Week 15 Post

Global warming has been a problem on Earth since the rise of the industrial revolution. Climate change is the long-term shifts in temperature and weather patterns across the world. The research regarding global warming didn’t get started till the late 1890s. Humans contribute to global warming the most through the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation. One of the most significant measurements of global warming is the Keeling Curve. The Keeling Curve measures atmospheric CO2 levels. Ever since the industrial revolution, there has been a steep slope increase every year and there is no sign of a decrease. The question that everyone has been asking “Why is nothing being done about climate change”. There have been many attempts to bring up solutions to global warming, but nothing has been finalized. Much of the failure has come from scientists and environmentalists not presenting the problem right. One of the most well-known attempts to resolve this problem is the Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol committed to the reduction of 5.2 percent in greenhouse gas emissions below the “baseline”. There was huge hesitation from President Bush Sr. to sign this protocol. Since the United States is one of the largest producers of Natural resources, he feared that there would be a huge economic crisis with Americans losing their jobs. There was also the concern that only the well-developed nations would have to follow this protocol, while all of the undeveloped countries didn’t need to. President Bush was also concerned about the effectiveness of this protocol. All these factors are what led to this protocol never being implemented. Throughout history, the United States has been pretty hesitant to try and fix this problem of climate change. I believe that this issue is very divided among political parties. The democratic party is primarily on the side to address and fix the problem, while the republican party is more on the side of avoiding it. Since there is so much disagreement on the issue inside the United States is one of the reasons why I think the US will resist national agreements. I believe that there is also the economic issue of climate change that Americans disagree with. Since the United States is one of the largest producers of Natural resources, I believe that limiting CO2 emissions will drastically affect the economy of the United States. This would cause a huge loss of jobs for American workers. I hope that someday, we as humans can agree among ourselves to try and solve this problem. If there are no solutions created soon, then we as humans can very well go extinct.