I want to stress that people have gotten an unfortunately weird view of global warming by listening to various people perhaps purposefully confuse the issue. What was really revelatory to me, as one of those people who was by no means an expert -- and I still don't consider myself a scientific expert -- is that we're not talking about a speculative thing. The notion that you put more CO2 up there and you get a warmer world is not debatable at all. This has been understood for a century now. Global warming is real. The only debatable issue is how warm it will get. That's really the only question. And, yes, it's complicated but everything that we've learned has tended to support the conclusion that the effects will be quite significant. What people ought to know is that there's nothing that's been learned that suggests

2. History of Earth
• Earth formed ~4.6 billion years ago
• Originally very hot
• Sun’s energy output only 70% of
present
• Liquid water present ~4.3 billion years

3. Earth’s Atmospheric Gases
Nitrogen (N2)
Oxygen (O2)
Water (H2O)
Carbon Dioxide (CO2)
Methane (CH4)
Non-
Greenhouse
Gases
99%
Greenhouse
Gases
1%

4. Global Warming
• Global warming is when the earth
heats up (the temperature rises).
• It happens when greenhouse gases
(carbon dioxide, water vapor, nitrous
oxide, and methane) trap heat and
light from the sun in the earth’s
atmosphere, which increases the
temperature.

5. Global Warming - Examples
1914
2004

6. Greenhouse EffectSun

7. • The greenhouse effect is when the
temperature goes up, on Earth, since
the sun’s heat and light energy is
trapped in the earth’s atmosphere.
• While the heat from the sun enters
our atmosphere, the heat has trouble
leaving back out our atmosphere
Greenhouse Effect

10. Greenhouse Gases
Water
Carbon dioxide Sulfur hexafluorideNitrous oxide
Methane
CO2 | NH4 | N20

11. Control on Greenhouse Gases

12. Small changes really add up
Replace your old refrigerator
with a new Energy Star:
Annual savings:
$90; 700 pounds CO2
Set your thermostat down a few
degrees in the winter
Annual savings:
$135; 1400 pounds CO2
Wash clothes in cold water only
Annual savings:
$70; 500 pounds CO2
Drive JUST 10 fewer miles per week
Annual savings:
$80; 520 pounds CO2
Reduce your garbage by 10%
through greater recycling or reduced
packaging
Annual savings:
1200 pounds CO2
Replacing just 1 incandescent light bulb with 1 compact
florescent bulb saves about 150 pounds of carbon dioxide
per year!

13. Our take-home message…
Save the WORLD its your home
No single technology will stop global warming, but there is a silver bullet: a
cap on carbon that will launch all these solutions into the mainstream