“This is not some distant problem of the future. This is a problem that is affecting americans right now. Whether it means increased flooding, greater vulnerability to droughts, more severe wildfires–all these things are having an impact on americans as we speak. ” – U. S. President Barack Obama. Global warming is an issue filled to the brim with side effects, spilling all over the world right now. When people talk about it, they seem to take it a lot lighter than it is truly. It is causing more extreme weather, including droughts, hurricanes, floods, and fires.
Do you know how many lives extreme weather has taken? 06,000 people have died from floods, droughts, and extreme storms. While 4. 1 million people have been injured or made homeless. According to U. N. Officials the death toll will only increase, just like our temperatures. Allow me to slow down, after all, this isn’t an informative piece, but a persuasive one. Global Warming is caused by greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, these greenhouse gases trap heat. As more CO2 is put in the atmosphere, more heat is trapped. According to Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, the total concentration of CO2 has reached 400 ppm or parts per million.
This measurement is the highest concentration ever recorded in history. Which means our global temperatures are going to go up more than ever. Yet, there is no going, it is happening. The hottest year has been 2015, with 2014 in second place (NOAA). Seeing how hot 2016 is, 2016 will soon replace 2015 as the hottest year. Not only are the temperatures rising though, so is the ocean. It rose 3. 4 mm this year so far, but what does that show us (NASA)? Two factors, the water is expanding because of the heat and that the glaciers are melting at an incredible rate.
Allow me to show you the rate: -281 gt/yr, Greenland’s ice mass, and -118 gt/yr, Antarctic’s ice mass (NASA). All this information tells you how the earth is getting warmer, but you need more proof, right? Hurricanes happen when the ocean’s surface is nice and warm. The warm air rises causing low pressure at the surface. Air rushes into the lower pressure, but it too, rises. Air continues to rush in, making it a vacuum, its suction increasing when more heat is added (NASA). So the warmer the ocean, the more severe hurricanes are going to become.
This year, the surface temperature has risen 1. 03 degrees this year (Lam) and I guarantee we are going to feel it. Between 1998 and 2007 we have seen a 20% increase of snowfall and rainfall in storms (Union of Concerned Scientists). So? I enjoy a few storms now and then… Maybe so, but a lot of people get ticked off when a flash flood sweeps their house away. Yet, hurricanes and heavy storms aren’t exactly our biggest problem. Right now North Korea, Brazil, Puerto Rico, and South Africa are experiencing record droughts (Terrell). Why are droughts such a big deal?
Not only do they affect our drinking supply and our levels in lakes and rivers, but also affects our agriculture, since we don’t have enough water to use for our crops. Since the 2000s, California has seen a 30% increase in droughts and that number is only getting higher (Alvord). Not only that, but where there are droughts, there comes fire. The plants are no longer fresh and happy, they’re dry and easily catch fire. The average number of fires bigger than 1,000 acres in the United States was originally 140 fires in 1980-1989; but the average of 2000-2012 has jumped to 250 fires per year (Union of Concerned Scientists).
Yet, number of fires isn’t the only thing increasing, fire season and typical burn areas have gotten larger. In the 1970s, fire season was only 5 months long, now it is around 7 months (Union of Concerned Scientists). While the burn area have also risen in this turn of events. Afterall, global warming is so much more than how ice is melting. Have you noticed how the Geese seem to be staying longer? Yeah, and they aren’t the only ones. Birds and other animals of all kinds have been migrating later and coming back sooner.
Not only are they migrating later, but the point in time that birds and fish typically lay their eggs have changed along with the temperatures. While hibernation is starting to get shorter since the summer is lasting longer and the winter is shrinking (Penman). Yet, that is the opposite what is happening for extinction rates. The normal rate for extinction is around 1 to 5 species per year. Now, our average rate, which isn’t normal, is up to 10,000 times the normal rate (Center for Biological Diversity). Why is this happening? Mostly because of the things we do everyday.
Coral reefs are being bleached, which is when their algae leaves because they are overstressed. The very thing that is causing this bleaching is the rate of temperature change in the ocean (NOAA). Another example has to be polar bears since their home is starting to disappear along with bees. In fact, the polar bears population has taken a 40% dive (WWF). How many more species are going to become extinct before you realize this? I know what you are thinking, how you are silently contradicting all my points on climate change, so here is where I answer those contradictions.
People say that climate change is natural, well it’s not. When our earth was coming out of our ice age, the average rate of ic-recovery is less than ten times our supposal ice-recovery rate (NASA). Meaning our ‘natural’ warming process that we are going through, is not natural since we are speeding up a rate that has never been sped up to this extent. Another argument is that most scientists don’t believe in Climate Change, as Donald Trump once said “Wrong. ” See, 97% of all scientists believe that Global Warming is real and man made (NASA).
Then they use the whole, well one place got more ice than it lost! And that was a study made by NASA! That information is correct, but if you actually read that article it was about how different the different climates are. It talked about how everywhere else was having record low amounts of ice. What had to bug me most about that argument was not the fact that the people who used it obviously didn’t read the article, but how that argument went across the news saying how Climate Change believers were going to have to figure out a way to counter that.
Yet, as soon as a Climate Change believer does, it isn’t posted around the internet or anything of that sort. People show graphs about how climate change isn’t real, but have you checked who made them? I will give you five dollars if that person wasn’t attacked and proven wrong or if it wasn’t made by a representative of the major oil and gas companies. You see, climate change is a huge deal. Although our population isn’t declining, global warming is taking it’s toll on us too.
Natural disasters have killed about 606,000 people and leaving 4. million injured or homeless. All those storms and droughts getting more extreme, how many people have to die before we do something about it. How many animals are going to go extinct before we go and try to fix it without worrying about losing are job and reputation because of it (“Before The Flood”)? How much is the ocean going to rise? Will it cover Florida before we realize something is wrong? Or will we continue to be oblivious to it all? The proof is here, all you need to do is realize is how it all fits together.