Man's Role in Earth's Climate Change Crisis

1367 Words3 Pages

Is man destroying the earth? The planet is warming and causing destruction, what will our future generations have left, action is required. 350.org is a social media outlet accessible by anyone, but they aren’t waiting for people to come to them, they planned to raise awareness. Thousands of people in April 2007 rallied in one thousand four hundred different locations across America to tell congress to “step it up” demanding that eighty percent of carbon emissions should be reduced by 2050 to lower global warming risks. Global warming and climate change are terms often heard in reference to the earth’s atmospheric temperature its oceans. Climate change often focuses on the present and the phases of cooling of the globe and its patterns of precipitation. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is building up in the atmosphere it can last for centuries up there, which causes an insulated layer of it around earth when too much is released. That insulated layer of carbon dioxide then traps heat in the atmosphere which then heats the earth. When humans release greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere such as methane and nitrous oxide it aggravates the problem even more. Greenhouse gasses are causing the oceans and the land to warm which then causes the global temperature to rise. Over the last century, the global temperature has risen 0.6 degrees Celsius largely due to human activity. The changes in the climate are showing catastrophic climate related events. A tropical storm during the 20th century resulted in three hundred thousand to five hundred thousand people’s death in November 1970, in Bangladesh. In 1928 China, they suffered a two-year drought, which was followed by a flood from the Yangtze River, which affected 1/4th of China’s population, 3.7 ... ... middle of paper ... ...as a catastrophic future. Scientists predict a number of things can happen resulting from the effects of global warming. The ecosystem could become out of sync, different plants such as flowers could blossom before pollinating bugs like bees become active. Birds may start to migrate at different times of the year, potentially causing their own extinction. Some scientists believe with significantly less ice for polar bears to fish and live on they could become extinct. Rainfall can decline even more then it has in some drought struck areas, and in some areas that were not previously affected by droughts. Plantae and animals with origins in the south are making the move north to cooler climates crossing territory of other animals, Plantae and in some cases humans. Alpine plants are making their way north putting rare mountain summit Plantea at risk of extinction.

Open Document