455883

=﻿Global Warming Synthesis Essay=

Despite what skeptics may say, there is no disproving global warming. The science is sound and the scientific community--really, every rational mind--is in consensus. The global ocean surface temperature has increased approximately 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit in the last 100 years (graph). This is "the fastest rate in any period over the last 1,000 years" (Kyoto Protocol). The problem, simply put, is grave, and there is much more evidence to be shared. The protests and concerns of those who do actually "believe" in global warming are generally concerned with the economy. However, global warming is urgent, so urgent that it does take precedence over the economy. Global leaders all too often ignore global warming in pursuit of other goals, political or otherwise. Unfortunately, this is all-too-often the case in the Obama Administration. They focused on the health-care bill first, and by the time they got to a climate bill their political capital was scant. Their climate bill died in the Senate, as so many bills do. Their lack of focus on climate change has grown even more in the face of recession. Obama has focused more on"healing the economy" (or really, reducing the effects of the recession) than healing our environment. Now that the Republicans have gained the House, Obama's obliviousness is only going to increase. He didn't even say the phrase "global warming" once in his State of the Union speech. Meanwhile, billions of tons of greenhouse gases are being added to the atmosphere, thousands of barrels of oil are being burned, and deforestation, which produces "one quarter of [human] carbon dioxide [emissions]" (Kyoto Protocol) continues. What we need to do is wage nothing less than war against our own destructive habits & technology. When the US entered World War II, partisan bickering was put aside, and the nation put everything else but the war on hold--families, jobs, even citizens' own lives. Yet many refuse to even acknoledge the issue. Japanese kamikaze plains could be crashing & exploding all around them and they wouldn't care. They just want to accumulate wealth and stay in power. Global warming is an **__urgent__** problem. It is more important than the economy, even though addressing the problem would actually help the economy. When the US entered WWII, the government took control of many means of production and drastically increased production. This put a solid end to the Great Depression. A fight aganist global warming has similar potential. No, I'm not proposing that the government control the economy nor that "we... ask for 100 percent" (Lomborg) of the problem to disappear, like we asked for Hitler to be 100% dead. In fact, it may very well be impossible to completely solve the problem, since Earth's surface temperatures have already risen and so much greenhouse gas is in the atmosphere. However, the problem needs to be addressed, as has been stated before. I agree that "we need to confront our myth of the economy undercutting the environment" (Lomborg). The "economy" covers every sort of financial transaction--from environmentally-friendly sectors like research and design to environmentally-damaging sectors like construction and energy. Money needs to be diverted (most likely by the government, since this would require a large up-front investment without assurance of profit) to research on solutions for this gigantic problem. While dividends, in the form of profit, may not be immediately available, this will assure the long-term health & safety of the economy--really of society, of humanity-- and will spur development in a professional sector. "Ultimately, 2% of the world's GDP is a very small cost if we can ensure that the world economy continues to grow by 2-3% per year over the next century as predicted. So ultimately global warming is an issue of morals & global economics" (Maslin).

You bring up some good points, and the analysis is fine. But you may want to add some more quotes to enrich it.