Calentamiento Global / Global Warming

Reasearch question: What Causes the Global Warming Effects?
The Global Warming and Climate Changes
Climate change is a problem that is affecting people and the environment. Greater energy efficiency and new technologies hold promise for reducing greenhouse gases and solving this global challenge. Climate change refers to any significant change in measures of climate (such as temperature,precipitation, or wind) lasting for an extended period (decades or longer). Climate change may result from: natural factors, such as changes in the sun's intensity or slow changes in the Earth's orbit around the sun; natural processes within the climate system; human activities that change the atmosphere's composition. (EPA 2012)
The current cycle of global warming is changing the rhythms ofclimate 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 snowcapped mountains—hangs in the balance. (National Geographic 2012)
We’re driving climate change by burning fossil fuels like coaland oil. In fact, coal-fired power plants are the single largest U.S. source of global warming pollution. America's coal-burning power plants, in addition to causing global warming and climate change, are killing tens of thousands of Americans, poisoning our air and water, and making our children sick. It’s not hard to see the result of our reliance on fossil fuels. (Greenpeace International2012)
The Three Major Causes of Global Warming Effects and Climate Changes are carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel burning power plant, carbon dioxide emissions from burning gasoline for transportation and methane emissions from animals, agriculture such as rice, paddies, and from Arctic seabed.
First of all, our ever increasing addiction to electricity from coal burning power plantsreleases enormous amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. 40% of U.S. CO2 emissions come from electricity production, and burning coal accounts for 93% of emissions from the electric utility industry. Every day, more electric gadgets flood the market, and without widespread alternative energy sources, we are highly dependent on burning coal for our personal and commercial electricalsupply. On the other hand, our modern car culture and appetite for globally sourced goods is responsible for about 33% of emissions in the U.S. With our population growing at an alarming rate, the demand for more cars and consumer goods means that we are increasing the use of fossil fuels for transportation and manufacturing. Our consumption is outpacing our discoveries of ways to mitigate theeffects, with no end in sight to our massive consumer culture. (EPA 2012)
Methane is another extremely potent greenhouse gas, ranking right behind CO2. When organic matter is broken down by bacteria under oxygen-starved conditions (anaerobic decomposition) as in rice paddies, methane is produced. The process also takes place in the intestines of herbivorous animals, and with the increase in theamount of concentrated livestock production, the levels of methane released into the atmosphere is increasing. Another source of methane is methane clathrate, a compound containing large amounts of methane trapped in the crystal structure of ice. As methane escapes from the Arctic seabed, the rate of global warming will increase significantly. (Markham 2009).
The full impact of the BP DeepwaterHorizon disaster may take a generation to reveal itself, but already hundreds of species of marine life have been affected, as have the communities that rely on the Gulf. Around the country, communities face devastating levels of water and air pollution as a result of coal burning power plants, which produce millions of tons of toxic sludge and smoke each year. Fossil fuels also account for more...