Out With Global Warming

"Why should I care about global warming? It's not like anything serious is really going to happen."

False. Unless we act now, the young generation and future generations will have to deal with a hotter world, dirtier air and water, more wildfires, and more severe floods and droughts. It will affect all of us all over the world, not just a select few. This is a problem everyone needs to recognize and fight.

Earth's climate is rapidly changing. Global temperatures increased by around one degree Fahrenheit over the last century, and could rise another three to nine degrees globally over the next century if something isn't done. What causes this? A thickening layer of carbon dioxide pollution that traps heat in the atmosphere.

If something isn't done and temperatures keep rising, we will have to face disastrous consequences. Sea levels will rise, flooding coastal areas where huge numbers of the population live. Droughts and wildfires will occur more often. Heat waves will be more common and more intense. Mosquitos that carry disease will expand their range, and species will be pushed to extinction. But that's not what's coming in the distant future. Many of these changes have already begun.

You want proof?

Most of the United States is already getting warmer, in some areas up to four degrees Fahrenheit. No state in the lower 48 states has experienced below average temperatures in 2002. The last three five-year periods are the warmest on record.

Some of the worst wildfires in years have occured in the past decade; in some places millions of acres have burned at once. And in many places the past decade has been drier than any other.

National annual precipitation has gone up between five and ten percent since the early 20th century, which results in very heavy rainfall in some areas. Many states have had severe flooding costing hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage, and some states have gotten more than double their normal rainfall in the past several years.

Extreme heat waves caused over 20,000 deaths in Europe and more than 1,500 deaths in India in 2003. Mosquitos carrying diseases are spreading their range as climates shift, allowing them to survive in area that they never could have before.

Warmer water in the oceans gives more energy to tropical storms like hurricanes, making them more powerful and destructive. The number of category four and five storms has increased A LOT over the past 25 years, and so has ocean temperature.

Rising global temperatures will cause glaciers and ice caps to melt. At the rate things are going, all of the glaciers in Glacier National Park will be gone by 2070. And according to NASA, the polar ice cap is now melting at a terrifying rate of nine percent per decade. Thickness of arctic ice has decreased forty percent since the 1960's.

Global sea level has already risen four to eight inches in the past one hundred years. Scientists guess that the sea level will nineteen inches more by 2100, and maybe even by as much as 37 inches.

A recent study published told us that at least 279 plant and animal species are already responding to global warming because of the shifting of geographic ranges. Forests are being lost, and and some penguin populations have decreased by 33 percent over the past 25 years.

There is plenty more, but not even enough time to list all of the damages our world and things inhabiting it are facing. Before it's too late we need to get to work on making a difference in our homes, communities, and daily lives. Please watch this blog for ways you can start defeating global warming. It's not always hard or expensive to rid of something terrible, and if everyone pitches in, soon we'll be out with global warming.

For some good tips on what you can do for your part, click here.

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