Global Warming Increases
 Global Warming Increases |
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By DW Environmental Science Contributor, Patrick Morton*
Last March I issued warnings about the real and present danger of Earth’s temperature rising. Sadly the situation is getting markedly worse by the minute while the current powers-that-be twiddle.
With our national leaders openly intimate with carbon-based fuel-mongers, is it any surprise that permissible levels of carbon dioxide emissions have been nearly doubled to make it appear like America is solving the problem?
America has five percent of the world’s population contributing a fourth of the total greenhouse gases which spark global warming. That’s twice the carbon emissions of Japan, Germany, Great Britain, France and Italy combined.
Sure, the President’s advisors officially claim that the average global temperature has only increased one degree Celsius in the last decade. But, we’re truthfully supposed to be cooling off while we’re seeing that two degree Fahrenheit rise. A mere two degree rise in polar temperature will not melt the ice.
Yes, it is true that the earth does have natural warming and cooling trends. But these changes occur gradually and are greatly influenced by the Milankovitch cycles. One of these cycles is how the earth tilts on its polar axis over time. Another cycle is how our orbit around the sun varies from nearly circular to elliptical over a different time schedule.
By the Earth’s natural cycles, we are supposed to be in a cooling trend for the Northern Hemisphere and polar ice should be building up. It must now be admitted that mankind does impact the environment. By our lust for carbon-based fuels we are over-powering the natural cycles of our world.
It’s time to sober up.
In February, 2004 at Barrow, Alaska it rained in the dead middle of winter!
Low-lying coastal communities are already being taken by the effects of thawing ice and rising seas.
The recent glacier event where an iceberg the size of Rhode Island (over 1,200 square miles)
broke off the Antarctic ice shelf actually happened.
Ice fields all over the globe are now unrecognizable to the scientists who study them. For the past two summers, ice-free water ways appeared in the North Pole region.
Polar bears, now less than a thousand, are becoming extinct. Because of melted hunting grounds, their average weight has decreased fifteen percent since the 1980’s. Females are getting too thin to breed and new cubs rarely survive winter. The scientists who study them fear their job titles will soon read Polar Bear Historians.
More sobering information can be seen at www.artic.noaa.gov/detect
We must start making ecological decisions with the seventh generation in mind. Take a look at www.bp.comfor numerous solutions and calculate your carbon footprint, a gauge of carbon dioxide you are putting into the atmosphere.
* Patrick Morton is a teacher of science, writer (news columnist) and ecologist living in the High Point, area. This is his first (hopefully of many) contributions to DW regarding our environment.
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