Example research essay topic: Greenhouse Gases Global Warming - 1,644 words

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GLOBAL WARMING: A CHILLING PERSPECTIVE Millions of people have been hearing about the greenhouse effect ever since the drought of 1988. It was reported as a threat that loomed in the near future. But the words destined, future and projected were words that could alarm people. Slowly, it ceased to be a fear for the future and became a concern for the present. Global change was a fact of life.

Confronted with the catastrophic implications of present data on global warming, the present children will inherit the problems of the environment if people allow the greenhouse warming trend to continue. Decision-makers particularly those from developed states have qualms to employ steps or to participate in global warming abatement agreements for fear of hurting domestic economy and international competitiveness all because of indefinite hazards. In all these, it can be readily said that human beings are the number one culprit in the problem of global warming. The pressure of human numbers makes the task of cutting back more complicated and more painful. The heart blanches at the moral, political, and religious dilemmas that face us. Each year there are another 80 million people on the planet, each decade another India.

Demography is among the reliable sciences of the future, and demographers expect the human sphere to double in size in the next one hundred years. Barring a global catastrophe (a possibility that lies outside the scope of demography) Planet Earth will be carrying more than ten billion human beings around the sun within the next century say, ten billion human beings around the sun within the next century. (Bongaarts, 2001). According to the demographers, at least eight billion of us will then be living in places that have trouble sustaining their present populations. Indeed, the very poorest countries of the world the most malnourished, ill-housed, unstable will double in population within about thirty-five years. With the planet so crowded even the danger of earthquakes would become spectacular. The lithosphere is still beyond our influence.

But the population explosion will have a surprising effect on the number of people at risk. Roger Bilham, a geologist at the University of Colorado, has noted that by the year 2000, one hundred cities will have populations exceeding two million, and by pure chance, almost half these cities are located in places where the shifting plates of the lithosphere create earthquake hazard zones. Bilham mentions that within twelve years, 290 million supercity dwellers, 80 percent of them living in developing nations, will live in a region of seismic risk. Greater dangers will come from shifts in the air. The more we grow the more we change the atmosphere.

This lesson is inscribed in the very icecaps. There is a direct correlation between the rise of population, as recorded by the demographers, and the rise of methane gas, as recorded by the polar ice sheets. Because people generate methane by so many different kinds of disturbances in the biosphere, each new rice paddy in China, chopped tree in England, ruminating cow and goat in India, garbage dump in Mexico, and leaking natural-gas pipe in Texas, makes methane. Methane is almost as universal a product of progress as carbon dioxide. People have methane effect and methane has a greenhouse effect. So people have a greenhouse effect after all.

If peoples numbers continue to spiral upward, so will greenhouse gases, and so will the temperature of the planet. To say nothing of the number of tons of topsoil lost to the sea, the number of acres lost to deserts, and the number of species lost forever. If people cannot manage the impact of the planet now, how would people do so if there at many more? Can people defuse the changes while human numbers explode? Most of the global warming today are also caused by the works of people.

Global cooperation, albeit evident, is bound to develop on shaky foundations, which has already happened during the Kyoto Protocol due to conflicting interests. It can persist, nonetheless, under certain agreeable circumstances. The threat of the phenomenon, which includes excessive floods and droughts, melting of the polar icecaps and death of certain ecosystems, was only seriously considered during the recent decades. Despite the warnings of pending catastrophes, environmental concerns usually take the backseat while majority of the world focuses on economic and fiscal development.

A general understanding was formed that environmentalism is to the detriment of economic growth, when in fact the trade-off between these two need not be so drastic so as to grossly affect the other. Fortunately, many nations had long taken the initiative to promote green measures after realizing that early conservation actions mean sustainability and economic rewards in the future (Bill et. al). The release of carbon and other greenhouse gases due to natural and man-made processes results to externalities, states Joseph Bill, Daniel Houser and Gary Liberal. The three academicians compare the emission of Ghg's to that of chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs, the compound responsible for the thinning of the ozone. The externality effect equally applies to both, hence creating a worldwide problem.

The problem with CFCs, however, has been aptly addressed and is carried out with substantial international support. From the 24 original signatories of the 1987 Montreal Protocol, the number of nations that ratified the agreement banning the use of ozone-depleting products reached 74 by 2006. (Bill et. al) In order to address the current global warming concerns, only a global consensus and action to match the scale of its effects can provide an effective solution. The environment is after all a global public good, according to the United Kingdom-based Stern Review Team, and such, an international management of common resources would seem appropriate. This is what is called the international collective action. This kind of cooperative activity, is often a challenging feat for it involves the meeting of common minds to reach mutually beneficial agreements that should eventually translate to positive actions and results.

This may be simple but the execution can be complicated and time-consuming, a process that requires the participants earnest commitment, honest compliance, and some degree of momentary self-sacrifice for broader future benefits. The agreements are still far from gaining success, though. There needs to be a solid demonstration of communal effort yet to be seen. Global warming is a common-property resource problem because access to the atmosphere is unrestricted (Bill, et. al). The Montreal Protocol illustrates that a collective action for environmental protection is not a far cry from reality.

In January 1, 1989 the stipulations agreed upon during the convention took effect after the consumers and producers of CFCs also ratified the Protocol. The huge increase in the Protocols signatories signals that states are actually willing to adjust their policies for the sake of international collaboration, especially when it concerns the environment. The 1996 Kyoto Protocol, on the other hand, was both a success and a disappointment for different parties. For some, the Protocol is the first step towards the right direction; while for others, its effectiveness is questionable when it failed to win the support of the two most industrialized and largest emitting countries, the United States and Australia (Cooper). Recently also, Canada declared that it cannot meet its target GHG reductions. Essential in the execution of a collective action is the participation of the concerned parties.

In Kyoto Protocol, the withdrawal of the United States was a big shortcoming in the realization of the movements goals; the U. S. is the current largest emitter of Carbon and GHG (Cooper). On the one hand, the Kyoto Protocol could spell big losses for the U. S. government because an overall reduction in carbon emission entails additional expenditure, higher costs and dramatic adjustments across all sectors.

This may gravely affect the economy and competitiveness of the state. A more demanding task than attracting participants is the sustaining of agreements. Two of the issues pertinent in collective action agreements are the enforcement of ratified conditions and the impact of free riding (Bill, et. al; Stern Review 27). According to Todd Sandler, the author of the book Global Collective Action, treaties must always be flexible for adjustments of rules or for restructuring of incentives to motivate members participation. Once again, the creation of visible gain for all involved parties is emphasized, especially in order to prevent the dwarfing of benefits with respect to costs.

Sandler also stressed that the traditional compliance mechanism based on punitive means will rarely work today; it will only drive away existing and potential members. (Sandler, 2004). According to Todd Sandler, in order to successfully cajole nations to participate in collective actions, the latter must satisfy three criteria: there should be the recognition of a shared threat, the leadership by dominant nations, and the sufficient self-interest for participants. Attempts to collective actions must first magnify the pending threats of global warming, since action is always preceded by understanding and concern. When nations sufficiently understand the costs of global warming, more and more states will be willing to participate in global cooperation. The developed nations must take the lead in collective actions because global inaction is difficult to overcome in the absence of a leader nation (Sandler, 2004). Perhaps Crichton may be right before when he said that there is a perennial market for dire predictions of resource depletion.

Human beings never tire of discussing the latest report that tells us the end is near. But, at some point, we might start regarding each breathless new claim with skepticism. (Crichton). Yet the facts bear it out. The changes can be small but these minute changes could be disastrous over the long haul.

It is said that the past two decades has seen a shift in focus from purely domestic environmental concerns to the global environmental problems of global warming or climate change, ozone depletion, water and air pollution, acid rain, deforestation, desertification, ...

Research essay sample on Greenhouse Gases Global Warming