Background Information

     As we've been told time and time again the earth is warming at an alarming rate, and we only have ourselves to blame. Global warming is the increase in temperature by the trapping of heat in the atmosphere by greenhouse gases. This increase in CO2 and other greenhouse gases are melting the earths glaciers, raising sea levels, and warming the oceans which in turn is affecting the living conditions of the animals/organisms on this planet.

 Fast Facts! [9]

- Greenland is losing 100 billion tons of ice per year
- The global temperature has risen 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit since 1880
- In the past century sea levels have risen 4 to 8 inches
- Sea levels rise 3.19 mm each year
- Carbon dioxide levels are at 392 parts per million, the highest its been in 650,000 years!
- Arctic ice is melting at 11.5% per decade
- We could be facing more wildfires, droughts, and more intense tropical storms 
- Humans are the main cause of global warming!

Statistic and graphs to illustrate how much our climate has changed:

graph provided by NASA
This graph shows that Carbon dioxide levels are higher than they have ever been before
and it doesn't look like they are slowing down anytime soon.

Image is provided by the IPCC

These graphs show the major greenhouse gases that are warming the earth and the table constructed below shows exactly how much the emissions have increased since pre industrial times.

Radiative force simply put is the measure of influence that a factor has on the atmosphere. Positive numbers show a warming trend and negative numbers represent cooling.

Main greenhouse gases	What causes it to increase	Type of gas	Amount of gas in atmosphere: pre- industrial	mount of gas in atmosphere: 2005
Water vapor	-warming of the atmosphere	n/a	n/a	n/a
Carbon dioxide	-respiration -volcano eruptions -deforestation -burning fossil fuels*	Long lived	280 ppm	379 ppm
Methane	-decomposition of wastes in landfills -agriculture* -rice cultivation -manure management associated w/ livestock - Fossil Fuels*	Long lived	715 ppb	1774 ppb
Nitrous oxide made by me	-Soil Cultivation -Use of fertilizers -Nitric acid production -biomass burning -agriculture *	Long lived	270 ppb	319 ppb

*= main contributing factor to increased levels 

 I think its also important to note that most of the mass extinctions that have occurred in the past have been greenhouse extinctions[5]. As Paleontologist Peter Ward puts it, these mass extinctions were due to rises in greenhouse gases which leads to anoxic oceans and rises in H2S in the oceans/atmosphere creating an environment that is inhabitable by most organisms.

the graph to right shows that extinctions occurred at times of low oxygen and high carbon dioxide.

In the past century or so we have had the fastest increase in CO2 and many scientists are now turning to drastic ideas to control global warming. However the question remains are these big projects actually worth pursuing.