Graph Comparison

Hey readers, my name is Fatima and I will be analyzing two graphs from William Nordhaus's book The Climate Casino for a class assignment.

First we are going analyze Figure 2 (Global CO2 Emission, 1900-2010) location 345 on Kindle, which shows us a trend to which CO2 emissions have grown from 1900 to 2010. This graph informs us that in 1900 we produced 2 billion tons of CO2 which has increased on average of 2.6 % a year, leading us to 40 billion tons in 2010 because of the use of fossil fuels. Why is this important you might ask, its important because the more CO2 we pump into the atmosphere, the more we are pushing climate change. Climate change is having a serious effect on our world today. The climate change is causing but not limited to spiking temperatures, rising sea levels due to melting ice sheets, droughts and storms. If you are like me and enjoy vacationing in places Miami then listen up because what this graph is tell us is that the more CO2 we emit the hotter the earth gets. If we stay on this trend of 2.6% increase of CO2 emissions a year we will not be able to lay on a beach in Miami because it would be uninhabitable due to severely heighten temperatures.

Now we are going to take a look at Figure 10 (Historical Proxy Temperature Estimates For Greenland) location 795 on Kindle, which shows us the temperatures of the ice core samples from Greenland over the last 40,000 years. Based on the information shown in this graph we can say that in the last 7,000 years with the emergence of human civility, the temperatures in Greenland rose due to the use of fossil fuels causing ice cores to melt as opposed to the Greenland completely encased in ice before our inhabitance. We learn that before our use of fossil fuels the temperatures considerably low because how large the ice sheet was. The larger the ice sheet in Greenland was the less heat the earth absorbs to keep itself warm. We can say because of our use of fossil fuels we are causing the ice sheets in Greenland to melt. The more fossil fuels we use the more CO2 we emit into the atmosphere. By the calculations in Figure 10 if we keep producing this much CO2 we will continue to heat the earth we will melt the ice sheet in Greenland entirely.

By analyzing the two graphs I have drawn the conclusion that use of fossil fuels will bring on catastrophic consequences. If we don't change the trend of we are on with carbon emissions increasing 2.6% a year as stated in Figure 2 then we will completely melt the ice sheets which we are on trend to do as stated in Figure 10. Once the ice sheets are melted then there is no ice to reflect the sun's radiation back into space. This would cause the earth to be overheated and inhabitable and complete acidification of our oceans that could cause the destruction of all sea life. This should be cause for concern to everyone because we could possibly end life on earth.