Climate Variation: Global Warming and Efficacious Countermeasures
Spencer Foulk
Old Dominion University
IDS 300W: Interdisciplinary Theory and Concepts
Professor Oliver
November 29, 2023
Abstract
This interdisciplinary paper examines the evolution of global warming and its effects on the world in today’s view. The industrialization period was a generational leap that revolutionized our understanding of technology. While we strive for newly innovative solutions, we often forget about the devastation consequently. Fueling options that were used during this time would prove to be consequential towards our generational leap due to the effectual outcomes. This issue has prolonged for over three decades without the use of a permanent practical solution. It has been argued that this issue is not a top priority of concern, but this is false and will be argued against that based on the effects that have resulted. Alternatives exist to rid the world of fossil fuels as a clean source of energy. Every action result in a reaction that can lead to future progression or imminent issues. Technological, Economical, and historical disciplines supply uniquely differentiating viewpoints related to global warming and its astronomical climb, which will be useful when giving my perspective and recommendations based on the subject.
Keywords: Consequences, Effects, Power, Fuel
Introduction
Kernels inside of a popcorn bag waiting to be popped by the intensive atmosphere of the microwave. This is a common metaphor that has been used to describe global warming and its catastrophic dangers over the years due to climate change. The main cause of climate change or rather global warming has to do with the increase in carbon dioxide levels over the years that have caused a disbalance in our atmosphere. While it is often brushed off and put to the side in favor of other political and governing issues, it is still a pressing matter since its effects can differ based on your geological positioning. One of my main concerns has to do with the melting of the polar ice caps and rapidly increasing droughts since,” recent work further suggests that global aridity has increased in step with observed warming trends, and that this drying will worsen for may regions as lobal temperatures continue to rise with increasing anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. (Cook, 2014, page 208/2).” Climate change in warmer areas of the world is encouraging droughts while colder parts of the world are experiencing melting leading to an increase in the baseline of the sea level that will only continue to increase if a solution is not presented. Another area of concern is with mothers going through labor in parts of eastern civilization. Compared to the United States of America, and other well known developed countries, it is often forgotten that much of eastern Asia is still reliant on coal related fuel sources. Due to the abundance of coal, it would seem like a viable solution for the time being since it has been sufficient for the lonest of time, but this has been proven false due to findings explaining that,” exposure to indoor air pollution (IAPEEI greater than or equal to 1) can lead to 3.41 times the risk of conceiving NTD fetuses compared with the no-exposure group (Chen, 2023, page 1).” Indoor air pollution can lead to birth defects in newborns that have been exposed to harmful atmospheric gases which is unacceptable. These are two of my main concerns that must be addressed to prevent birth defects, rising sea levels, and other forms of negative climate related instances. Climate change is a mandatory event that will continuously occur no matter what we do as an attempt to counteract events. While this may be true, options exist that will serve as a beneficial countermeasure to slow the events of atmospheric warming to a point that may restore a large amount of the destruction that has tolled itself on our planet. I will argue that we should increase the priority on global warming for the succession of future generations using historical, economical, and technological interdisciplinary concepts to bring my point together as a whole. I will do this by using historical concepts as a discipline to find the root cause of the situation, economical perspectives as a representation of our progression after the events of the historical ones, and technological perspectives as an informative guidance as to how we can fix the situation. While there are multiple issues and cases related to the effects of climate change, it is necessary for us to study the beginning of it all and find out what lead to the imminent rise in carbon dioxide.
Historical Values
As previously stated, global warming has grown continuously for the longest time without any near future of stopping. The biggest contribution to the warming of the atmosphere has to do with the Industrial Revolution and its adverse effects that were not considered harmful due to the progression that it forged. I will be using history as an interdisciplinary concept to explain the events that lead to the carbon inflated world that we live in today. The Industrial Revolution was a time when scientific and technological advancements came into play. This occurred in parts of European countries, colonies, and the United States lasting between the eighteenth and nineteenth century periods, respectively. Many factors contributed towards the exponential increase in carbon dioxide, but the main contribution was,” the burning of coal; and B., the hastening of the pace of deforestation in places like America,” says John Perlin, a visiting scholar in the department of physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara and author of A Forest Journey: The Role of Wood in the Fate of Civilization (Little, 2023).” Coal was burned as a fuel source to run massive level machines for production. At the time it was an abundant resource that was used due to its efficient long lasting burn rate. Deforestation is another that resulted in the decimation of Amazonian rainforests and local woods that would later leading to the destruction of homes for wildlife creatures. As you may know, photosynthesis is a natural process of plant life that converts carbon dioxide into breathable oxygen as a balancing factor. “Deforestation also occurred as cities grew and industrialized, to make way for more housing and factories (Little, 2023),” which not only encouraged the destruction of trees but also the negative balance of carbon dioxide and oxygen that was disrupted due to such events. This situation would only continue to get worse since Great Britian saw it fit to increase the use of coal as a fuel source since it was a key factor to the innovation and upcoming of the Industrial Revolution. This influence of coal as a fuel source would continue to spread at an exponential rate to the point where it was being used by new factories, ships, and indoor heating. Research shows that deforestation and coal have been two of the greatest contributors to global warming and its effects on the atmosphere, wildlife, and our ecosystem. History as a disciplinary concept shows that our biggest factors occurred during a time when we assumed that everything was okay. Looking to the future past the nineteenth century, situations would only continue to get worse with economic issues.
Economical Influence
Moving past the nineteenth century, into the 21st century, the world today has been colonized with a greater number of mouths to feed on top of an increased demand for power. Civilization has taken a massive turn towards a more technological environment given the advancements as well. Our standpoint in time based on our improvements is revolutionary but is this something that we should celebrate truthfully? Economical disciplinary concepts show us that this might not be as revolutionary as we assumed it to be. For example, the creation of airplanes has simplified travel to and from locations between continents compared to the use of boats, Cars have simplified the expedition of travel between land related destination points, and steam engines have simplified multiple level transportation between goods and human services. While this is accepted, given the current advancements in our time, when we look at the situation closely, we are repeating earlier instances from the industrial revolution without even realizing it. For an airplane to run, it must use a fuel source that releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. For a car to take you to and from destination points, it must burn natural gas for the engine to run which in return contributes to carbon dioxide release. A steam engine uses coal as a fuel source to power steam turbine generators to take people to and from, but like airplanes and cars this also releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Our current economy revolves around the use of fossil fuels as a power source and our its evolving nature has done nothing but encourage it since,” the capital cost, net present cost and cost of energy for energy consumption of 25 kW h/d with a 4.73 KW peak power demand is $36,738, $47,910, and $0.492 respectively. (Khare, 2016, page 2).” Power is a necessity that must be continuously sustained to prolong our economic standpoint and future generations. While we must supply continuous power, it is also imperative that we search for alternative solutions especially since,” in 2007, China surpassed the United States for the first time to become the world’s largest carbon emitter and is now facing increasing international pressure to reduce emissions (Wang, 2022, page 1).” Carbon emissions in China reached levels so exponentially high that they not only surpassed the carbon levels in the United States, but it also received a substantial amount of pressure from existing nations to lower their releases. For scalability and sizing references to this situation, The United States is as big as China with a two-point two percent margin of size difference in Chinas favor. To bring this into greater perspective, we can compare China to Europe where the Industrial Revolution mainly took place. China can fit Spain, France, Germany, and Britian close to all of Europe. This really goes to show the influence of fossil fuel use in far eastern parts of the world like China in this instance since they ended up producing far more carbon related pollution. The Economical concepts of this situation show that power will always be a necessity. They also show that a substitutional fuel source besides fossil fuels is necessary given the dispute of China’s emission release in 2007. These economical properties support my argument and show that we must find a reliable solution, but that might not be as difficult due to other newly created inventions during this time.
Technological Advancements
Advancements have been made towards a more prosperous civilization based on the economical review of the situation, but many of the innovative ideas and creations came to using old concepts and non-beneficial sources of fuel. However, alternative solutions were also created to accommodate the transportation and power issues mentioned previously using natural resources. While it would be criminal not to mention these examples of natural resource fuel supplied and supplying accommodations, it does not excuse the slow progressing start up of it all due to my main point of the priority level being pushed backed. Technology as an interdisciplinary concept will be used to discuss the alternatives to fossil fuels and further describe why we should be careful with what we gear our technology towards. Another carbon related matter that has caused an exponential amount of release to the atmosphere and damage in the atmosphere has to do with explosives. Due to the level of decimation that can result from the use of explosives, it can often match the carbon release of deforestation and coal in certain scenarios. This notion is truthfully expressed based on a reading saying that,” a 500 megaton TNT detonation would be expected to yield a fifty percent loss of total ozone (Solomon, 2020, page 3).” Not only is this contributing to the release of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but it is also damaging the ozone layer which is our main source of protection against ultraviolet radiation. This is a device that has been known to cause global warming problems, and aircrafts or rockets do nothing but contribute to such cases. What makes the issue with aircrafts and rockets even worse is that they had to reconsider construction based on their suspected damages since,” Decisions were made by various nations to build or not build SST aircraft, considering a variety of factors among which the potential for ozone loss highlighted by tat paper along with others was one (Solomon, 2020, page 5).” The authors make compelling claims that I agree and represent in my paper to persuade you on why this is such a pressing matter that must be recognized. While these are the negative aspects that effect the environment for the worse, there are also positive alternatives that can be used in replacement of fossil fuels. Five main natural resources come to mind when thinking about alternatives which include solar, wind, hydro, thermal, and nuclear power. These are all natural resources that release little to no carbon dioxide into the atmosphere which serves as a perfect alternative to global warming. Not only can these sources of power work on their lonesome, but they can also be used simultaneously using HRES. HRES is the best way to get the best out of both solutions since it can,” combine two or more renewable power generation technologies to make proper use of their operating characteristics and to obtain efficiencies higher than that could be obtained from a single power source (Khare, 2016, page 1).” This combined with the use of third-party natural resource compliant devices like Tesla and electric cars will do nothing but contribute towards the slowing of atmospheric carbon growth.
Conclusion
I find this topic to be a significantly pressing matter since the lives of our future and current generations are at stake. The historical concepts have showed that humans are the faulting point of our own demise based on the influences of the Industrial Revolution and its contributions to carbon release. The economical perspective presented a concurrent detail that I noticed based on earlier innovations in our technology that had to do with repeating repercussions. Technological disciplines used to portray the root cause of destruction to the ozone layer, showed us that we need to be cautious about what we choose to create and use at it will directly affect other entities. The historical, economical, and technological perspectives have proven my argument to be a dire need that should be considered on a higher priority when looking at the damage that has occurred. It is often forgotten that our effects have dire consequences which is why we need to correct our wrongs. If this goes unchecked, then soon we will all be popcorn kettles in a microwave waiting to be cooked by the microwave.
References
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Published (May 2016)
Benjamin Cook, Jason Smerdon, Richard Seager, Sloan Coats,” Global warming and 21st century drying.
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