Carbon Emissions and Greenhouse Effect: Is It Our Fault?
February 15th, 2009The climate is changing and that is a fact. Scientists and Greenpeace members keep on screaming that a man is a reason of all that and that human activities lead to greenhouse effect.
It is said that on our planet the increasing quantity of atmospheric carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels – carbon emissions, together with the release of other gases, is leading to an increased greenhouse effect and to global warming. There have been a number of hysterical statements made that we are all going to die soon if we do not move to caves and stop producing any carbon emissions. But is not is a too radical method? How about other reasons of the greenhouse effect?
The thing is that there are many reasons of the global warming and natural ones are not less important than human-caused. For example, one of the most important greenhouse gases is methane. And it is known that most of the methane is released in the atmosphere without any help form man. It is caused by the disintegration of organic materials, different wild animals such as antelopes, termites, etc.
Greenhouse effect is also caused by releases of different toxic substances such as submarine volcanic activity, methane emissions from swamps, and natural emissions of other greenhouse gases. Different activities on the surface of the Sun and changes in the orbit of the earth also influence on the climate.
Most of the dramatic climate changes, such as the Pleistocene epoch that was marked by great fluctuations in temperature that caused the ice ages, with glacial periods followed by warmer interglacial periods, happened without humans taking part in it. At the present time we are all living in the interglacial period that lasts more than 11,5 thousands of years. The fact that the climate has been relatively stable all this time is rather a caprice of the nature than its usual feature.
To sum it up, it is immature and ignorant to state that the only reason of the global warming are human activities that involve carbon emissions, etc. and lead to greenhouse effect. The climate change is a much more complex process. Of course, it does not mean that we have to stop buying carbon offsets and trying to get carbon credits. It is not in our power to stop the process of global warming, but we can try not speed it up.
