Global warming
The theory of global warming, according to Climatecrisis.net, is the direct result of our activities and not a natural occurrence. Carbon dioxide and other gasses warm the surface of the earth naturally by trapping solar heat in the atmosphere. Burning fossil fuels (coal, gas and oil) and clearing rainforests has dramatically increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere.
The effect of increased carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere is increasing temperatures – hence the phrase ‘global warming’.
Reducing our carbon footprints can reverse global warming. This means we have to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide that we’re all personally responsible for releasing into the atmosphere as a result of driving our cars and heating our homes.
Possible effects of global warming
If you’re still sceptical as to how big a problem global warming is, or whether global warming isn’t something you need to worry about, consider the following – if global warming continues at current rates, the experts are predicting the following catastrophic consequences in our lifetimes:
- Global warming will cause sea levels to rise by more than 20 feet, due to the loss of shelf ice in Greenland and Antarctica, which will devastate coastal areas worldwide –parts of East Anglia, The Netherlands, Bangladesh, San Francisco bay area, Manhattan island, The Maldives…
- Rising sea levels will make the Tsunami and New Orleans disasters insignificant in comparison, as 300,000 people are forecasted to die each year from the effects of global warming.
- Global warming will create intense heat waves reaching up to 40 degrees, like the ones in 2003 that killed thousands of people in Europe. Temperatures as high as this have not been experienced since the last great warm period of 100,000 years ago.
- Global warming means that droughts will become a major threat and anyone who lived through the long, hot summer of 1976 will remember water rationing, building subsidence, withered crops, diseased trees, wildfires and deaths from the heat.
- Global warming may even mean that the UK may encounter tropical diseases such as dengue fever and the west Nile virus. In fact, mosquitoes carrying such diseases have already been found in the US due to global warming.
The day after tomorrow
If you’ve ever seen the film ‘The day after tomorrow’ you’ll know what the experts mean when they say global warming is happening right now before our very eyes e.g.
- During the last 40 years, global warming has caused the UK’s winters to become warmer, with heavier bursts of rain and drier and hotter summers.
- One of the starkest changes caused by global warming in the last 200 years is that our summers have become drier causing widespread water shortage.
- The effects of global warming are accelerating - the last 10 years have seen nine of the ten warmest years since records began.
- The Thames barrier was raised three times a year during its first five years of operation, but in the last few years global warming has resulting in the Thames Barrier being raised on average 13 times a year.
- The growing season for plants in the UK has increased by about a month since 1900 due to global warming.
- Global warming now means that flooding is now a looming threat. Severe storms and rising seas (some 10cm higher than in 1900) are slowly eroding our coastline.
Together we can reverse global warming
The good part is that the majority experts believe that global warming is a fact, and that we can resolve it. It’s the small changes made by each of us that will add up to make a big difference on a global scale to solve the problem global warming.
What to do next:
- Visit Climatecrisis.net to see what you can do
