Global Warming:
Problem and Solution Report
Prepared for
Mr. Hahnke
Appleton West High School
Prepared by
Austin Gigstead
Student
Appleton West High School
4/9/2024
INTRODUCTION
Intense droughts, deadly heat waves, storms, and rising sea levels can harm people, animals, and
homes around the world. Infectious diseases and respiratory diseases could run rampant and
could affect the population. These already are, and will be the effects of global warming. Issues
like these will get worse if nothing is done about it. Global warming is putting negative effects
on the planet such as the loss of agricultural productivity, the increase of infectious diseases, and
the increase of respiratory diseases. This slowly started being recognized as a widespread issue
around 1982. The levels of greenhouse gasses have been increasing and the earth has been rising
in temperature. Global warming should be combated to stop the negative effects that it brings.
The purpose of this paper is to look at the effects of global warming and to examine some
potential solutions.
DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS
Problem Defined
Multiple problems come with global warming. These problems affect people and the
environment, these negative effects can be dangerous for anyone living anywhere.
One big issue that comes with global warming is the loss of agricultural productivity. With global
warming comes more extreme weather, a part of this extreme weather is an increase in storms
and more severe storms. For agriculture this will lead to the plants and crops being exposed to
too much water and drowning the plants and crops. Even if the plants and crops do not end up
being drowned from the excess water, the soil will still have water either way. This will lead to
farming tools and equipment not being able to function correctly on this soil. The opposite of this
scenario will also happen. If there are days that are too high of temperatures or too many days of
fairly high temperatures this will lead to the plants and crops running out of water from their
food reserves and being dehydrated.
Stepping away from the agricultural side of things, diseases are another thing that can and have
already been affected by global warming. The change in rainfalls and extreme weather events
like storms and floods have made it so more water has become contaminated. Bacteria, Parasites
and other viruses have been able to spread easier and spread to more areas through the water
because of the changed activities of disease carriers like mosquitos, ticks, and fleas (Center of
Disease Control and Prevention). This has made the areas infested with diseases expand and
water-borne, food-borne, and mosquito-borne continue to expand.
Besides infectious diseases, Respiratory diseases such as Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary
Disease, Pneumonia, and Asthma along with allergies and lung problems will increase due to
climate change effects (National Academies). Climate Change has affected allergenic plants and
pollen distribution which makes it more difficult for people with allergies and other respiratory
diseases to breathe. Along with the increase of pollen, air pollution has also increased (National
Academies). Air pollution has increased from coal and greenhouse gasses like carbon dioxide
and methane. These pollutants increase the amount of small particles in the air, the particles can
make it harder to breathe because it can fill your lungs with gas that isn't oxygen. Dry and hot
conditions can create dust storms and can allow wildfires to start. The dust storms and wildfires
can also pollute the air, especially wildfires. The wildfires can spread and travel for hundreds of
miles, polluting more air.
Causes of the Problem
There are multiple reasons why temperatures worldwide are increasing.
The burning of coal, oil, and gas are a major cause of global warming. When fossil fuels are
burned they release very large amounts of carbon dioxide and other gasses called greenhouse
gasses. These greenhouse gasses are also hot. This is bad for our environment because all of the
greenhouse gasses get trapped in the atmosphere, which also traps the heat in our atmosphere.
The heat being stored in the atmosphere is warming up our planet, causing extreme weather
conditions and events. Since 1970, carbon dioxide emissions have increased by 90% (Zecca).
The second major cause of global warming, and which also relates to the first major reason is
deforestation. Deforestation is the removal of forests, which has increasingly been happening.
Heat has been accumulating in the air, ground, and water from the release of greenhouse gasses
(WWF). This has slowed and prevented the growth of new trees and has damaged or killed
already existing trees. Having trees is so important because of trees storing carbon dioxide. Since
less trees exist, carbon dioxide has less places to be stored and ends up in our atmosphere.
Forests have been decreasing around the world. Each time trees get cut down, carbon dioxide
gets released into the atmosphere adding to the issue.
Another big issue that is a cause of global warming is livestock farming. The manure that comes
from livestock produces methane and nitrous oxide, adding to the air pollution in our atmosphere
(Hussain) . This manure is also used by farmers to fertilize their crops, these farmers usually use
too much. While creating land for livestock farming, forests and trees are being cut down to
make more room, which adds to the deforestation problem.
Impacts of the Problem
The impact of these problems could be dangerous for our planet and people, they could change
the things we do and the ways we do them.
Firstly, the environment and infrastructure will be negatively affected by the change in
temperature and extreme weather events. For the environment, invasive species could be able to
move to places they shouldn’t be in from extreme weather events and possibly take over,
disrupting the ecosystem. Water will become more acidic due to absorbing more carbon dioxide,
which can lead to certain animals getting sick or injured (National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Association). Infrastructure could be also affected by extreme weather by putting stress on the
electrical grid. Flooding could shut down highways and major roads, along with destroying other
infrastructure.
The second impact would be the change in food and economy. Because of the loss of agricultural
productivity, less food would be available worldwide (Goodfray) . This would lead to a change
in economy that would affect buying food, which could lead to starvation for those who could
not afford to buy food at the new price and for people who farm for their own food.
Lastly, disease and mortality would increase as well. From these extreme weather events there
would be an increase in water, food, and diarrhea-borne diseases (Ichiro) . Diseases from animals
and insects such as mosquito-borne diseases and infectious diseases would also increase. These
diseases could lead to many negative things happening such as, a loss of many different species
and a decrease in worker productivity. The most vulnerable people for these diseases would be
young children and the elderly. These diseases could lead to a major increase in mortality rates.
CONCLUSIONS
Global Warming is a problem for our planet that needs to be stopped to better our planet's future.
Burning of fossil fuels, deforestation, and increased livestock farming are problems that have and
will negatively affect our planet through loss of agricultural productivity, and increases in
infectious and respiratory diseases. These issues can be detrimental to our planet if nothing is
done, but can be stopped if we incorporate new strategies and systems to combat global
warming.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Renewable energy would be a great place to start for working on solutions to solve global
warming. There are many sources of renewable energy that we can use to reduce our reliance on
fossil fuels. Two simple ones are wind power and solar power, these are fairly straightforward
energy sources that are just apart of our environment. Bioenergy is a strategy of burning plants
and other organic matter as fuel, this does not contribute to global warming while still giving a
source of energy. Geothermal energy uses natural heat below the Earth's surface that is mainly
used to heat and cool buildings, but can also generate electricity. Lastly, hydroelectric power uses
flowing water to turn a turbine generating electricity.
Secondly, storing and capturing carbon dioxide and other gasses would also be a good way to
prevent as much greenhouse gasses from entering our atmosphere. Stopping deforestation by
planting more trees and restoring forests would be a natural way of doing this because of trees
naturally storing carbon dioxide. Carbon capture and storage is a more complex way of doing
this but would be equally as effective. The carbon dioxide gets separated from other gasses in the
industrial process, then gets transported and injected into storage and rock formations
underground via pipelines and road transportation.
Lasty, though very difficult, would be international cooperation and agreement for
implementation of these strategies. International standards would force everyone around the
world to help with global warming. The Paris Agreement has already unified some countries to
start on this process. Their agreements haven’t been very significant yet, but can be improved to
greatly impact the issue of global warming.
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