Thursday, December 10, 2009

Human Effect on the Environment: Global Warming

http://www.climatecrisis.net


Global Warming can be briefly defined as the increase in the average temperature of the Earth’s near-surface air and oceans. However, there are so many ins and outs and causes and effects of Global Warming. Before the topic of Global Warming was brought to the table it was thought, better yet assumed by many people that our world is so big that we could not effect it in the least bit. Although that may have been true thousands of years ago, it does not hold true today. Our technologies and advancements have grown so great, that they, or better yet we, are actually destroying our world. So although we are moving forward in history as so advanced, our world is actually getting worse with each second that goes by.

Our earth’s atmosphere is the most vulnerable aspect of our ecological system. Carl Sagan explains it by saying “If you had a globe covered with a coat of varnish, the thickness of that varnish would be about the same thickness of the earth’s atmosphere compared to the earth itself”. The earth’s atmosphere is supposed to protect us from bad but all we are doing is destroying that protection ourselves. Research shows that the world has now become hotter than at any time during the past 1000 years. Global warming is changing distributions of plants and animals, including animal migration, population sizes and growth rates. It is changing the intensity and frequency of storms, droughts, fires, raising the level of the oceans, and melting glaciers. Unfortunately, all of these consequences are life-altering effects. Scientific research shows that heat-trapping emissions from human activities have caused most of the global warming observed over the past 50 years. The types of human activities that cause these heat emissions are such things as gases produced by vehicles, power plants, industrial processes and deforestation. In addition to those emissions, the intermingling of highways, human developments, plantations, and farms with nature has enormously fallen under the options for nature’s response to the current warming.

In my opinion, the small things can make a difference if everyone participates. Some things we can do to help save our environment are:

Change a light.

Drive less.

Recycle more.

Check your tires.

Use less hot water.

Avoid products with a lot of packaging.

Adjust your thermostat.

Plant a tree.

Turn off electronic devices.

Most importantly: Spread the word worldwide.

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