Jocelyn Alvarez

English 133

Professor Jason Peters

3/5/2018

Living in the Near Future

Will our earth, our planet, our home, survive to the year 2100? Is our future evident?

According to the National Climate Assessment by the year 2100 there will be more extreme

weather and storms, and the sea level is expected to rise about 6ft. So, what does the

future hold for the living life on earth? We, as informed citizens, hear many scientist,

politicians, entrepreneurs, etc. talk about Global Climate Change or Global Warming. A

worldwide issue affecting every living thing, in recent years we have seen changes in sea

levels, rain patterns, animal extinction and temperature. From this evidence we can

assume that as the rate of greenhouse gases or natural influence and the human influence

on earth increases, global climate change will worsen becoming more and more of a

catastrophic reality than a controversial issue.

Now, what many don’t understand is that there's a distinction between global

warming and global climate change. The distinction of terms is to fully understand what is

going on in our world and what the difference between the both is. Global warming refers to

a gradual increase of the average global temperature of the earth’s atmosphere. Global

climate change we refers to the change in global climate resulting from the global

temperature increasing, so the impacts it has like heat waves or change in rain patterns.

There are many people today who ignorantly refuse to consider global climate change as
an issue of importance or they just don’t believe in it all, but there were much more years

before. A quote that summarizes some ignorance about the subject, “They changed the

name from ‘global warming’ to ‘climate change’ after the term global warming just wasn’t

working (it was too cold)! - (Trump).” Apparently, some still have a lot to learn or simply

open their eyes to see the reality we live in.

Some statistics are proof of the major changes happening since the 1900s and late

1800s. In the U.S. alone, there has been many proof of

changes. For example, droughts have increased in the

west over the last decade. Winter storms have

increased in frequency and intensity since 1950s. As

shown in figure 1, the sea level along the Mid-Atlantic

and parts of the Gulf coast have risen 8 in. over the last

half century. Heavy precipitation has increased

nationally over the last 3-5 decades. Wildfires start Figure 1: Before and after sea level
increase if Greenland were to melt,
raise by 6-7 meters.
earlier and burn more

acreage. As shown in figure 2, the average temperature

has increased 1.3 - 1.9 degrees Fahrenheit since 1895.

The intensity, duration and frequency of North Atlantic

hurricanes have increased since early 1980s. These are

just statistics and data from past years but to truly

Figure 2: Global temperature in 1884 (Top) understand Global Climate Change we must know the
vs global temperature in 2017(bottom)
basics from the what causes it to the impacts it has and

how to prevent it.

 Global climate change is affecting all of us and our planet in numerous ways. But

what causes global warming? We know for certain that human activities are a huge variable

towards global warming. But there is also natural variables like the natural source of CO2

comes from volcanoes, decomposition of matter, fires, ocean release, respiration, etc. For

human contributions as the article Effects of Global Warming on Sea Level Rise: A

modeling study explains, that “anthropogenic CO2 emission consists mainly of the post-

industrial CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning, industrial processes, deforestation and

other human related human activities” (Shulka). As proven human contributions are ones

that can be stopped, as these variables combined with natural variables creates the

problem we have today, what we see know is that it has impacts on many different figures.

As in the article “Interactive Effects on CO2, Drought, and Ultraviolet-B Radiation on

Maize Growth and Development”, an article on environmental stress effects on maize, the

made a study on different hybrids of maize to find the “interactive effect of elevated CO2

concentration, drought and UV radiation on maize growth and development (C.

Wijewardana).” This study can portray all crops and commodities as a whole since all crops

are going through the same environmental stress. Eventually if we can’t find a crop’s hybrid

that is tolerant enough to withstand global climate change, our food supply could be scarce

possibly decreasing human population. But that is not the only impact it can have, “...the

global mean sea level has risen approximately 0.19m between 1900 and 2010..expected to

increase in future with further increase in atmospheric temperature (J.B. Shulka et al.).”

Some potential consequences of this sea level rise are coastal flooding, erosion, saltwater

contamination of fresh water supplies and hurricane storm surge to name a few. Many

coastal city flooding will occur affecting human populations as well. Other impacts of global
climate change are change in weather patterns, animal populations and health problems.

Now how can we contribute to help prevent global climate change.

In a 2012 TED Talk titled Why I must speak out about Climate Change by James

Hansen, he shares information of what he has learned over the years on climate change

and how it is physically changing the earth as well as internally. Hansen graduated from the

University of Iowa with a B.A. in physics and mathematics in 1963, a M.S. in Astronomy in

1965 and a Ph.D. in physics in 1967. Clearly a credible scientist, he is mostly known for his

work on planetary atmosphere and climate models. In the video he talked about a paper

him and his colleagues published in 1981 in the New York Times about their predictions on

climate change, but at the time they were less of a reality and more of an exaggeration that

no one believed. He was forbidden by NASA and the government to ever talk about global

climate change unless they gave him permission to do so. Fast forward about 15 years to

the present all their predictions are now a haunting reality

One of the biggest threat to living life one Earth is global climate change, a problem

that many are still denying the threat it brings. As of 2017 about 50% of Americans are now

concerned believers of Global Warming, while the other half of Americans have mixed

opinions or think global warming news is exaggerated. Compared to 2015 when concerned

believers was 37%, the new generations have been becoming more involved and worried

about their future on this earth as well as their offspring. Another prevention can be

recycling global CO2. As proposed in the article, Global CO2 recycling — novel materials

and prospect for prevention of global warming and abundant energy supply. This will not

only prevent CO2 emission but also to increase the supply of renewable energy, proving

“Global CO2 recycling will be one of the most useful methods to prevent global warming
and to supply abundantly renewable energy (K. Hashimoto et al).” Awareness, recycling

and reusing, buying green products, stopping deforestation and energy saving are the

biggest ways we can help prevent further damage to our planet ignoring government

manipulations or false news.

Most of the global warming has occurred within the past 35 years, every year

breaking record of the warmest years recorded since 2001. But who are we as citizens to

dictate change? Change has to be a united nations effort, an effort to save the future of

humanity, family, children, grandchildren and generations after that. We as humans, need

to be the healers of our home. The many transparent effects it has on mostly humans’

survival but also every living thing in the planet. We have to return the love that this planet

has given us, all the beautiful creations and creatures. We only get one planet, there is no

planet B...at least not yet. Now a quote to ponder on, “Climate change is real, it is

happening right now. It is the most urgent threat facing our entire species, and we need to

work collectively together and stop procrastinating...For our children’s children, and for

those people out there whose voices have been drowned out by the politics of greed... Let

us not take this planet for granted…” - Leonardo DiCaprio

 Bibliography

Hansen, James. “Why I Must Speak out about Climate Change.” TED: Ideas Worth

Spreading, Ted Talks, 2012.

Hashimoto, Yamasaki, Fujimura, Matsui, Izumiya, Komori, . . . Asami. (1999). “Global CO 2

recycling—novel materials and prospect for prevention of global warming and

abundant energy supply.” Materials Science & Engineering A, 267(2), 200-206.

Richards, Cory. “What Is Global Warming?” National Geographic, 30 Jan. 2018.

Shaftel, Holly, and Susan Callery. “Global Climate Change.” Vital Signs of the Planet,

NASA.

Shukla, Verma, & Misra. (2017). Effect of global warming on sea level rise: A modeling

study. Ecological Complexity, 32, 99-110.

Walsh , John, and Donald Wuebbles. “Extreme Weather.” National Climate Assesment,

NCA.

Wijewardana, Henry, Gao, & Reddy. (2016). Interactive effects on CO2, drought, and

ultraviolet-B radiation on maize growth and development. Journal of Photochemistry

& Photobiology, B: Biology, 160, 198-209.