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Global Warming ATM S 111 Syllabus Human-induced climate change - popularly known as "global warming" - is one of the great challenges facing society in the 21st century. If we ignore the problem, and continue on our current course, by the end of this century the climate changes due to increased greenhouse gases will be large enough to have significant consequences on the environment and on civilization. Those changes are essentially irreversible, since once the carbon dioxide reaches those high values in the atmosphere, it is likely to remain high for several more centuries, during which Earth’s surface will continue to warm. To avoid these changes will require either (i) a wholesale change in the sources of energy used by humans, (ii) yet to be developed methods to sequester carbon on an unprecedented scale, or (iii) intentional human modification of the earth’s energy budget to partially cancel the warming that will result from the increased greenhouse gases due to human activity (so-called geoengineering solutions to global warming).  At stake are deeply felt values as well as entrenched economic interests. When these are combined with scientific uncertainty, it is not surprising that global warming has sparked a raging, often passionate debate.