Global Warming

Glaciers are melting, sea levels are rising, cloud forests are dying, and wildlife is scrambling to keep pace. Human activity causes warming by releasing heat-trapping gases in order to power modern lives. Called greenhouse gases, their levels are higher now than at any time in the last 800,000 years!

That’s the commonest idea of Global warming, but it must be considered that occur a set of changes to the Earth’s climate not only causing extreme weather events, but also shifting wildlife populations and habitats, rising seas, and these are mostly variable from a place to another. Scientists call it “climate change”, distinguishing the shifts of weather from a cooler area to a warmer one which is emerging because of humans’ addition of heat-trapping greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, changing the rhythms of climate that all living things have come to rely on.

What’s the greenhouse effect?

Its story began in 1895, when the Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius, discovered that humans could make carbon dioxide (CO2), a greenhouse gas. CO2 united with other air pollutants and greenhouse gases collect in the atmosphere and absorbs sunlight and solar radiation that have bounced off the earth’s surface. Normally, this radiation would escape into space — but these pollutants can last for years to centuries in the atmosphere, trap the heat and cause the planet to get hotter.

Global average temperatures stayed constant until the past 150 years. The burning of fossil fuels by industrial activities have been emitted large amounts of greenhouse gases over the past few decades. Nowadays we’re enhancing the greenhouse effect and warming Earth significantly and uncontrollably.

The rapid rise in greenhouse gases is a problem because it’s changing the climate faster than some living things can adapt to. Also, a new and more unpredictable climate poses unique challenges to all life.

What can we do to avoid disaster?

“While human-made climate change is (and will continue to be) a problem, our actions as a society can change that trajectory”. In order to avoid the worst effects of climate change, we need to do a lot more — together with other countries — to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and start using clean energy instead.

At the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Paris, 195 countries agreed to pollution-cutting provisions with a goal of preventing the average global temperature from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial times. Administrations pledged millions to adopt cleaner energy technologies and also helping poor countries to adopt measures too.

Voice your support of climate-friendly and climate change preparedness policies, and tell your representatives that transitioning from dirty fossil fuels to clean power should be a top priority

It’s vital to building healthy, more secure communities.