Suspected global warming is a hot topic and has been widely reported in the American media since the 1970s. In March 2014, TED, a non-profit organization committed to Expanding ideas with short lectures, made a powerful presentation on the so-called current consequences of global warming in Gavin Schmidt's (2014) talk: Emerging Patterns of Climate Change. His claims are clear, and he implores his audience to take serious predictions of global warming seriously and not simply dismiss them as insignificant. While Google Trends (2014) shows (graph 1) that global warming search terms in the United States (red) have declined while global interest (blue) (image 1) fluctuates, with India showing the most curious. Yet not everyone agrees that global warming is real, just as not everyone agrees that smoking cigarettes is dangerous for your health while studies scientists demonstrate the opposite. By defining global warming, presenting the main arguments from both sides of the topic, and providing an overview of scientific studies, this article will help think critically and thoughtfully about global warming. Chart 1 Search terms Picture 1 World map Search terms: “Global warming As 'Warming' is the top search query, the charts represent a combination of all search queries. Map: Darker blue shows greater interest. Global Warming Many government agencies as well as American universities offer definitions of global warming to define this phenomenon. The Environmental Protection Agency (2014) gives a simplistic definition consisting of four main bullet points: (1) “Climate change is occurring…The Earth's average temperature has increased” over the past century, (2) "Humans are largely responsible for [the] recent climate change... middle of document ...... change that makes summers potentially unbearable, even deadly, and a whole host of other problems (Lindsey, 2012 ) Animals could be affected and forced to live in alternate areas and a myriad of other consequences. (EPA Staff, 2014) Conclusion The topic of global warming will not go away, regardless of your position on the issue. Despite almost incessant warnings about the dangers of smoking, people start and continue to smoke, even though the literature is abundant on the likely health consequences. Likewise, some believe that global warming is true, but they continue to consume at the same rate, even though they believe that the increase in temperature will harm the planet. The alarm has been sounded and now it is time to thoroughly review all of the scientific literature to decide where you stand on this important issue..