Is Global Warming Just a Myth Propagated by the Media?
Another scandal for fear-mongering
Let’s admit it; human beings are very fearful by nature. They …I mean, we shiver and panic over the unknown.
Don’t get me wrong; this trait serves its biological purpose for our survival. But is this really the case with ‘Global warming?’
To determine if global warming is even a thing, we need to first understand what it is, right?
What is Global Warming?
You’ve probably heard the term like a ‘gazillion times’ and have thought at the back of your mind, what does it actually mean?
Global warming, in simple terms, is the general rise in world’s temperatures over a period of time caused by the greenhouse effect that can range from human activities like:
- Deforestation
- Waste Pollution
- Burning of Fossil Fuels
- Farming
Okay! Let’s hop on to the more interesting stuff.
Is Global Warming Even Real?
It’s history time, guys.
It all began in 1896 in Sweden by the scientist Svante Arrhenius who discovered that putting Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could make the earth warmer.
His theories didn’t draw much attention because the world was evergreen at the time.
Out of nowhere, the first and second World Wars broke out. Needless to say, the environment took a toll.
With all this going on, the supposed ‘global warming’ was swept under the rug as there were more pressing matters to deal with on a larger economic scale.
This was followed by Industrialization, the burning of coal and oil, which put so much sulfur pollution into the atmosphere and partially blocked the sun’s rays leading to an increment in global heat.
But an amazing shift took place in the 1970s when global temperatures kept ‘spiking up’ and “global warming made its appearance on research paper temperature.
The terminology developed a snowball effect and began making mainstream media so much so that big media personalities like Margaret Thatcher (Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom) spoke about it.
A first public statement issued by a group of scientists in 1995 showed that there was a correlation between human influence and global warming. And the past decades have shown that global temperatures are rising.
Take a look at the graph below from NASA Global Climate Change.
The graph clearly illustrates that CO2 is only increasing as time goes by.
In case you don’t know, CO2 is a greenhouse gas; as a result, it increases the likelihood of global warming. It is a gas that serves similar to a glass in a greenhouse and is responsible for retaining heat.
The very concept is applicable to the environment, and the more Carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere due to human activities like deforestation, the more heat is retained, resulting in a rise in global temperatures.
This is not even looking at factors depleting the ozone layer like Chlorofluorocarbons and hydro chlorofluorocarbons that have been responsible for:
Wild Fires:
This is because “human emissions like exhaust fumes, industrial releases as well deforestation have released gases into the atmosphere which are cloaking the earth thus resulting in everything below it heating up.
This affects the water cycle, and the land dries up, leading to protracted periods of high temperatures.
Rising Sea Level & Floods
This is no breaking news to anyone. All factual data indicates that it has been warmer by at least 1.1° Celsius (1.9° Fahrenheit) since 1880 by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS.)
This increment in temperature can hold more water vapor, meaning when it rains, the output is much heavier, potentially flooding.
Also, it can lead to the melting of ice caps-coupled by cyclones and hurricanes that blow the already risen water to the mainland.
So to ask the question ‘Is global warming real?’, the direct, honest answer is Yes!
Even as an African, I can personally testify that our climate is becoming hotter, and floods are more recurrent, especially in towns with little to no vegetation.
