Using General Circulation Models (GCMs) and computer simulation software, scientists have predicted the Earth's average temperature to increase from 1.5 to 6 Degrees Celcius during the 21st Century, should no action be taken to curb emissions of Greenhouse Gases.
While a warmer world could be beneficial in some ways, there would be many adversative effects. These include more extreme weather and more intense tropical storms, destruction of some communities by rising seas, damage to and loss of natural ecosystems that cannot adapt rapidly enough, diminished agricultural output in some places and an increase in some tropical diseases.
One of the most important questions of the 21st century is: should action be taken to curb the emission of Greenhouse Gases? Governments of developed countries have proposed taxing businesses based on their Carbon Dioxide emissions. Industrialists argue that these actions would have a negative effect on our economy. Furthermore, these industrialists claim that the computerized models of the atmosphere - which have been climatologists' main tools in analyzing global warming - are inaccurate.
Environmentalists claim that these models have been improved and are being used more effectively. Scientists assert that they have studied the predicted patterns of climate change vs. those actually observed. These scientists found a good match between the temperature differences from region to region predicted by computerized simulations of the atmosphere's response to increased greenhouse gas emissions and those actually measured. As a result, environmentalists claim that these computer simulation models are fairly accurate, and that they predict a potential Apocalaypse for the Earth's environment. Many environmentalists therefore claim that human activity is the primary cause of global warming, and that drastic action should be taken now to curb the release of Greenhouse Gases, carbon dioxide emissions, and other pollution deemed harmful to the Earth's environment.
