• Question: what is global warming caused by?

    Asked by maya to Jackie, Michele, Oliver, Vicky, Yelong on 9 Mar 2015.
    • Photo: Vicky Bayliss

      Vicky Bayliss answered on 9 Mar 2015:

      There’s a good question!

      I guess the real answer is that no one is really sure, which is why there is lots of debate about it. If there was a clear answer, then people would stop discussing what it is and move on to finding a solution. Last week there was a fantastic tv programme on BBC 4 (I know – I didn’t know the channel existed until last week either!) about why it was hard to understand global warming which you might find interesting. Its probably still on the bbc iplayer.

    • Photo: Jaclyn Bell

      Jaclyn Bell answered on 15 Mar 2015:

      Global warming (and cooling) has been around a long long time and has happened in the past, way before humans existed! It can be caused by several things such as the suns intensity, increased volcanic activity and hot gases trapped in our atmosphere. Over the last few decades there has been a rise (a record high) in CO2 in our atmosphere which scientists are saying is because of mankind burning fossil fuels, deforestation, animal farming, etc which increases the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. CO2 is a heat-trapping gas which has been largely responsible for this increased ‘warming’… and this is what we mean when we say we should be lowering our ‘carbon footprint’ – we should be using less coal and gas and looking for alternative sustainable energies which aren’t as damaging to the environment. The less CO2 in the atmosphere the better it is for us!

    • Photo: Michele Faucci Giannelli

      Michele Faucci Giannelli answered on 16 Mar 2015:

      Global warming is caused by an increase in greenhouse effect and also by higher activity of the Sun (which as cycles in which is more or less active).
      Human activities are responsible for the emission of a lot of CO2 and gasses such as methane which have a strong greenhouse effect.
      Earth has been through many periods in which the temperature was higher or lower than now, so a limited excursion in temperature is nothing new on a geological scale. What is strange and unique this time is the fact that the temperature has never risen so fast before. What usually took centuries or millennia, in now happening in 2-3 decades.

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