 he Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an international body of
2500 scientists, agrees there is a discernible human influence on climate change. They predict severe impact on human health, and natural ecosystems, including
weather, agriculture, and coastal communities.
Evidence is growing
 Major shifts in temperature and precipitation- Shifting range
of infectious diseases as malaria & similar diseases shift north
- Sea levels rising nearly one foot in the last century. Continued warming threatens low lying countries, e.g. India, southern US, Oceania
- Glaciers melting and snow cover disappearing on five continents
- Drastic habitat changes for plants & animals trying to adapt, some unsucessfully.
Harmful effects:
- Global Warming up to 5 degrees Fahrenheit
- Sea levels rising up to 2 feet in the next century
- Plant & animal extinction.
- More common winter flooding, & summer droughts
- More common hurricanes, typhoons & other severe storms
- Spreading infectious diseases
Causes:
- Cars/Trucks. Over the life of the average car, 50 tons of carbon dioxide spew into the air
- Power Plants burning coal are especially dirty, creating 2x the CO 2 of natural gas, and a third more than oil
- Deforestation. Trees breath carbon dioxide and clean parts of the pollution we
release. When trees are cut & burned, they release carbon dioxide back into the air, leaving fewer trees to absorb the carbon dioxide
Population Growth Each year,
over eighty million new people (nearly the population of Mexico) are added to our
planet- all seeking the good things of life. Humans are the principal cause of Global Warming and most other environmental degradation. |
