Writing doesnt have to be a chore. To prove it, heres a cause and effect essay example that gets down and dirty with a semi-controversial issue that polarizes a lot of people (no pun intended): yes, were talking about climate change.

This topic has been in the news for a good long while.

Topic

Climate Change

There have been movies made about it, conferences held about it, and many works of scholarly and not-so-scholarly literature written about it.

So lets take a look at how to turn this subject into the main topic of a cause and effect essay.

Well start off with a title, give you the hook, underline the thesis, and highlight some important parts for you to consider.

Best of all, well show you how to have fun with your essay. Lets go!

Outline

I. Intro
a. Hook
b. Did climate change cause Harvey et al.?
c. Noand heres why.
II. Body
a. Defining terms
b. History
c. Is it Really Change?
d. What Pollutes?
e. The Big Point
III. Conclusion
a. Re-state main idea
b. Outro

Title

Is Climate Change Causing Hurricanes to be More Hurricaney?

Notice that word at the end of the title? Its not just made-up word, its a goofy-sounding made-up word. But thats okay!

Sure, you might think Dr. Seuss had written itso why did we use it?

Because its funand it gets to the heart of what this essay is all about: the essays main point is that hurricanes are going to hurricaneregardless of whether climate change or global warming are (or are not) occurring.

Now look at the first line of the essay below: thats the hook sentence.

Notice what grabs the readers attention?

Thats rightthats the name of an Academy Award-winning actress right there.

You want a hook? We just gave you one.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you lead into an essay.

Who said weather papers have to be boring?

Introduction

Jennifer Lawrence and other celebrities caused a jump on social media (as well as traditional media) when they laid the blame for recent hurricanesHarvey, Irma and Mariaon global warming and climate change. But they werent the only ones. The Bay Area in California even went so far as to sue several oil companies operating in the region for their alleged role in making this years hurricane season worse than any in recent memory (Slav, 2017). On top of all that, Pope Francis himself condemned climate change skeptics after seeing Hurricane Irmas destruction (BBC, 2017). The problem with this knee-jerk reaction that one saw across the board, however, is that there is actually little scientific or historical evidence indicating that climate change is caused by anything the oil companies are doingor that it is even really happening at all. The fact of the matter is that climate change is still very much up for debate. It is an issue that has been highly politicizedand not even for environmental reasons but rather for business purposes (the Paris Agreement is just one example of this: it is easier for larger multinational corporations to crush their competitors by getting governments to pass legislation with which the smaller guys cannot possibly afford to comply). And when one considers that the weather and the complex array of variables that go into forming weather patterns is far more difficult to predict than certain pundits would have an ill-informed public believe, it is not so easy to ascribe weather aberrations to a suspect and highly dubious cause like climate change. First off, what does climate change even mean? Change is, after all, a part of naturewhich is not static. So of course climates change. What is implied in the term climate change (typically used in association with global warming) is that mankind is responsible for effecting the change and that the change is unusual, unnatural and very damaging to the planet. This paper will examine each of those claims and show that, as of today, no one has been able to identify a manmade cause of global warming that could possibly cause the type of phenomena so often attributed to it.

INTERMISSION

Okay, lets pause a minute from the essay.

Take a look at the last line of the first paragraph. Thats our thesis.

It says plainly exactly what this essay is going to do. (Have a look at this article to learn more about writing a thesis statement). [link to how to... What is meant by climate change? What is meant by global warming? Essentially, the two terms are interchangeable because both refer to the process by which pollutants impact the environment in a negative way, which results in more greenhouse gases being trapped in the atmosphere, melting of the ice caps, warming of the oceans, and the loss of all kinds of habitats and life on the planet. The loss of life and property that resulted from Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria in 2017 is viewed by some as the consequence of climate changeand, because people can be quick to place blame before they understand the facts, those who are identified in the media as notorious polluters are called out for being responsible for the loss of life and property that followed in the wakes of Harvey, Irma and Maria. In other words, the usual suspectsExxon, Chevron, BP, and so onare called upon to shoulder the blame for Mother Nature doing what Mother Nature does from time to time, which is wreak the occasional havoc upon civilization.
To better understand the point, it is helpful to take a look at what causes hurricanes in the first place. Hurricanes feed on warm water. When temperatures are high, sea-water evaporates more rapidly and a storm system can develop over that warm water. This is what happened in the cases of Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria. However, once the hurricanes move out of the warm zone or come into contact with land, they lose some of their forcemainly because their source of energy is depletedi.e., the warm water regions that are fanning the flames of the storm systems brute strength. So, yes, warmer waters will make conditions for stronger hurricanes more likely. Weather patterns also play a part in whether a hurricane marches towards the mainland or whether it spirals out to seabut the point here is that temperature has a lot to do with it. In other words, there is nothing unusual or unnatural about what spawned Hurricanes Harvey, Irma or Maria. That was nature doing what nature does.

The History of Hurricanes

Moreover, just because warm is used to describe the conditions necessary for begetting hurricanes, it does not mean that global warming (in terms of a quickly approaching, fast escalating existential threat to mankind) is here to destroy the earth. One could be excused from thinking such by monitoring social media in the days following the landfall of Hurricane Harvey in Houston or Irma in Florida. Nonetheless, one swallow does not a summer make. Do you know how many tropical storms and hurricanes there were during the Atlantic hurricane season of 1806? 8including the Great Coastal Hurricane and Hurricane San Vicente. Guess how many there were in 1837 season. 11including the Antigua-Florida Hurricane, the Calypso Hurricane, the Apalachee Bay Storm, the Bahamas Hurricane and Racers Hurricane. In 1886, there were 12 tropical storms and 10 hurricanes4 of which were major and 7 of which struck the United States (the most in one year ever). A year later there were 19 tropical storms and 11 hurricanes. And then in 1890? 4 tropical storms and 2 hurricanesone of which was major. So what does that show? It shows that there are ups and downs in naturecycles of activity in which there are both extreme and mild conditions. It means nothing more than that there are cycles to naturejust like there are cycles to markets and just like there are cycles to life.



How Quickly is Our World Really Changing?

Yet the circle of life does not prevent people from making exaggerated claims about the end of the world and about death by climate change. Indeed, some analysts are quick to point out that sea levels are risingall because ice caps are meltingand that ice caps are melting because the globe is getting hotterand that the globe is getting hotter because of climate changeaka global warming. The argument is bolstered by the sensational aspect of it all. For instance, the Greenland ice sheet could melt and raise the sea level by 21 and a half feet. The West Antarctica ice sheet could melt and raise the sea level by an additional 26 and a half feet. If the…