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New york times

Global warming has become perhaps the most complicated issue facing world
leaders. On the one hand, warnings from the scientific community are becoming
louder, as an increasing body of science points to rising dangers from the on-going
build-up of human-related greenhouse gases — produced mainly by the burning of
fossil fuels and forests. On the other, the technological, economic and political issues
that have to be resolved before a concerted worldwide effort to reduce emissions can
begin have gotten no simpler, particularly in the face of a global economic slowdown.

Global warming is the increase in the average temperature of Earth's near-

surface air and oceans since the mid-20th century and its projected
continuation. According to the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report by the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), global surface
temperature increased 0.74 ± 0.18 °C (1.33 ± 0.32 °F) during the 20th century.
[2][A] Most of the observed temperature increase since the middle of the 20th
century has been caused by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases,
which result from human activity such as the burning of fossil fuel and
deforestation.[3] Global dimming, a result of increasing concentrations of
atmospheric aerosols that block sunlight from reaching the surface, has
partially countered the effects of warming induced by greenhouse gases.
Wikipedia

What is global warming?

Global warming is the rise in temperature of the earth's atmosphere.

It's said that by the time a baby born today is 80 years old, the world will be 6 and a half
degrees warmer than it is now.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/find_out/guides/world/global_warming/newsid_1575000/
1575441.stm

Is global warming bad?

The earth is naturally warmed by rays (or radiation) from the sun which pass through
the earth's atmosphere and are reflected back out to space again.

The atmosphere's made up of layers of gases, some of which are called 'greenhouse
gases'. They're mostly natural and make up a kind of thermal blanket over the earth.

This lets some of the rays back out of the atmosphere, keeping the earth at the right
temperature for animals, plants and humans to survive (60°F/16°C).

So some global warming is good. But if extra greenhouse gases are made, the thermal
blanket gets thicker and too much heat is kept in the earth's atmosphere. That's when
global warming's bad.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/find_out/guides/world/global_warming/newsid_1575000/1575
457.stm
Glaciers are melting, sea levels are rising, cloud forests are drying, and wildlife is scrambling
to keep pace. It's becoming clear that humans have caused most of the past century's warming
by releasing heat-trapping gases as we power our modern lives. Called greenhouse gases,
their levels are higher now than in the last 650,000 years.

We call the result global warming, but it is causing a set of changes to the Earth's climate, or
long-term weather patterns, that varies from place to place. As the Earth spins each day, the
new heat swirls with it, picking up moisture over the oceans, rising here, settling there. It's
changing the rhythms of climate that all living things have come to rely upon.

What will we do to slow this warming? How will we cope with the changes we've already set
into motion? While we struggle to figure it all out, the face of the Earth as we know it—
coasts, forests, farms and snow-capped mountains—hangs in the balance.

Greenhouse effect

The "greenhouse effect" is the warming that happens when certain gases in Earth's
atmosphere trap heat. These gases let in light but keep heat from escaping, like the glass walls
of a greenhouse.

First, sunlight shines onto the Earth's surface, where it is absorbed and then radiates back into
the atmosphere as heat. In the atmosphere, “greenhouse” gases trap some of this heat, and the
rest escapes into space. The more greenhouse gases are in the atmosphere, the more heat gets
trapped.

Scientists have known about the greenhouse effect since 1824, when Joseph Fourier
calculated that the Earth would be much colder if it had no atmosphere. This greenhouse
effect is what keeps the Earth's climate livable. Without it, the Earth's surface would be an
average of about 60 degrees Fahrenheit cooler. In 1895, the Swedish chemist Svante
Arrhenius discovered that humans could enhance the greenhouse effect by making carbon
dioxide, a greenhouse gas. He kicked off 100 years of climate research that has given us a
sophisticated understanding of global warming.

http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/gw-overview.html
What is global warming?

While some would call global warming a theory, others would call it a proven set of facts.
Opinions differ vehemently. Let us consider global warming to be both a premise that the
environment of the world as we know it is slowly, but very surely increasing in overall air
and water temperature, and a promise that if whatever is causing this trend is not interrupted
or challenged life on earth will dynamically be affected.

The prevailing counter opinion is that all that is presently perceived to be global warming is
simply the result of a normal climactic swing in the direction of increased
temperature. Many proponents of this global warming ideology have definitive social and
financial interests in these claims.

Global warming and climate change are aspects of our environment that cannot be easily or
quickly discounted. Many factions still strongly feel that the changes our Earth is seeing
are the result of a natural climatic adjustment. Regardless of one’s perspective the effects of
global warming are a quantifiable set of environmental results that are in addition to any
normal changes in climate. That is why the effects of global warming have catastrophic
potential. Global warming may well be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. It could turn
out to be the difference between a category three hurricane and a category four. Global
warming as caused by greenhouse gas emissions can lead us to a definite imbalance of nature.

http://globalwarming.com/2009/03/what-is-global-warming/

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Our generation faces the greatest moral and political crisis in human
history. Will we take the steps necessary to avert catastrophic global
warming or will we doom our children to a new Dark Ages in a world
that is biologically and economically impoverished and defined by
ever diminishing quality of life.
http://www.stopglobalwarming.org/