Killing the Penguins is Killing Ourselves
On Monday, Apr. 30 the high was 51 degrees in West Orange, New Jersey. On Tuesday, May. 1 the high was 81 degrees in West Orange, New Jersey. That’s only a 1 day difference. These drastic changes going from extremely cold to extremely warm, is caused by global warming. Global warming is caused by too many Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions found in factories and cars, or from leaving the air conditioners on in the house in the winter time, or too much aerosol spray, from hairspray or silly string cans. People assume that global warming is just increasing temperature; it is really a drastic climate change with extreme weather patterns.
In the South Pole, there are ice glaciers melting at a drastic rate causing ocean levels to rise. In Bill Nye’s netflix series “Bill Nye Saves the World,” the episode, “Earth is a Hot Mess,” from season one, explains that like a heat thermometer, liquid absorbs the heat causing it to expand upward, this is what the ocean does. The absorption of heat, in addition to the melting glaciers could cause places like Venice, Italy, or most little Islands, to be underwater by 2025. That’s only 7 years.
Another issue is greenhouse gases. The greenhouse effect is when the atmosphere traps the sun’s heat and radiation warming the Earth’s surface and the air above it. Like a hamster in a hamster ball, the hamster radiates heat and the hamster ball has limited areas where the heat can escape so the heat gets trapped inside the hamster ball. Humans on Earth are hamsters in a hamster ball. One way to lessen CO2 emissions is to only use air conditioning when it is needed or to take the keys out of the ignition when the car is in park, or simply, to drive less.
According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, people drive around 11,500 miles per year, that is 8,887 grams of CO2 being emitted contributing to the greenhouse effect.
Burning fossil fuels is also a large contributor to global warming. The burning of coal will release carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide, both greenhouse gases, that help to cause global warming. The three biggest fossil fuels are oil, coal, and natural gases. Natural gases are gases that come from the Earth’s surface. They are not as bad to burn as coal, or as bad to use as oil, but they don’t help the environment and still contribute to global waring. It is the human’s responsibility to lower CO2 emissions by burning less fossil fuels.
The final contributor to global warming and CO2 emissions is factories. Factories are slowly starting to go away, but they still burn a lot of fuels which release CO2, Methane (CH4) and Nitrous Oxide (N2O), as well as dust particles, which create smog. CO2, CH4 and N2O contributes to the greenhouse gas effect. The less factories, the less CO2, CH4 and N20 will be in the atmosphere.
Global warming has become the Millennials’, the Generation Zer’s responsibility. Global warming causes ocean levels to rise due to the melting of the glaciers. These drastic weather changes are unhealthy for humans, animals and all living organisms. However, it is reversible, and it is stoppable.
Our world is so beautiful. There are places in our world we have not even heard of, and parts of the ocean yet to be discovered. But people won’t be able to see our beautiful world because we are burning fossil fuels, and causing CO2 emissions. Why are people in such a rush to destroy this planet?!
According to President Donald J. Trump’s twitter feed on Oct. 19, 2015, @realDonaldTrump, believe global warming does not exist because “It’s really cold outside, they are calling it a major freeze, weeks ahead of normal. Man, we could use a big fat dose of global warming!”
Global warming is not just the world heating up, it’s the world dying.
