by COOPER TINSLEY - May 16, 2019
"Humans are responsible for virtually all of the observed global warming since the mid-20th century. It’s not a novel result – in fact, most global warming attribution studies have arrived at the same general result” (Nuccitelli).
Climate change causes the oceans to warm.
Climate change causes the weather to get more extreme.
Climate change causes Arctic animals to disappear.
Climate change causes sea levels to rise.
Climate change causes forests to burn.
These are the effects of climate change--and it's all our fault.
Hurricane Maria. Hurricane Harvey. The Campfire. The Great Smoky Mountain Fires. Most of these disasters occurred because of climate change, but climate change will only worsen.
Because of the Industrial Revolution and increased carbon emissions, it is the indisputable truth that climate change is man-made.
The Industrial Revolution. A time of inventions, improvement and our own wrongdoing. At the peak of the Industrial Revolution, around the end of the nineteenth century, we saw a dramatic change in the percent of CO2 in the atmosphere. For hundreds of years, atmospheric carbon dioxide had never been higher than 300 parts per million. Then, at about the end of the nineteenth century, we saw a shift. Atmospheric carbon dioxide had begun to climb 300 parts per million to 400 parts per million. The highest in all of Earth’s existence.
Just as humans started to use more and more coal, we saw an increase in one of the most destructive greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide. Coincidence? Science says otherwise.
Some people say that it's not our fault, and that it's natural. Sadly, there is nothing natural about this. The disparity between the percent of contribution to total climate change by humans and by natural elements is astonishing.
Not only is this process causing our own extinction, but the extinction of the animals and wildlife around us.
Passenger vehicles contribute to a large amount of greenhouse gas emissions. Passenger cars alone emit over four billion, six hundred million metric tons of CO2 per year. It is entirely man’s doing that cars contribute so much. Natural elements do not even come close to contributing half of that. We are destroying our planet, one car at a time. Cars contribute to 28 percent of greenhouse gases, the leading contributors to climate change.
Industrialization was great for prosperity, but it's the by-products that will kill us all. We may not have been able to recognize that back then, but I know we can certainly recognize it now.
Early this year, the UN stated in a report, that if we don’t cut carbon emissions by 55 percent in the next 12 years, climate change and its effects will become irreversible. It’s time to act.
We need to first realize what we've done, so we can fix it and save ourselves and the living creatures around us.
Sources:
“Climate Change Evidence: How Do We Know?” NASA, NASA, 4 Dec. 2018, climate.nasa.gov/evidence/.
“How Do We Know That Humans Are the Major Cause of Global Warming?” Union of Concerned Scientists, www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/science-and-impacts/science/human-contribution-to-gw-faq.html#.XFM9-VxKjZs.
“How Climate Change Plunders the Planet.” Environmental Defense Fund, www.edf.org/climate/how-climate-change-plunders-planet.
Nuccitelli, Dana. “Study: Humans Have Caused All the Global Warming since 1950 | Dana Nuccitelli.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 19 Apr. 2016, www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2016/apr/19/study-humans-have-caused-all-the-global-warming-since-1950.
“Sources of Greenhouse Gas Emissions.” EPA, Environmental Protection Agency, 9 Oct. 2018, www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions.
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