Overconsumption and health

Global warming

Global warming is an effect of overconsumption. The earth is, in effect, a closed system, which has been in equilibrium for millennia with the sun as the ultimate source of energy. Short wave solar energy penetrates the earth's atmosphere but long wave, infrared, radiation emitted from the earth's surface is absorbed by atmospheric gases, the so called greenhouse gases (GHGs). These include carbon dioxide (CO₂; the main one), methane, and nitrous oxide. There is a natural greenhouse effect which means that the planet is about 33°C warmer than it would otherwise be.

It is widely held, especially by scientists from the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), that that there has been a rise of average mean surface temperature of about 0.6°C since the late 19th century.3 The 1990s was the warmest decade since instrument records began in 1861, and 1998 was the hottest year ever recorded in the United Kingdom. Scientists of the IPCC also believe that this warming has been caused by human activities, especially industrialisation and the burning of fossil fuels and changes of land use, such as deforestation, which have …