Global Warming

Global Warming

The climate is changing. Glaciers are retreating, ice shelves are fracturing, the sea level is rising, and permafrost is melting. All this can be attributed to global warming. Global warming is a naturally occurring phenomenon that has, in modern times, been influenced by human activity.

The earth is an ever changing entity going through ice ages and global warming trends throughout its entire life. Hear in the North America, we see proof of this in the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes are five lakes the surround Michigan, and also come in contact with parts of Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana and much of the southern border of the Ontario province of Canada. The Great Lakes were formed when massive glaciers, which formed in the last ice age, traveled south creating large trenches in the earth. When the ice age receded, and the global warming period started, the massive glaciers melted, leaving the large trenches full of fresh water. This process did not happen in a quick fashion, it took hundreds of years, and that is how nature intended it. This world would not be livable if changes on the magnitude of the Great Lakes happened in a relatively quick timetable.

Changes are occurring more rapidly though. We as humanity have mucked up our environment to the point that life could become very difficult sooner rather that later. More and more humans are born every day, and with them come a need for energy. Energy for their cars, or to heat their homes, and let us not forget the energy it takes to make all those plastic whatnots and the harm they do to our environment. The source of most of that energy is the burning of fossil fuels. In Daniel Glick's article "The Big Thaw", it is said "...the earth has been getting warmer... rapidly...due to...burning fossil fuels and the resulting build up of greenhouse gases..." Insert Reference. With this rapid global warming trend we are now experiencing, nature is forced to unleash its fury. According to Glick's article, the rate of global sea level rise is accelerating. Insert reference. With this rise in sea level, many of our beloved low lying (below or close to sea level) communities that are on the coast are being reclaimed by the ocean. Who wants to live in a world without the Dutch or New Orleans? What is causing the rise, well melting glaciers of course. The glaciers are melting because of global warming. For instance, since 1901 the glaciers in Glacier National Park, which is located in Montana, have wilted in size from eight hundred acres to less than two hundred fifty acres. With this trend the park will lose its namesake glaciers in less than thirty years. Insert Reference. Our children may never see get to see their beauty. Some might scoff at the idea that humanity has caused such a problem, but according to Pieter Tans, a NOAA atmospheric scientist that Glick wrote about