Skip to main content

What is a sophisticated and intuitive introduction paragraph to an essay about climate change?

An introduction to an essay about climate change should give an overview of our current state of knowledge, the difference between anthropogenic (human-caused) and non-anthropogenic climate change, and the impacts of climate change on living organisms.


A good start to an essay on climate change will start with a hook. What do we know? We know that humans are impacting Earth's climate system and that a changing climate has negative effects for the planet as a whole. A strong first sentence will help to call attention to the issue and will communicate the subject, attitude, and direction of your paper.


Secondly, the introduction should make very clear for a reader that the kind of climate change we talk about most often (in politics, media, daily life) is the anthropogenic kind. Throughout Earth's climate history, fluctuations have propelled the Earth in a back-and-forth pattern from high to low temperatures. Evidence for this fluctuation exists in climate records like ice caps, marine sediments, and tree rings. Over time, the average global temperature (note: average) has been on the rise; however, today's average temperature is much higher than we would expect if Earth's climate was behaving normally. Likewise, Earth's carbon dioxide levels are much higher than we would expect without the human influence of fossil fuels. Although the Earth's climate has always been changing, the change we observe in the present day exceeds what is "normal" and is largely forced by humans.


An introduction paragraph should also tell the reader why they should care about the issue of climate change. Why does it matter? Climate change impacts the planet as a whole, which has impacts for plants, animals, fungi, bacteria, and land forms. That being said, climate change has a huge impact on people. Of course, an essay on this topic can take many different angles; however, impacts are a critical point to bring up early on.


Finally, like all essays, an introduction will need a strong thesis statement. What is your argument? You will be responsible for supporting that argument with facts throughout your essay. In the thesis, communicate to your reader what your goal is in the essay - what you want them to understand - and be sure you aren't just giving an opinion. Proper source support will come from academic papers, scientific papers, and government reports. For a quick start, begin with the three included links.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...

A man has a garden measuring 84 meters by 56 meters. He divides it into the minimum number of square plots. What is the length of the square plots?

We wish to divide this man's garden into the minimum number of square plots possible. A square has all four sides with the same length.Our garden is a rectangle, so the answer is clearly not 1 square plot. If we choose the wrong length for our squares, we may end up with missing holes or we may not be able to fit our squares inside the garden. So we have 84 meters in one direction and 56 meters in the other direction. When we start dividing the garden in square plots, we are "filling" those lengths in their respective directions. At each direction, there must be an integer number of squares (otherwise, we get holes or we leave the garden), so that all the square plots fill up the garden nicely. Thus, our job here is to find the greatest common divisor of 84 and 56. For this, we prime factor both of them: `56 = 2*2*2*7` `84 = 2*2*3*7` We can see that the prime factors and multiplicities in common are `2*2*7 = 28` . This is the desired length of the square plots. If you wi...

What warning does Chuchundra issue to Rikki?

Chuchundra, the sniveling, fearful muskrat who creeps around walls because he is too terrified to go into the center of a room, meets Rikki in the middle of the night. He insults Rikki by begging him not to kill him. He then insults him by suggesting that Nag might mistake Chuchundra for Rikki. He says, "Those who kill snakes get killed by snakes."  He issues this warning to Rikki not to help keep Rikki safe but as a way of explaining why Rikki's presence gives him, Chuchundra, more reason to fear.  Chuchundra starts to tell Rikki what Chua the rat told him--but breaks it off when he realizes he might be overheard by Nag. He says, "Nag is everywhere, Rikki-Tikki." Rikki threatens to bite Chuchundra to get him to talk. Even then, Chuchundra won't overtly reveal any information. But he does say, "Can't you hear, Rikki-Tikki?" This is enough of a clue for the clever mongoose. He listens carefully and can just make out the "faintest scratch-s...