There is an issue in society that continues to be a concern and needs to be seriously addressed. The problem is that global warming is increasing at a significant rate. According to NASA’s article entitled “Global Warming”, global warming is the unusual “...rapid increase in Earth’s average surface temperature,” (2014, para. 1). Our planet, Earth, has had its temperature changed a significant amount of times throughout history. These changes were due to receiving more or less sunlight from the shifts in the Earth’s orbit. However, scientists have found that over the past century another source has influenced the change of Earth’s temperature: mankind. Scientists from NASA’s Earth Observatory suggests that these significant changes are primarily due to the release of greenhouse gases as people burn fossil fuels, given the fact that the rate of temperature increase nearly doubled in the last 50 years (GlobalWarming, 2014, para. 3). Greenhouse gases allow sunlight to shine into the atmosphere freely. When the sunlight strikes the Earth’s surface, some of it reflects back to space as heat. The greenhouse gases absorbs this heat and traps it in the atmosphere keeping the Earth at a suitable temperature for humans to live in. There are various amounts of greenhouse gases but carbon dioxide, oxygen, methane and nitrous oxide seem to be more dominant (Hunt, 2011, online). However, when too much of the gas is released then too much of the heat gets trapped within the atmosphere. This leads to a warmer planet. Scientists have studied and proven how having a warmer planet leads to drastic climate changes which then leads to changes in weather.
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There are reasons why the public should be concerned with the drastic climate changes occurring around the world. Climate change is very similar to global warming. However, “...Global warming refers only to the Earth’s rising surface temperature, while climate change includes warming and the “side effects” of warming—like melting glaciers, heavier rainstorms, or more frequent drought ”(Lindsey, 2015, online). One reason the public should worry is because of the rising of sea levels which was caused by ice melting over land and the expansion of seas. Being that majority of America’s states are coastal, high sea levels is a problem because it causes flooding which could damages coastal plant, wild and human habitats. Society should also be concerned because climate change has an impact on the intensity of storms. According to Climate Nexus organization:
The power of a hurricane depends on how rapidly water can evaporate from the ocean. Evaporation transfers heat from the ocean to the atmosphere, which converts the transfer of heat into wind energy. Thus, water evaporation ultimately drives the winds in a hurricane. As the temperature of the water rises, the rate of evaporation increases, driving stronger winds. (PerfectStorm, 2013, online).
Lastly, warmer temperatures were rumoured to be the cause of today’s intense heat waves. Kate Sheppard from the Huffington’s Post reports how scientists found that human-caused climate change was a big attribute to the record-setting heat wave that occurred in Australia back in 2013 (ClimateChange, 2014, online).
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There is proof that the problem with this exists. For example, people in Bangladesh now experience frequent flooding, Australian heat waves are increasing to temperatures that put lives in danger, and storms are becoming stronger and dangerous such as the superstorm Sandy. “Floodwaters pouring through villages in northern Bangladesh have left nearly half a million people homeless, washed away roads and damaged crops” reports Syed Al-Mahmood from The Wallstreet Journal (FloodingInBangladesh, 2014, para.1). Bangladesh experiences floods almost every year because of global warming killing hundreds of thousands of people and many find global warming a part of the cause. Heavy precipitation events have increased at least 15 percent precipitation compared to 50 years ago the Union of Concerned Scientists. As previously mentioned, “...this happens because warmer air holds more moisture..” (ucsusa, 2014, online), which leads back to global warming because global warming is the cause of these warmer temperature changes. Although this shows how drastic climate changes can endanger humanity, there are more events that prove this problem to be realistic. Australia’s 2013 heatwave exceeded previous records and set new ones rising above 118.4 Fahrenheit degrees, killing approximately 1,000 bats and forcing to kill more cattle (Kahn, 2014, online). Unfortunately, global warming was accused to be the cause once more. Meteorologists of the Australian Bureau state how “...the Planet is warming, and so is Australia...this warming has been strongly attributed to increasing greenhouse gases from human activities....As the climate system warms due to increasing greenhouse gases, more energy is retained in the lower atmosphere. That extra energy influences all our weather and climate” (Plummer, 2013, para. 18). These climate changes have greatly affected Australia, and they’re greatly expected to bring more horrific weather to Australia. Now to show that drastic climate changes are definitely a problem to society, scientists mention the influence of climate change on the Superstorm Sandy. Senior Scientist, Kevin Trenberth, and his team explain how a warmer climate leads to weather change stating how “Warm air can be more humid than cold air...also, warm air evaporate water more quickly.” (Trenberth, 2015, para. 3). Water evaporation turns into clouds and this process repeats itself creating higher and larger clouds. Throughout this process winds circulate around a center attracting more clouds creating a cluster of thunderstorms.
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Society must seriously address the issue of climate change. To solve this controversy, people must replace power plants with modern, safe nuclear reactors that create clean nuclear energy. Carbon dioxide dominates the other greenhouse gases that traps heat in our atmosphere. To reduce the rate of carbon that is being distributed in the atmosphere, people must turn to nuclear power sources because of its capability of providing electricity with low carbon emissions. Better yet, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute, nuclear energy also “...prevents approximately half a million tons of nitrogen oxide,” equivalent to that released by 44 million cars. Due to these studies, nuclear energy was predicted to be a perfect way to lower the rate of not just one but multiple greenhouse gases. ______________________________________________________________________________

There are reasons why the public should strive to increase nuclear energy sources. Nuclear energy does not discharge any air pollution and has a cheaper price to its operation compared to renewable energy sources and fossil fuel operations. In addition, it only requires little land to produce energy. Carbon, the primary greenhouse gas that concerns scientists, is a product of combustion, a chemical reaction. Fossil fuel power plants use combustion to generate steam that drives large turbines that produce electricity. On the other hand, nuclear reactors do not use this method to produce steam, they use nuclear reactions to superheat the steam that eventually drives the turbines which generates electricity. This process allows people to produce big sums of energy without distributing big sums of carbon at the same time. Experts looked back at past experiments with nuclear reactors and found it very effective. For example, reporter David Biello from the Scientific American states how there was a period of time where the low-carbon electricity produced by nuclear reactors provided “... 20 percent of the nation's power and, by the estimates of climate scientist James Hansen of Columbia University, avoided 64 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas pollution…” (NuclearPower, 2013, para.2). Furthermore, nuclear power plants are cost effective. These operations are expensive to build but relatively cheap to run. In many places, nuclear energy is competitive with fossil fuels as a means of electricity generation. In 2008, “...nuclear plant owners in the US spent an average of just 0.49 cents per kilowatt hour for fuel and 1.37 cents per kilowatt hour for non-fuel O&M…” (Adams, 2010, online). In addition, nuclear plants only need to refuel every 18-24 months so they are not subject to fuel price volatility like oil and natural gas power plants. Lastly, nuclear power plants require the least amount of land to generate energy. 1,000-megawatt nuclear facilities need just over one square mile compared to “...wind farms that require up to 360 times as much land area to produce the same amount of electricity as a nuclear energy facility” (NuclearEnergyInstitute, 2015, online). These statistics prove nuclear energy sources to be a very effective solution to the problem with the over distribution of carbon emitted energy sources.
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Everyone should strongly feel in the issue of saving our environment that this should be done. There are some, however, who disagree. Unfortunately, opponents believe that this plan dangers society by producing enormous quantities of radioactive waste during the fuel process. Majority of the radioactive waste is the fuel from the hot core of the nuclear power plants. The majority of high-level radioactive waste is the fuel from the hot core of commercial nuclear power plants. These fuels are irradiated and are the most intense radioactive material on the Earth. These unprotected irradiated fuels gives lethal radiation doses that could harm civilians. The weakly radioactive element, Uranium, is processed into fuel rods and loaded into nuclear reactors where it then goes through another process called the nuclear fission reaction. This increases the radioactivity because other radioactive elements, such as cesium and strontium, are created. Furthermore, the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, “...each 1,000 megawatts nuclear power reactor annually produces 30 metric tons of high-level waste in the form of irradiated fuel…” (RadioactiveWasteProject, 2013, para.1). To conclude, as previously mentioned by experts, exposure to radioactivity can be fatal. This suggests that nuclear energy sources may not be the best way to solve the this environmental issue.
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Opponents who are against society depending on nuclear energy to slow global warming may have their worthwhile opposing viewpoints; nevertheless, all should not forget the many methods that allows people to dispose nuclear waste safely. Experts teach the public how majority of low and intermediate level wastes are being implemented and how some countries wait for the high level wastes to accumulate enough so they can warrant building geological repositories. On the other hand, countries such as the USA, encounter political delays (WorldNuclearAssociation, online, para. 3). Exempt to low level waste contain small amounts of radioactivity. Fortunately, “...the level of hazard of all nuclear waste – its radioactivity – diminishes with time…” (RadioactiveWaste, 2016, online). So, these small amounts of radioactivity are short-lived. These wastes are not considered harmful to people which means they require no shielding while disposing. Since, it is not harmful to society these contents are suitable for shallow land burial. Next, there’s the intermediate level radioactive waste. These wastes require some shielding while disposing due to the higher amount of its radioactivity. This group contains contaminated materials from reactor decommissioning. Any small or non-solid items are solidified into concrete for disposal. Lastly, there’s the high-level wastes which arises from the the burning of Uranium fuel in nuclear reactors. Due to its highly radioactive fission products high-level waste and spent fuel must be handled and stored with care. Since the only way radioactive waste finally becomes harmless is through decay, which for high-level wastes can take hundreds of thousands of years, the wastes must be stored and finally disposed of in a way that provides adequate protection of the public for a very long time. (HighLevelWaste, 2015, para. 4).
In conclusion, nuclear energy sources are proven to be the best solution to global warming. It benefits both the environment and the people by providing society with large sums of energy at a significant rate and decreasing the amount of greenhouse gases that dwell within the atmosphere. Changing to nuclear energy sources could slow the process of global warming, which then leads to less climate change and the less change in climate means the less catastrophic events that have been occurring. Society must change to nuclear energy sources in order to save humanity, and more importantly to save our planet.