Warming a Meltdown

Global warming isn’t a prediction. It’s happening -James Hansen (an American adjunct professor directing the Program on Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions of the Earth Institute at Columbia University)

Alyssa Greenway, Journalist

  Global warming, climate change, water rising, ice melting, warmer weather: what exactly does this all mean? Does it mean the end of humanity? Or does it mean we need to brace for impact for a dramatic change?

  To be quite honest, does anyone really know, and if someone did (say, the scientists that work for the government), would they tell us? This would risk causing fear and panic throughout the nations. I don’t really think they would.

  Now, what exactly is global warming and what does it affect? It is gradual increase in the overall temperature of the earth’s atmosphere. It can be linked to the greenhouse effect, which is caused by increased levels of carbon dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons, and other pollutants.

  Generally, global warming is caused by the burning of fossil fuel, power plants, and vehicles. Yet, if it was truly a serious threat, wouldn’t we stop?

  Warming water causes many threats. Some animals like stingray, clams, horseshoe crabs, and sharks like warm water. If the water is warming, new creatures we don’t know about may be coming up to the surface. Are they dangerous? We won’t really know until we go in the water.

  Does this necessarily mean our planet is coming to an end? No, this just means we should continue to preserve our planet. Meaning that we should start actually recycling, picking trash up, stop littering, and possibly even turn to less threatening transportation.

  Threats that contribute to this sort of issue are automobiles, which gives off carbon dioxide, cows who oddly enough give off methane gas, and other toxic fuels such as lead, sulfate dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, and many more. These all don’t help any sort of progress on this planet.

  If we continue our ways, sure enough our planet won’t survive much longer. In 2015, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency pledged to “reduce carbon pollution from power plants by nearly a third by 2030, relative to 2005 levels, through its Clean Power Plan.”

  Between 1990 and 2017, the EPA helped create huge improvements. Air pollutants improved 80% for lead, 77% for carbon monoxide, 88% for sulfur dioxide, 56% for nitrogen dioxide, and 22% for ozone. This shows that this agency is surely doing its job.

  The Clean Power Plan was an Obama administration policy aimed at combating anthropocentric climate change; however, since Trump’s administration the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) proposed repealing this critical tool for curbing climate change.

  The reasoning for repealing this policy is because the country would save $33 billion by not complying with the regulations from the health benefits that Obama had.

  This seems to be a serious threat that everyone needs to be aware of, and that everyone should be caring about. If we as a nation can clean up this planet, we all could live healthier, cleaner, and possibly even have more possibilities for future generations.