by Christopher Lamport

Created on: May 09, 2008

Looking out of the eighty-second floor of the Empire State Building, a makeshift houseboat floats unpowered, wherever the winds decide to take it. The once bustling metropolis known as New York City now looks akin to a post apocalyptic science fiction story, submerged by a staggering amount of water. Below the residents of the clueless makeshift abode lurks a silent metal monster, carefully and methodically traversing the underwater rat maze.

Although the above story is far fetched, it does bring to light the environmental, social, and even political problems that global warming presents. To understand the consequences of such an intricate subject first requires a working knowledge of the topic at hand. More specifically, what is global warming and how, if at all, can it be stopped? The most obvious entry point for this essay would be for me to inundate you with meaningless statistics and drown you with raw scientific data, but that is not my job. Instead, I will attempt to give you sufficient knowledge to make informed and intelligent environment decisions. Let us look at what global warming really is, the trapping of what we consistently hear called "greenhouse gasses". Well, that makes the problem quite obvious correct? Get rid of the greenhouse gasses and everything gets better. Except for one flaw, it is naturally occurring, vital to the survival of the planet.

Interesting to note, the primary greenhouse gas can we not only not do anything about, but is by itself the life giver of our planet. What I am talking about here is water, and more specifically water vapor, which collects in the atmosphere and traps the suns heat much like that of a greenhouse, thus the name. The secondary, and one that we are responsible for is carbon dioxide, the gas emitted by Hummers and Minivans everywhere, as well as coal burning, and an endless list of other man made uses. These two so called greenhouse gasses are directly related, although one may not see the reason immediately. Water vapor along with the already built up CO2 collects in the lower stratosphere and begins to trap heat in. This point has been proven by multiple governments and private contract groups, so there is one point that cannot be dismissed with the wave of a hand. When more carbon dioxide is added to the atmosphere, even the small amount that it increases the temperature causes a more water evaporation, which leads to more water in the atmosphere which leads to higher temperatures, this endless cycle

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