitted in the same country. The offset principle is believed to be the best solution for reducing climatic change and global warming. This is because it ensures that every carbon dioxide gas that is emitted has an offset and therefore it will be easy to control the level of carbon dioxide. When doing offsetting it does not necessarily require that the project be undertaken in the same country. The project can be undertaken in another country hence offsetting the carbon globally.

Offsetting also enables countries to undertake a project in a place where it is cheaper. This helps in the economic development of the countries because companies continue with their business activity as usual hence economic growth and expansion. Even if a company is emitting carbon dioxide it will be able to carry out its activities as it can invest in a project that will offset the gases. Offsetting projects include reforestation, solar energy, aforestation, wind energy, bio-fuel, and hydro-energy.

Even individuals are encouraged to carry out mitigating measures to reduce the world’s global warming. People are encouraged to plant more trees to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide. They are also advised to use alternative fuels apart from fossil.

However, there is no one way or technology that can mitigate global warming absolutely. Various measures should be implemented to reduce global warming.

Geoengineering is another alternative for reducing global warming. It involves intentional alteration of the natural environment of the Earth on a big scale to fit human needs. Thomas (p.1221) emphasizes that greenhouse gas remediation can be done to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere it is usually done through gas confiscation techniques. They involve carbon dioxide air capturing. This process helps to the amount of radioactive forcing. Solar radiation management helps to increase global dimming thus reducing global warming.

It involves the planned measures that are aimed at curbing the exposure of natural and human systems against real or anticipated climate changes impact. It also involves the modification of systems to reduce the impact of climate change on these systems. Climate change results in various effects that can affect humans and even the natural environment. Various measures have been put into use for the adaptation of global warming. This includes air conditioning equipment, artificial snowmaking, and other infrastructural projects. This involves the desertion of settlement areas that are near the sea. People can also be involved in agricultural projects such as water conservation projects.

The adaption of the global seems to be inevitable because greenhouse gases are most likely to go up each day. Adaptation can help to reduce the undesirable effect of climate change if put into use. Though this measure usually involves a large amount of money and it requires the use of the current technology, infrastructures, access to resources, and education.

Regenerative organic farming helps to transform agriculture into the global solution to global warming. This is by encouraging farmer to change the method of farming that lead to global warming (Hastenrath, p.489). Farmers should be involved in crops that are environmentally friendly to help reduce global warming. This will also help to reduce food shortage and reducing the increasing amount of carbon dioxide.

Global warming is a worldwide problem. The atmospheric temperatures are on the increase day in day out. It affects almost all countries due to the use of fossils which results in greenhouse gases and the emission of carbon dioxide. Global warming if not controlled can lead to adverse effects. It thus requires that all countries work together to reduce the number of gases emitted into the atmosphere. People should be involved in tree planting which will help reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

They should also reduce the use of fossils and look for other sources of energy such as wind energy, solar, biogas, and hydro-energy. Most of the global warming has been attributed to human activities. Most activities by humans are the ones that have contributed to global warming which involves the use of fossil fuel. If the amount of greenhouse gases is left to increase there will be a rise in the atmospheric temperatures hence increased adverse effects. But if the emissions are reduced and kept under control it will help reduce the risk of adverse effects of global warming. Simms (p.8) stresses that tree planting and agricultural activities will play a major role in mitigating the amount of carbon in the atmosphere and also reduce greenhouse gas imitations. Tree planting can also be achieved by using the offsetting principle. The principle will involve companies to plants trees. Fuel prices can be increased so as to discourage people from using fossil fuels and reduce the amount of fuel used.

Appel, Adrianne. Global Warming May Dry Up Africa’s Rivers, Study Suggests. National Geographic News 2006.

Cline, William R. Global warming and agriculture: impact estimates by country Washington D.C: Peterson Institute, 2007 pp. 84-98.

Croze, Harvey. Africa for Kids: Exploring a Vibrant Continent, 19 Activities . Chicago Review Press, 2006.

Hastenrath, Climate dynamics of the tropics. Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Dordrecht, 1991 pp 488 -496.

Low, Pak S. Climate Change and Africa . London: Cambridge University Press, 2005 pp 29-50.

Kerr, Richard A. Global Warming: How Urgent Is Climate Change? Science 318 no. 5854 (2007): pp 1230 – 1231.

Ojoo-Massawa, Emily. Understanding and Responding to Climate Change . Kenyan Ministry of Environment and Mineral resources. Web.

Simms, Andrew, et al. Africa: up in smoke? New Economics Foundation, International Institute for Environment and Development. London: Oxfam, 2005 pp 4-10.

Thomas, David S., Knight, Melanie and Wigg, Giles F. S. Remobilization of southern African desert dune systems by twenty-first century global warming. Nature 435 (2005): 1218-1221.

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Essay on Global Warming

• Updated on  
• Apr 27, 2024

Being able to write an essay is an integral part of mastering any language. Essays form an integral part of many academic and scholastic exams like the SAT , and UPSC amongst many others. It is a crucial evaluative part of English proficiency tests as well like IELTS , TOEFL , etc. Major essays are meant to emphasize public issues of concern that can have significant consequences on the world. To understand the concept of Global Warming and its causes and effects, we must first examine the many factors that influence the planet’s temperature and what this implies for the world’s future. Here’s an unbiased look at the essay on Global Warming and other essential related topics.

Short Essay on Global Warming and Climate Change?

Since the industrial and scientific revolutions, Earth’s resources have been gradually depleted. Furthermore, the start of the world’s population’s exponential expansion is particularly hard on the environment. Simply put, as the population’s need for consumption grows, so does the use of natural resources , as well as the waste generated by that consumption.

Climate change has been one of the most significant long-term consequences of this. Climate change is more than just the rise or fall of global temperatures; it also affects rain cycles, wind patterns, cyclone frequencies, sea levels, and other factors. It has an impact on all major life groupings on the planet.

Also Read: World Population Day

What is Global Warming?

Global warming is the unusually rapid increase in Earth’s average surface temperature over the past century, primarily due to the greenhouse gases released by people burning fossil fuels . The greenhouse gases consist of methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, carbon dioxide, water vapour, and chlorofluorocarbons. The weather prediction has been becoming more complex with every passing year, with seasons more indistinguishable, and the general temperatures hotter.

The number of hurricanes, cyclones, droughts, floods, etc., has risen steadily since the onset of the 21st century. The supervillain behind all these changes is Global Warming. The name is quite self-explanatory; it means the rise in the temperature of the Earth.

Also Read: What is a Natural Disaster?

What are the Causes of Global Warming?

According to recent studies, many scientists believe the following are the primary four causes of global warming:

• Deforestation 
• Greenhouse emissions
• Carbon emissions per capita

Extreme global warming is causing natural disasters , which can be seen all around us. One of the causes of global warming is the extreme release of greenhouse gases that become trapped on the earth’s surface, causing the temperature to rise. Similarly, volcanoes contribute to global warming by spewing excessive CO2 into the atmosphere.

The increase in population is one of the major causes of Global Warming. This increase in population also leads to increased air pollution . Automobiles emit a lot of CO2, which remains in the atmosphere. This increase in population is also causing deforestation, which contributes to global warming.

The earth’s surface emits energy into the atmosphere in the form of heat, keeping the balance with the incoming energy. Global warming depletes the ozone layer, bringing about the end of the world. There is a clear indication that increased global warming will result in the extinction of all life on Earth’s surface.

Also Read: Land, Soil, Water, Natural Vegetation, and Wildlife Resources

Solutions for Global Warming

Of course, industries and multinational conglomerates emit more carbon than the average citizen. Nonetheless, activism and community effort are the only viable ways to slow the worsening effects of global warming. Furthermore, at the state or government level, world leaders must develop concrete plans and step-by-step programmes to ensure that no further harm is done to the environment in general.

Although we are almost too late to slow the rate of global warming, finding the right solution is critical. Everyone, from individuals to governments, must work together to find a solution to Global Warming. Some of the factors to consider are pollution control, population growth, and the use of natural resources.

One very important contribution you can make is to reduce your use of plastic. Plastic is the primary cause of global warming, and recycling it takes years. Another factor to consider is deforestation, which will aid in the control of global warming. More tree planting should be encouraged to green the environment. Certain rules should also govern industrialization. Building industries in green zones that affect plants and species should be prohibited.

Also Read: Essay on Pollution

Effects of Global Warming

Global warming is a real problem that many people want to disprove to gain political advantage. However, as global citizens, we must ensure that only the truth is presented in the media.

This decade has seen a significant impact from global warming. The two most common phenomena observed are glacier retreat and arctic shrinkage. Glaciers are rapidly melting. These are clear manifestations of climate change.

Another significant effect of global warming is the rise in sea level. Flooding is occurring in low-lying areas as a result of sea-level rise. Many countries have experienced extreme weather conditions. Every year, we have unusually heavy rain, extreme heat and cold, wildfires, and other natural disasters.

Similarly, as global warming continues, marine life is being severely impacted. This is causing the extinction of marine species as well as other problems. Furthermore, changes are expected in coral reefs, which will face extinction in the coming years. These effects will intensify in the coming years, effectively halting species expansion. Furthermore, humans will eventually feel the negative effects of Global Warming.

Also Read: Concept of Sustainable Development

Sample Essays on Global Warming

Here are some sample essays on Global Warming:

Essay on Global Warming Paragraph in 100 – 150 words

Global Warming is caused by the increase of carbon dioxide levels in the earth’s atmosphere and is a result of human activities that have been causing harm to our environment for the past few centuries now. Global Warming is something that can’t be ignored and steps have to be taken to tackle the situation globally. The average temperature is constantly rising by 1.5 degrees Celsius over the last few years.

The best method to prevent future damage to the earth, cutting down more forests should be banned and Afforestation should be encouraged. Start by planting trees near your homes and offices, participate in events, and teach the importance of planting trees. It is impossible to undo the damage but it is possible to stop further harm.

Also Read: Social Forestry

Essay on Global Warming in 250 Words

Over a long period, it is observed that the temperature of the earth is increasing. This affected wildlife, animals, humans, and every living organism on earth. Glaciers have been melting, and many countries have started water shortages, flooding, and erosion and all this is because of global warming. 

No one can be blamed for global warming except for humans. Human activities such as gases released from power plants, transportation, and deforestation have increased gases such as carbon dioxide, CFCs, and other pollutants in the earth’s atmosphere.                                              The main question is how can we control the current situation and build a better world for future generations. It starts with little steps by every individual. 

Start using cloth bags made from sustainable materials for all shopping purposes, instead of using high-watt lights use energy-efficient bulbs, switch off the electricity, don’t waste water, abolish deforestation and encourage planting more trees. Shift the use of energy from petroleum or other fossil fuels to wind and solar energy. Instead of throwing out the old clothes donate them to someone so that it is recycled. 

Donate old books, don’t waste paper.  Above all, spread awareness about global warming. Every little thing a person does towards saving the earth will contribute in big or small amounts. We must learn that 1% effort is better than no effort. Pledge to take care of Mother Nature and speak up about global warming.

Also Read: Types of Water Pollution

Essay on Global Warming in 500 Words

Global warming isn’t a prediction, it is happening! A person denying it or unaware of it is in the most simple terms complicit. Do we have another planet to live on? Unfortunately, we have been bestowed with this one planet only that can sustain life yet over the years we have turned a blind eye to the plight it is in. Global warming is not an abstract concept but a global phenomenon occurring ever so slowly even at this moment. Global Warming is a phenomenon that is occurring every minute resulting in a gradual increase in the Earth’s overall climate. Brought about by greenhouse gases that trap the solar radiation in the atmosphere, global warming can change the entire map of the earth, displacing areas, flooding many countries, and destroying multiple lifeforms. Extreme weather is a direct consequence of global warming but it is not an exhaustive consequence. There are virtually limitless effects of global warming which are all harmful to life on earth. The sea level is increasing by 0.12 inches per year worldwide. This is happening because of the melting of polar ice caps because of global warming. This has increased the frequency of floods in many lowland areas and has caused damage to coral reefs. The Arctic is one of the worst-hit areas affected by global warming. Air quality has been adversely affected and the acidity of the seawater has also increased causing severe damage to marine life forms. Severe natural disasters are brought about by global warming which has had dire effects on life and property. As long as mankind produces greenhouse gases, global warming will continue to accelerate. The consequences are felt at a much smaller scale which will increase to become drastic shortly. The power to save the day lies in the hands of humans, the need is to seize the day. Energy consumption should be reduced on an individual basis. Fuel-efficient cars and other electronics should be encouraged to reduce the wastage of energy sources. This will also improve air quality and reduce the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Global warming is an evil that can only be defeated when fought together. It is better late than never. If we all take steps today, we will have a much brighter future tomorrow. Global warming is the bane of our existence and various policies have come up worldwide to fight it but that is not enough. The actual difference is made when we work at an individual level to fight it. Understanding its import now is crucial before it becomes an irrevocable mistake. Exterminating global warming is of utmost importance and each one of us is as responsible for it as the next.  

Also Read: Essay on Library: 100, 200 and 250 Words

Essay on Global Warming UPSC

Always hear about global warming everywhere, but do we know what it is? The evil of the worst form, global warming is a phenomenon that can affect life more fatally. Global warming refers to the increase in the earth’s temperature as a result of various human activities. The planet is gradually getting hotter and threatening the existence of lifeforms on it. Despite being relentlessly studied and researched, global warming for the majority of the population remains an abstract concept of science. It is this concept that over the years has culminated in making global warming a stark reality and not a concept covered in books. Global warming is not caused by one sole reason that can be curbed. Multifarious factors cause global warming most of which are a part of an individual’s daily existence. Burning of fuels for cooking, in vehicles, and for other conventional uses, a large amount of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, and methane amongst many others is produced which accelerates global warming. Rampant deforestation also results in global warming as lesser green cover results in an increased presence of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere which is a greenhouse gas.  Finding a solution to global warming is of immediate importance. Global warming is a phenomenon that has to be fought unitedly. Planting more trees can be the first step that can be taken toward warding off the severe consequences of global warming. Increasing the green cover will result in regulating the carbon cycle. There should be a shift from using nonrenewable energy to renewable energy such as wind or solar energy which causes less pollution and thereby hinder the acceleration of global warming. Reducing energy needs at an individual level and not wasting energy in any form is the most important step to be taken against global warming. The warning bells are tolling to awaken us from the deep slumber of complacency we have slipped into. Humans can fight against nature and it is high time we acknowledged that. With all our scientific progress and technological inventions, fighting off the negative effects of global warming is implausible. We have to remember that we do not inherit the earth from our ancestors but borrow it from our future generations and the responsibility lies on our shoulders to bequeath them a healthy planet for life to exist. 

Also Read: Essay on Disaster Management

Climate Change and Global Warming Essay

Global Warming and Climate Change are two sides of the same coin. Both are interrelated with each other and are two issues of major concern worldwide. Greenhouse gases released such as carbon dioxide, CFCs, and other pollutants in the earth’s atmosphere cause Global Warming which leads to climate change. Black holes have started to form in the ozone layer that protects the earth from harmful ultraviolet rays. 

Human activities have created climate change and global warming. Industrial waste and fumes are the major contributors to global warming. 

Another factor affecting is the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation and also one of the reasons for climate change.  Global warming has resulted in shrinking mountain glaciers in Antarctica, Greenland, and the Arctic and causing climate change. Switching from the use of fossil fuels to energy sources like wind and solar. 

When buying any electronic appliance buy the best quality with energy savings stars. Don’t waste water and encourage rainwater harvesting in your community. 

Also Read: Essay on Air Pollution

Tips to Write an Essay

Writing an effective essay needs skills that few people possess and even fewer know how to implement. While writing an essay can be an assiduous task that can be unnerving at times, some key pointers can be inculcated to draft a successful essay. These involve focusing on the structure of the essay, planning it out well, and emphasizing crucial details.

Mentioned below are some pointers that can help you write better structure and more thoughtful essays that will get across to your readers:

• Prepare an outline for the essay to ensure continuity and relevance and no break in the structure of the essay
• Decide on a thesis statement that will form the basis of your essay. It will be the point of your essay and help readers understand your contention
• Follow the structure of an introduction, a detailed body followed by a conclusion so that the readers can comprehend the essay in a particular manner without any dissonance.
• Make your beginning catchy and include solutions in your conclusion to make the essay insightful and lucrative to read
• Reread before putting it out and add your flair to the essay to make it more personal and thereby unique and intriguing for readers  

Also Read: I Love My India Essay: 100 and 500+ Words in English for School Students

Ans. Both natural and man-made factors contribute to global warming. The natural one also contains methane gas, volcanic eruptions, and greenhouse gases. Deforestation, mining, livestock raising, burning fossil fuels, and other man-made causes are next.

Ans. The government and the general public can work together to stop global warming. Trees must be planted more often, and deforestation must be prohibited. Auto usage needs to be curbed, and recycling needs to be promoted.

Ans. Switching to renewable energy sources , adopting sustainable farming, transportation, and energy methods, and conserving water and other natural resources.

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Digvijay Singh

Having 2+ years of experience in educational content writing, withholding a Bachelor's in Physical Education and Sports Science and a strong interest in writing educational content for students enrolled in domestic and foreign study abroad programmes. I believe in offering a distinct viewpoint to the table, to help students deal with the complexities of both domestic and foreign educational systems. Through engaging storytelling and insightful analysis, I aim to inspire my readers to embark on their educational journeys, whether abroad or at home, and to make the most of every learning opportunity that comes their way.

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This was really a good essay on global warming… There has been used many unic words..and I really liked it!!!Seriously I had been looking for a essay about Global warming just like this…

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I want to learn how to write essay writing so I joined this page.This page is very useful for everyone.

Hi, we are glad that we could help you to write essays. We have a beginner’s guide to write essays ( https://leverageedu.com/blog/essay-writing/ ) and we think this might help you.

It is not good , to have global warming in our earth .So we all have to afforestation program on all the world.

thank you so much

Very educative , helpful and it is really going to strength my English knowledge to structure my essay in future

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Global warming is the increase in 𝓽𝓱𝓮 ᴀᴠᴇʀᴀɢᴇ ᴛᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴀᴛᴜʀᴇs ᴏғ ᴇᴀʀᴛʜ🌎 ᴀᴛᴍᴏsᴘʜᴇʀᴇ

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Problem Solution Essay on Global Warming

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Global Warming Essay in English (Causes and Solutions) - 100, 200, 500 Words

• Essay on Global Warming

The planet is now undergoing changes and modernization is happening at a rapid rate. We desire development in all areas of life. In the name of expansion, an increasing number of industries are being founded. But as humanity has grown, the state of the planet's ecology has substantially deteriorated. When discussing significant environmental dangers, the phrase "Global Warming" is frequently used. The causes and consequences of global warming are still largely unknown to many people. Here are a few sample essays on global warming:

100 Words Essay on Global Warming

200 words essay on global warming, 500 words essay on global warming.

An increase in the Earth's average global temperature is known as global warming. Global warming is mostly caused by burning more fossil fuels and the emission of hazardous pollutants into the atmosphere. Living things can suffer greatly as a result of global warming. The temperature suddenly rises in some places, while in others, it suddenly drops. The use of fossil fuels for energy is the main cause of global warming. It has been noticed that over the last ten years, the Earth's average temperature has risen by 1.5 degrees Celsius. This is cause for concern because it can harm ecosystems and lead to environmental disturbance. If we take decisive action to replace the destroyed vegetation in our forests, we can stop global warming. To slow the rate of global warming, we can also use sustainable energy sources like sun, wind, and tidal energy.

Over time, the cumulative increase in Earth's average global temperatures is referred to as global warming. It has been said that large-scale deforestation by humans for various reasons is to blame. Every year, we use a lot of fuel. It is becoming impossible to meet people's fuel needs as the human population has increased. Natural resources must be used carefully as they are limited. The ecosystem will become unbalanced if humans overuse mineral wealth like forests and waterways. Temperature increases alone are not the only sign of global warming. It also has other consequences.

Natural disasters, including storms, floods, and avalanches , are happening all over the planet. These all have a direct connection to global warming. To protect our environment we must rebuild our ecology to defend it against the negative effects of global warming. To make this globe a nicer place for the generations to come, who also appreciate this Earth in the same way we do, we must all work together. Planting trees is the fundamental action we can do to improve the condition of our world as a whole. Our main objective should be reforestation. If we commit to growing as many plants as we can during our lifetimes, the Earth will become a better place.

The gradual increase in surface climate caused by various factors is known as global warming. It poses serious risks to both the environment and humanity. Climate change effects include global warming . The main contributor to global warming is the unavoidable release of greenhouse gases. Methane and carbon dioxide are two of the main greenhouse gases. There are numerous other causes and ramifications of this warming, which endangers Earth's life.

Reasons Responsible For Global Warming

The causes of global warming are several. These problems are caused by both nature and humanity. Because of the presence of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere , the heat rays that the Earth's surface reflects become trapped there. The "greenhouse effect" is what results from this phenomenon. It is necessary to keep our world from turning into a frozen ball. Global warming results from too much carbon dioxide trapping all the heat from the Earth's surface. The primary gases that cause global warming are referred to as greenhouse gases.

The main greenhouse gases are methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, and carbon dioxide . These gases cause global warming when their concentrations are out of balance. Volcanic eruptions, solar radiation, and other natural occurrences are a few examples that contribute to global warming. People's excessive use of cars and fossil fuels also raises carbon dioxide levels. Among the most prevalent and quickly spreading issues causing global warming is deforestation. The level of carbon dioxide in the air is rising because trees are being cut down. Additional reasons contributing to global warming include the expanding population, industrialisation, pollution, etc.

How Climate Change Impacts Us

Numerous variations in the weather are brought on by global warming, including lengthier summers and fewer winters, greater temperatures, modifications to the trade winds, rain that falls throughout the year, melting polar ice caps, a weaker ozone barrier, etc. Additionally, it may result in a rise in natural disasters, including severe storms, cyclones, floods, and many others. Plants, animals, and other environmental elements are directly impacted by the harm produced by global warming. The rising sea level, swift glacier melting, and other effects of global warming are significant. As global warming worsens, marine life is negatively impacted, significantly destroying marine life and causing additional issues.

Preventing Global Warming

Finding the proper solution is crucial now more than ever since global warming has become a serious issue and is being discussed globally at international forums and conferences. It is time that the age of industrialization to be controlled and continued in a sustainable manner. Everybody, from communities to governments, needs to work together to solve the issue of global warming. Controlling pollution, population growth, and the limiting exploitation of natural resources are a few factors to consider. Using public transportation or carpooling with others will be very helpful. Therefore, recycling should also be promoted to individuals.

There are clear signs that the increase in global warming will wipe out all life on the surface of the world. Global warming is the greatest threat to humanity and cannot be disregarded. Additionally, it is difficult to manage. By participating and responding, we can help lessen its effects.

Also Read: Essay on Diwali in English for Children and Students

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An Ultimate Guide to Writing IELTS Problem Solution Essays

Updated On Nov 08, 2023

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Introduction

The IELTS problem solution essays are a type of IELTS writing task 2 essay that asks you to discuss a problem and propose possible solutions. These problem solution essays are designed to assess your ability to identify, analyze, and evaluate problems, as well as your ability to develop and articulate effective solutions.

The IELTS problem solution essay topics can be drawn from a variety of sources and are based on real-world situations and issues. Therefore, to do well in writing task 2, it is important to be familiar with the range of IELTS problem solution essay topics.

Identifying IELTS Problem Solution Essays

Each essay type has a unique structure, so it’s important to identify the type of essay you’re writing before you start. Problem solution essays in IELTS are often worded as follows:

It is important to be able to identify the common synonyms, words, and phrases used in problem solution questions. Here are the key words and their synonyms used in the examples above:

• Problem : issues, resulting, situation
• Cause : reasons, why
• Solution : deal with, addressed, tackled, remedied, improved, measures taken, solved, prevent

However, you will mostly be asked to write about both the problem and its solution. The first part of the question will state the problem or cause, and the second part will ask you to identify solutions.

How to Write a Problem Solution Essay IELTS?

To plan and write a problem solution essay IELTS, you can follow these steps:

• Understand the question

The first step is to carefully read the question and understand what is being asked. You should identify the problem, the cause(s) of the problem, and the required solution(s).

• Brainstorm your ideas

Once you understand the question, take some time to brainstorm your ideas. What are the different aspects of the problem? What are the possible causes? What are the different solutions that could be implemented?

• Organize your ideas

Once you have a good understanding of the problem and its possible solutions, it is time to organize your ideas into a logical structure.

• Write your essay

When writing your essay, be sure to use clear and concise language. Avoid using complex sentences and jargon. You should also support your claims with evidence from credible sources.

• Proofread your essay

Once you have finished writing your essay, be sure to proofread it carefully for any errors in grammar, spelling, or punctuation.

Now that we have understood how to write a problem solution essay, let’s have a look at the structure of a problem solution essay.

Enroll in our free  IELTS online coaching  today and learn how to identify and write problem solution essays like a champ!

Structure of Problem Solution Essay

Let’s do an example problem solution essay to understand the above mentioned structure.

Problem Solution Essay Example with Structure

Introduction:.

• Before you begin writing your problem solution essay,  read  the question and  identify  the problem/ solution.
• Note down the ideas that come to your mind naturally. For example, look at the table below.
• Choose one of the  problems  and discuss it in detail. Here’s an example:
• Problem : Dumping of industrial wastes into the nearby water bodies.
• Solution : They must be treated, purified and recycled.
• Wastewater treatment
• Biodegradable products
• Water bodies such as lakes, rivers etc

You should paraphrase the question and outline the problem and solution in your introduction as mentioned below:

Body Paragraph 1:

The body paragraph 1 must be organised as follows:

• Main body paragraph 1:  Letting out of industrial wastes in nearby water bodies
• Central idea:  Industries are increasing in number.
• Explanation : There are no strict rules in place regarding the environment. So industries let out their wastes into the nearby water bodies such as lakes, rivers, etc which affects the respective eco-system and thereby leading to more serious issues.
• Example : As installing a wastewater treatment plant is an additional burden and is costly, it is easier to let the waste water into the nearby water bodies as nobody questions this.

The completed main body paragraph 1 will look like this :

Body Paragraph 2:

The body paragraph 2 must be organised as follows:

• Main body paragraph 2:  Industrial wastewater treatment
• Central idea:  Installing Industrial waste water treatment plants could be beneficial to the environment.
• Explanation : Industrial wastewater treatment illustrates the processes used for treating wastewater that is produced by industries into a by-product. The treated industrial wastewater may be reused or released to a sanitary sewer.
• Examples:  There are proven records for reducing water pollution after wastewater treatment.

The completed main body paragraph 2 will look like this :

Conclusion:

• Make sure to sum up all that has been in the previous paragraphs.
• Use words like in summary, to summarise, to conclude, or as a conclusion, etc.

The final conclusion will look like this:

Therefore, the finished essay will have the following structure:

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Common Mistakes to Avoid in IELTS Problem Solution Essays

Following are some of the Common mistakes that should be avoided in IELTS problem solution essays

• Not understanding the difference between a problem and its causes.
• Trying to include too many ideas in the essay, without developing them fully.
• Not considering both sides of the argument equally.
• Not linking the problems to the solutions.
• Not being specific enough in the discussion of the problems and solutions.

Read:  All Useful IELTS Writing Lessons & Websites

Tips for IELTS Problem Solution Essays

Here are some of the tips to follow while practicing or writing an IELTS Problem Solution Essays:

• Read and understand the instructions given in the question (sometimes the question might ask to write about the cause of the issue as well).
• Follow the word count (no less than 250 words)
• Plan the problems and solutions you wish to write about, before starting to write.
• Start the essay with an introduction paragraph and conclude it with a conclusion paragraph, with the body paragraph between the two.
• If you’re asked to write about both, cause and the solution, then you can write the cause in one body paragraph and the solution in the next body paragraph.

Pro tip:  To avoid a low score in IELTS problem solution essays, focus on one or two problems and identify specific solutions. Explain the problems and solutions in detail, with examples.

Check out some of the  Recent Writing Task 2 Essay Topics for IELTS 2023

Problem Solution Essay IELTS Topics:

Here are some sample IELTS problem solution essay topics:

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Frequently Asked Questions

Can I write cause and solution in the same paragraph?

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Practice IELTS Writing Task 2 based on Essay types

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Janice Thompson

Soon after graduating with a Master’s in Literature from Southern Arkansas University, she joined an institute as an English language trainer. She has had innumerous student interactions and has produced a couple of research papers on English language teaching. She soon found that non-native speakers struggled to meet the English language requirements set by foreign universities. It was when she decided to jump ship into IELTS training. From then on, she has been mentoring IELTS aspirants. She joined IELTSMaterial about a year ago, and her contributions have been exceptional. Her essay ideas and vocabulary have taken many students to a band 9.

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Nehasri Ravishenbagam

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Posted on Jan 5, 2024

indeed you are excellent\ every one must use them

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I hope the sample questions will help me ace the exam!!! Thank you for the resources.

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Climate Change: Evidence and Causes: Update 2020 (2020)

Chapter: conclusion, c onclusion.

This document explains that there are well-understood physical mechanisms by which changes in the amounts of greenhouse gases cause climate changes. It discusses the evidence that the concentrations of these gases in the atmosphere have increased and are still increasing rapidly, that climate change is occurring, and that most of the recent change is almost certainly due to emissions of greenhouse gases caused by human activities. Further climate change is inevitable; if emissions of greenhouse gases continue unabated, future changes will substantially exceed those that have occurred so far. There remains a range of estimates of the magnitude and regional expression of future change, but increases in the extremes of climate that can adversely affect natural ecosystems and human activities and infrastructure are expected.

Citizens and governments can choose among several options (or a mixture of those options) in response to this information: they can change their pattern of energy production and usage in order to limit emissions of greenhouse gases and hence the magnitude of climate changes; they can wait for changes to occur and accept the losses, damage, and suffering that arise; they can adapt to actual and expected changes as much as possible; or they can seek as yet unproven “geoengineering” solutions to counteract some of the climate changes that would otherwise occur. Each of these options has risks, attractions and costs, and what is actually done may be a mixture of these different options. Different nations and communities will vary in their vulnerability and their capacity to adapt. There is an important debate to be had about choices among these options, to decide what is best for each group or nation, and most importantly for the global population as a whole. The options have to be discussed at a global scale because in many cases those communities that are most vulnerable control few of the emissions, either past or future. Our description of the science of climate change, with both its facts and its uncertainties, is offered as a basis to inform that policy debate.

A CKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The following individuals served as the primary writing team for the 2014 and 2020 editions of this document:

• Eric Wolff FRS, (UK lead), University of Cambridge
• Inez Fung (NAS, US lead), University of California, Berkeley
• Brian Hoskins FRS, Grantham Institute for Climate Change
• John F.B. Mitchell FRS, UK Met Office
• Tim Palmer FRS, University of Oxford
• Benjamin Santer (NAS), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
• John Shepherd FRS, University of Southampton
• Keith Shine FRS, University of Reading.
• Susan Solomon (NAS), Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Kevin Trenberth, National Center for Atmospheric Research
• John Walsh, University of Alaska, Fairbanks
• Don Wuebbles, University of Illinois

Staff support for the 2020 revision was provided by Richard Walker, Amanda Purcell, Nancy Huddleston, and Michael Hudson. We offer special thanks to Rebecca Lindsey and NOAA Climate.gov for providing data and figure updates.

The following individuals served as reviewers of the 2014 document in accordance with procedures approved by the Royal Society and the National Academy of Sciences:

• Richard Alley (NAS), Department of Geosciences, Pennsylvania State University
• Alec Broers FRS, Former President of the Royal Academy of Engineering
• Harry Elderfield FRS, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge
• Joanna Haigh FRS, Professor of Atmospheric Physics, Imperial College London
• Isaac Held (NAS), NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory
• John Kutzbach (NAS), Center for Climatic Research, University of Wisconsin
• Jerry Meehl, Senior Scientist, National Center for Atmospheric Research
• John Pendry FRS, Imperial College London
• John Pyle FRS, Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge
• Gavin Schmidt, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
• Emily Shuckburgh, British Antarctic Survey
• Gabrielle Walker, Journalist
• Andrew Watson FRS, University of East Anglia

The Support for the 2014 Edition was provided by NAS Endowment Funds. We offer sincere thanks to the Ralph J. and Carol M. Cicerone Endowment for NAS Missions for supporting the production of this 2020 Edition.

F OR FURTHER READING

For more detailed discussion of the topics addressed in this document (including references to the underlying original research), see:

• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2019: Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate [ https://www.ipcc.ch/srocc ]
• National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), 2019: Negative Emissions Technologies and Reliable Sequestration: A Research Agenda [ https://www.nap.edu/catalog/25259 ]
• Royal Society, 2018: Greenhouse gas removal [ https://raeng.org.uk/greenhousegasremoval ]
• U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), 2018: Fourth National Climate Assessment Volume II: Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States [ https://nca2018.globalchange.gov ]
• IPCC, 2018: Global Warming of 1.5°C [ https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15 ]
• USGCRP, 2017: Fourth National Climate Assessment Volume I: Climate Science Special Reports [ https://science2017.globalchange.gov ]
• NASEM, 2016: Attribution of Extreme Weather Events in the Context of Climate Change [ https://www.nap.edu/catalog/21852 ]
• IPCC, 2013: Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) Working Group 1. Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis [ https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1 ]
• NRC, 2013: Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change: Anticipating Surprises [ https://www.nap.edu/catalog/18373 ]
• NRC, 2011: Climate Stabilization Targets: Emissions, Concentrations, and Impacts Over Decades to Millennia [ https://www.nap.edu/catalog/12877 ]
• Royal Society 2010: Climate Change: A Summary of the Science [ https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/publications/2010/climate-change-summary-science ]
• NRC, 2010: America’s Climate Choices: Advancing the Science of Climate Change [ https://www.nap.edu/catalog/12782 ]

Much of the original data underlying the scientific findings discussed here are available at:

• https://data.ucar.edu/
• https://climatedataguide.ucar.edu
• https://iridl.ldeo.columbia.edu
• https://ess-dive.lbl.gov/
• https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/
• https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
• http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu
• http://hahana.soest.hawaii.edu/hot/

Climate change is one of the defining issues of our time. It is now more certain than ever, based on many lines of evidence, that humans are changing Earth's climate. The Royal Society and the US National Academy of Sciences, with their similar missions to promote the use of science to benefit society and to inform critical policy debates, produced the original Climate Change: Evidence and Causes in 2014. It was written and reviewed by a UK-US team of leading climate scientists. This new edition, prepared by the same author team, has been updated with the most recent climate data and scientific analyses, all of which reinforce our understanding of human-caused climate change.

Scientific information is a vital component for society to make informed decisions about how to reduce the magnitude of climate change and how to adapt to its impacts. This booklet serves as a key reference document for decision makers, policy makers, educators, and others seeking authoritative answers about the current state of climate-change science.

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Ask NYT Climate

Is Biodegradable Plastic Really a Thing?

Technically, it exists. But here’s what to think about when shopping.

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By Hiroko Tabuchi

• Published May 20, 2024 Updated May 21, 2024

Q: Can that plastic spoon really return to nature?

On the face of it, biodegradable plastic is a miracle. It looks like plastic and works much like plastic. And it goes back to nature after you throw it away.

But there’s a big catch: Just because your plastic fork, cup or doggy poop bag is marketed as biodegradable, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll break down in the environment. The same goes for so-called compostable plastic. Here’s why.

You need the right conditions.

A lot of biodegradeable plastic really does break down, but only under certain conditions. One of the most common compounds is a polyester known as PLA, short for polylactic acid, which will biodegrade in an industrial compost setting.

But most places in the United States don’t do industrial composting. That means discarded PLA is highly likely to end up in landfills, in rivers and streams, or in the ocean. It might even be burned, releasing planet-warming gases and toxic chemicals into the environment.

What’s more, most curbside recycling programs aren’t able to recycle biodegradable plastics, including PLA. If people throw them into a recycling bin, they can contaminate the plastic that really belongs there. And that creates sorting headaches for recyclers.

(And for dog poop bags, keep in mind that many commercial composters don’t accept pet waste. That’s one reason the Federal Trade Commission has issued warnings that “biodegradable” claims made by the makers of dog waste bags may be deceptive .)

“It’s complicated, because biodegradability changes depending on where you’re at and what happens to your plastic,” said George W. Huber, a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who works on solutions for plastic waste. “And there are companies who make claims about biodegradable plastic that aren’t backed up.”

That kind of misinformation doesn’t just mean well-meaning people might be paying more for something that doesn’t help the environment in the way they think it does, he said. It can also create more consumption, and trash, if people are led to believe they can buy as much biodegradable plastic as they want, with little effect on the planet.

Possibly worse, it could also make people feel they can dump their trash anywhere because they think biodegradable plastic will just return to nature all by itself. (Again, it won’t. So please don’t litter!)

So, are things getting better?

The crux of the matter, of course, is that the world is drowning in plastic.

According to the United Nations Environment Program, the world produces 430 million metric tons of plastic a year, more than the total weight of all humans . Just 9 percent of plastic waste gets recycled, UNEP estimates. And ordinary plastic, made from fossil fuels, takes centuries to degrade.

Biodegradable plastic is one promising solution, and scientists around the world are working on new kinds. Dr. Huber’s team in Wisconsin, for example, has been developing a new type of plastic made from corncobs that’s readily biodegradable and could potentially replace polyethylene, which is used widely for packaging. But getting production costs down remains a challenge.

Ruihong Zhang, a professor of biological and agricultural engineering at the University of California, Davis, thinks the world can soon get biodegradable plastic right. She’s working on a plastic made from cheese waste byproducts that biodegrades more easily in the environment.

That wouldn’t just reduce the amount of plastic waste that goes to landfills. Making plastic from food waste would also generate fewer planet-warming emissions. “We’re basically trying to solve the waste problem and reduce emissions at the same time,” Dr. Zhang said.

Try to know your plastics.

So, if you want to cut down on your environmental footprint, what can you do to navigate the tricky world of biodegradable plastic?

First, you could familiarize yourself with the main types of biodegradable plastic. And before you buy any plastic marketed as biodegradable, check what that actual plastic is, and what conditions it needs to actually biodegrade.

The nova-Institute, an independent research organization in Germany that works on plastic solutions, has a helpful graphic that breaks down some of the main types. It also tells you whether they’re proven to biodegrade — in soil, in landfills, in freshwater or in the sea — or whether they require more specialized treatment, like an industrial composter or anaerobic digester.

Then, if biodegradable plastic doesn’t exist for your needs, it may make sense to use recyclable plastic instead. (But remember that recycling comes with its own challenges .)

And ask yourself: Are there nonplastic alternatives to the thing you need that are reusable, or made from a truly biodegradable material like paper?

Have a question for reporters covering climate and the environment?

We might answer your question in a future column. We won’t publish your submission without contacting you, and may use your contact information to follow up with you.

Hiroko Tabuchi covers the intersection of business and climate for The Times. She has been a journalist for more than 20 years in Tokyo and New York. More about Hiroko Tabuchi

Our Coverage of Climate and the Environment

News and Analysis

The world’s highest court dealing with the oceans issued a groundbreaking opinion  that said excessive greenhouse gases were pollutants that could cause irreversible harm to the marine environment and must be cut back.

The Great Salt Lake, a predictor of the risks of climate change, had a recent increase in its levels , but still remains below healthy levels. Experts worry that conservation efforts will be reduced as a result.

As the world’s coral reefs suffer a fourth global bleaching event, heat stress in the Caribbean is accumulating even earlier  than it did in 2023, the previous record year for the region.

A Cosmic Perspective:  Alarmed by the climate crisis and its impact on their work, a growing number of astronomers  are using their expertise to fight back.

Struggling N.Y.C. Neighborhoods:  New data projects are linking social issues with global warming. Here’s what that means for five communities in New York .

Biden Environmental Rules:  The Biden administration has rushed to finalize 10 major environmental regulations  to meet its self-imposed spring deadline.

F.A.Q.:  Have questions about climate change? We’ve got answers .

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At 16, Katya Kondragunta has already lived through two disasters amped by climate change. First came wildfires in California in 2020 . Ash and smoke forced her family to stay inside their home in the Bay Area city of Fremont, for weeks.

Then they moved to Prosper, Texas, where she dealt with record-setting heat last summer .

“We’ve had horrible heat waves and they’ve impacted my everyday life,” the high school junior said. “I’m in cross country ... I’m supposed to go outside and run every single day to get my mileage in.”

Kondragunta says in school she hasn’t learned about how climate change is intensifying these events, and she hopes that will change when she gets to college.

Increasingly, U.S. colleges are creating climate change programs to meet demand from students who want to apply their firsthand experience to what they do after high school, and help find solutions.

“Lots of centers and departments have renamed themselves or been created around these climate issues, in part because they think it will attract students and faculty,” said Kathy Jacobs, director of the University of Arizona Center for Climate Adaptation Science and Solutions. It launched a decade ago and connects several climate programs at the school in Tucson.

Other early movers that created programs, majors, minors and certificates dedicated to climate change include the University of Washington , Yale University , Utah State University , the University of Montana, Northern Vermont University and the University of California, Los Angeles . Columbia, the private university in New York City, opened its Climate School in 2020 with a graduate degree in climate and society, and has related undergraduate programs in the works.

Just in the past 4 years, the public Plymouth State University in New Hampshire , Iowa State , Nashville private university Vanderbilt , Stanford University , the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and others have started climate-related studies. Hampton University, a private, historically Black university in Virginia, is building one now , and the University of Texas at Austin will offer theirs this fall .

The fact that climate change is affecting more people is one factor. The Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act , the largest climate investment in U.S. history, plus growth in climate-focused jobs, are also increasing interest, experts say.

In these programs, students learn how the atmosphere is changing as a result of burning coal, oil and gas, along with the way crops will shift with the warming planet and the role of renewable energy in cutting use of fossil fuels.

They dive into how to communicate about climate with the public, ethical and environmental justice aspects of climate solutions and the roles lawmakers and businesses play in cutting greenhouse gases.

Students also cover disaster response and ways communities can prepare and adapt before climate change worsens. The offerings require biology, chemistry, physics, and social sciences faculty, among others.

“It’s not just ‘oh, yeah, climate, global warming, environmental stuff,’” said Lydia Conger, a senior who enrolled at Utah State specifically for its climate science studies.

“It has these interesting technical parts in math and physics, but then also has this element of geology,” she said, “and oceanography and ecology.”

When higher ed institutions put their programs together, they often draw on existing meteorology and atmospheric sciences studies. Some house climate under sustainability or environmental science departments. But climate tracks need to go beyond those to satisfy some incoming students.

In Kennebunk, Maine, high school junior Will Eagleson has lived through storms that caused coastal destruction. The sea level is rising in his hometown. As the 17-year-old considers college, he said to get his attention, schools must “narrow it down from environmental and Earth science as a whole, to more climate change-focused programs.”

For Lucia Everist, a senior at Edina High School in Minnesota who is frustrated at her own lack of climate education so far, schools need to go deeper on the human impact of climate change. She cited disproportionate impact on Black, Latino, Indigenous and low-income neighborhoods.

“I looked a lot into the curriculum itself,” the 18-year-old said of her college search. Everywhere she applied, “I made sure had the social aspect just as much as the science aspect.”

Climate students need to learn everything from healthcare to how to store clean solar and wind energy, said Megan Latshaw, who runs Johns Hopkins University’s master’s programs in its Environmental Health and Engineering department. The school has a graduate degree in energy policy and climate, and also offers two certificates that include the term climate change.

“It’s the flooding. It’s the heat waves. It’s the wildfires. It’s the air pollution that’s generated when we’re burning fossil fuels. It’s allergies. It’s water scarcity, and people who may have to flee where they’ve lived for their entire life,” Latshaw said. She noted the university looks into weaving climate change into its schools of public health, engineering, education, medicine, nursing and more.

Another factor may be that many colleges around the country face declining enrollment and less public funding, pushing them to market new degrees to stay relevant.

Many small, private colleges have had to shut down over the last decade with fewer students graduating from high school and more opting for career-oriented training . The same pressures are affecting large public universities systems, which have cut academic programs and faculty to close gaps in budgets.

“There is definitely some part of academia that just simply responds to consumer demand,” said John Knox, undergraduate coordinator for the University of Georgia’s Atmospheric Sciences program, who is considering whether the school should offer a climate certificate. “In the end, I’m worried more about our students succeeding than marketing something to somebody.”

This story has been corrected to reflect that Vanderbilt University is not an Ivy League school.

Associated Press news editor Michael Melia in Connecticut contributed to this story.

Alexa St. John is an Associated Press climate solutions reporter. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter, @alexa_stjohn . Reach her at [email protected] .

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org .

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The Origins of Starbucks: from Seattle Beginnings to Global Phenomenon

This essay is about the origins and growth of Starbucks, starting from its founding in Seattle in 1971 by Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl, and Gordon Bowker. Initially a coffee bean retailer, Starbucks transformed under Howard Schultz’s leadership into a global coffeehouse chain. Schultz introduced the Italian espresso bar concept, turning Starbucks into a place where customers could enjoy coffee in a welcoming environment. The essay details the company’s commitment to quality, innovation, and ethical sourcing, as well as its rapid expansion and ability to adapt to challenges. Starbucks’ story exemplifies vision and perseverance, making it a dominant name in the coffee industry.

How it works

The inception of Starbucks, a renowned name inseparable from global coffee culture, traces back to the Seattle, Washington. Its evolution from a solitary establishment to an expansive international coffee empire is as intricate as the myriad blends it offers. The genesis occurred in 1971 when Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl, and Gordon Bowker, driven by a collective ardor for superior coffee, ventured into entrepreneurship. They inaugurated the inaugural Starbucks outlet on 2000 Western Avenue within Seattle’s historic Pike Place Market, envisioning a haven for the finest coffee beans and accessories in their community.

The genesis of the moniker “Starbucks” and the emblematic logo emanated from maritime motifs. Borrowed from Herman Melville’s “Moby-Dick,” the name Starbuck evoked the allure of seafaring expeditions and the enduring legacy of coffee trade. The logo, featuring a dual-tailed siren from Greek mythology, encapsulated the mystique and allure of coffee. Starbucks, from its inception, wasn’t merely about dispensing coffee by the cup; it entailed a curated selection of premium roasted coffee beans, teas, and spices. Baldwin, Siegl, and Bowker meticulously curated their offerings, importing top-tier beans worldwide and masterfully roasting them to perfection.

In its nascent stage, Starbucks veered more towards specialty retail than the expansive coffeehouse chain it later burgeoned into. The founders prioritized enlightening their clientele on the nuances of coffee, underscoring the significance of freshness and the distinctive attributes of various beans. Their aim was to cultivate a community of coffee aficionados appreciative of the artistry behind crafting a sublime cup of coffee. This zealous commitment to excellence and education swiftly garnered Starbucks a devoted following among Seattle’s discerning coffee connoisseurs.

A pivotal juncture for Starbucks transpired in 1982 with the arrival of Howard Schultz, a New York native boasting a background in retail and marketing. Schultz, previously immersed in the realms of retail operations and marketing with Hammarplast, a Swedish housewares entity, was intrigued by Starbucks’ substantial investments in coffee makers. His curiosity led him to Seattle, whereupon being captivated by the company’s ethos, he assumed the role of marketing head. Though initially tasked with fortifying the retail facet of the enterprise, Schultz’s epiphanic sojourn to Italy in 1983 catalyzed a transformative vision for Starbucks.

In Milan, Schultz was enthralled by the vivacious coffee culture thriving within Italian espresso bars. These venues transcended mere coffee dispensation, serving as communal hubs for conversation, relaxation, and espresso indulgence. Schultz discerned an opportunity to transplant this ethos to the United States, envisaging Starbucks as more than a purveyor of coffee beans but as a convivial coffeehouse experience.

Upon returning to Seattle, Schultz fervently presented his vision to Starbucks’ founders, Baldwin, Siegl, and Bowker. Though initially met with skepticism due to their allegiance to the bean-selling model, Schultz persisted. In 1985, he charted an independent course, founding Il Giornale, a chain of coffeehouses embodying the Italian espresso bar ethos.

The pivotal moment arrived in 1987 when the original Starbucks proprietors opted to divest their ownership. Schultz seized the opportunity, orchestrating the merger of Il Giornale with Starbucks. With local investors’ support, he acquired Starbucks for $3.8 million, assuming the mantle of CEO. Immediately commencing the metamorphosis of Starbucks into the envisioned coffeehouse chain, Schultz ushered in an era where patrons could relish freshly brewed coffee, espresso concoctions, and delectable pastries in a hospitable ambiance. This heralded the onset of Starbucks’ exponential expansion.

Under Schultz’s stewardship, Starbucks adopted an aggressive growth trajectory, proliferating its outlets domestically and globally. By prioritizing a consistent and superior customer experience, Starbucks replicated its success across diverse markets. Each outlet was conceived as a “third place” for patrons, offering a welcoming milieu distinct from home or workplace, fostering relaxation, camaraderie, and productivity.

Starbucks’ commitment to excellence transcended its coffee offerings to encompass store ambiance, customer service, and corporate ethos. Schultz championed employee welfare, designating them as “partners” and endowing benefits like healthcare and stock options. This ethos fostered a motivated and dedicated workforce, a cornerstone of the company’s triumph.

Central to Starbucks’ ascendancy was its adeptness at adaptation and innovation. The company embraced emerging technologies, from complimentary Wi-Fi provision to a user-friendly mobile app facilitating pre-ordering and payment. Leveraging social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, Starbucks cultivated customer engagement and community building, underscoring its relevance in an increasingly digital landscape.

Ethical sourcing and sustainability constituted another cornerstone of Starbucks’ success. Establishing the Coffee and Farmer Equity (C.A.F.E.) Practices, Starbucks ensured environmentally friendly and farmer-benefitting coffee sourcing. Additionally, the company invested in social and environmental initiatives, supporting coffee-growing communities and advocating waste reduction and recycling.

Despite encountering hurdles such as competitive pressures, shifting consumer preferences, and criticism over labor practices and environmental impact, Starbucks adeptly navigated these challenges, preserving its industry leadership.

Presently, Starbucks operates myriad outlets worldwide, spanning locales from Seattle to Tokyo, Mumbai, and Buenos Aires. The original Pike Place Market establishment stands as a testament to Starbucks’ humble origins and unwavering dedication to quality and community. Starbucks’ trajectory from a humble coffee bean purveyor to a global coffeehouse juggernaut epitomizes a saga of foresight, ingenuity, and resilience.

In summation, Starbucks’ inception in Seattle, Washington, in 1971 by Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl, and Gordon Bowker marked the genesis of a transformative journey. Initially a purveyor of premium coffee beans, Starbucks underwent a metamorphosis under Howard Schultz’s tutelage, introducing the Italian coffeehouse ethos to the American landscape. This evolution catapulted Starbucks to global acclaim, etching its legacy as a beloved coffee brand worldwide. Starbucks’ narrative is a testament to visionary leadership and the enduring allure of a meticulously brewed cup of coffee.

Note: This essay serves as a springboard for inspiration and further exploration. For personalized guidance and to ensure adherence to academic standards, consider consulting professionals at EduBirdie.

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