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Legal, and Scientific problems of climate change


I really can use some help with several issues on Global Warming. Any help would be very very thankful.

Factual Information
!) What are the historical developments in the case of Global Warming?
2) What are the key facts in the case? What environmental theories are involved?
3) What are the scientific, economic, societal, and aesthetic perspectives in Global Warming?
4) Is there any dispute about what those facts are?
5) What is the most plausible account of the facts?
6) What are the long term effects of Global Warming?
Complicating factors
1) Is there anything particularly unusual or complicated about Global Warming?
2) In teams of Science? or the Law?

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Historically, we need to understand that it is only in recent times that humans have understood that the climate is a dynamic system. Previously, it was believed that the earth's temperatures at each location varied only with the seasons. After the fact that ice ages have occurred was accepted, we are now facing a new development: not only does the climate change, but humans can change it. The first to propose that CO2 was related to global warming was G.S. Callendar in 1939. He argued that the level of both carbon dioxide and temperature had been rising, but his views were greeted with skepticism. For a good overview of these historical developments, see

Scientifically speaking, global warming is very difficult to assign to a specific cause. This is because the climate has changed significantly throughout geologic time, without any human interference. It is therefore virtually impossible to say that the current increase in global temperature is due solely to anthropogenic causes. We can only say that humans have increased the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere, and that as CO2 has increases, global temperatures have also increased progressively. However, this could be a coincidence. The climate is extremely complicated, and by the time we are certain of the damage (eg 50% of arable land will be lost) it will be too late to do anything. This is because it takes years, sometimes decades, for the climate to respond to any changes we might make.

In order to determine whether CO2 has increased global temperatures, ...

Solution Summary

History of global warming and scientific, economic, societal, and aesthetic perspectives on the problem.