photo credit: JasonRogers
Global warming has been on everyone’s lips lately but despite all the talk, many people still don’t quite believe it. And even if they do, they often shrug it off thinking it will not affect them as much. Unfortunately, the problem is becoming increasingly urgent. Many leading scientists claim that the window to slow down the warming of the earth’s climate is very narrow, and that humans have only ten years to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions before the changes become irreversible.
The evidence of the effects of climate warming is noticeable around the globe but mostly in the Antarctica and the Arctic, where the glaciers are melting rapidly causing many dramatic transformations in the environment. The decreasing level of ice around Antarctica causes the populations of the penguins to slowly vanish, mainly because of the lack of food. Krill is their chief source of food and it grows in the ocean, right under the ice. The thinning layer of ice brings about the reduction of krill found, therefore causing the penguin population to become smaller in body size and numbers—according to scientists, the penguins in Paradise Cove decreased in about 60%. Similar thing is happening to polar bears in the Arctic.
In the summer the ice melts there three weeks earlier, which has dire consequences for the population of bears, resulting in fewer cubs and less body fat in the adult bears. The rapid decline in the amount of ice forces the bears to travel longer distances in order to find food, often drowning in the process. The scientists, who keep a close eye on the changes, predict that ice in the Arctic will disappear by the end of the century, which will lead to the extinction of the bears since they cannot survive without it.
Moreover, for the past ten years the Antarctic Peninsula has been warming up about a degree a year, which makes it the fastest warming part of the globe. If this process is not slowed down, the temperatures are predicted to rise about six degrees, which will cause a few feet rise of sea levels and, in turn, migrations of millions of people inland. This, the experts say, could be the biggest catastrophe in human history bringing about shortages of food and water, to say the least.
John Hanson, NASA scientist and the leading researcher of global warming, affirms that the climate warming is accelerating and the natural changes in the earth’s climate are dwarfed by the human changes (CO2 emissions) and this is why we have merely ten years to reduce CO2 levels in the atmosphere or the global warming will be unstoppable. The US are the biggest contributor to the greenhouse gasses, however the president refuses to sign a treaty that would regulate the fossil emissions.
Hansen also maintains that the scientists’ efforts to communicate with the public are restricted by the Bush administration. According to him, the politicians are rewriting the science to their own benefit. Many of the scientific reports are edited at the White House before sent to the congress to make the global warming issue less threatening. More often than not, the reports are labeled “unstable” after being censored. What is quite interesting is that the Chief of Staff at the Counsel on Environmental Quality, who edits such reports, is a former oil companies’ lobbyist… What is urgently needed now, Hansen says, is action, such as a decrease in CO2 emissions with the ultimate goal being having it on a decline by the end of the century.
So is the earth at the point of no return or do we still have a chance to say it and ourselves?
