The Greatest Threat to Existence as We Know it

imagine its a beautiful day in july 2017, three children in different parts of the world
are going about their daily lives as they do every day, and as their parents have done for countless generations
meet Hiro in Japan
Hiro wants to be a successful banker one day just like his father
but right now he is more interested in spaceships and planets

Abasie lives in Kenya with his parents and grandparents
one day he wants to travel the world in his own little sailboat

akash lives in india with his big happy family when Akash grows up
he wants to be the world's greatest chef

and so life goes on
hiro becomes an astronaut, much to his fathers suprise, Abasie travels the world in his sailboat
and Akash opened his own restaurant in his home town
they grow old and pass on
having lived fulfilled lifes
their children follow
and their children's children
until one day in April of 2100 Akoh and his family are crammed with thousands of other people at Haneda Airport hoping it's not too late
sadly the people of Tokyo never had a chance
the once-proud city is reduced to
rubble by tsunami the likes of which has never been seen
Anassa lyes in the dark of his quiet home and he knows his time has come
it hasn't rained in months all the crops and livestock have died and the well dried up long ago
the people of Kenya suffer the slow death of starvation and dehydration
oni draws ragged breaths in his hospital bed his body ravaged by disease is the last living member of his family the population of India has fallen drastically
these are a few hypothetical scenarios from various parts of the globe while they may seem
unrelated they all share a common
catalyst climate change

as 2017 begins and the United States presidency changes hands it has become increasingly apparent that the new regime is full of climate change deniers and fossil fuel advocates it is more important than ever to spread real information regarding climate change and the catastrophic effects it can produce within the next 100 years.
let's start with the common misconception when some people hear the term global warming.
they'll point to an instance of colder than normal weather like the Sahara Desert recently and say that's ridiculous it's snowing here this objection stems from a misunderstanding of how weather differs from climate weather refers to local changes over
short periods of time such as minutes hours days or weeks.
typical examples of whether include rain clouds snow wind and thunderstorms climate refers to longer-term averages
and maybe regional or global in scale and can be thought of as weather, averaged over an extended period of time, typically years or decades an easy way to remember the distinction is, weather is what you get climate is what you expect.
now that we have a good understanding of how climate and weather differ, let's look at the scientific consensus over ninety seven percent of actively,publishing climate scientists agree that climate warming trends over the past 100 years are extremely likely to have been caused largely by human activity, that number goes up to over ninety-nine percent if you include climate scientists who have not recently published scholarly articles most of the
leading scientific organizations around the world have issued public statements endorsing this position.
climate change deniers tend to latch onto studies that disprove the trend, but you always notice that the studies are either not
peer-reviewed come from a known anti-science publisher, or come from a scientist in a completely unrelated filled with an agenda of their own so where does this problem come from the largest contributing factor to climate change is the burning of fossil fuels, oil, coal, and natural gas, all release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere when burned, carbon dioxide is considered a greenhouse gas which simply means it sticks around in the upper atmosphere and traps heat, the more carbon dioxide is released the more the atmosphere heats up, this temperature increase then causes other problems such as melting
glaciers, and polar ice, as arctic ice melts, it releases co2 and methane a more potent greenhouse gas compounding the
problem by making the atmosphere even warmer ,the smelting morais it's a vicious cycle.
ok but where do we stand right now what's the damage as of summer 2017
carbon dioxide levels are up by nearly 405 parts-per-million the highest in 650,000 years, global temperatures up by one point seven degrees since eighteen eighty and nine of the last ten hottest years on record happened since 2000 the tenth being 1998 Arctic ice is shrinking at a rate of 13.3 percent per decade, and land ice is disappearing at a rate of 281 gigatons per year, Greenland ice loss doubled between 1996 and 2005, and finally the global sea level has risen seven inches in the last 100 year.
you're probably thinking "well that doesn't sound too bad" let's look at the consequences by category.
first the melting of polar ice, of course we've all heard that global warming affects the poor polar bears
but it's true and it's severe at the current rate of melting which is likely to increase the Arctic is projected to see its first ice-free summer by 2050,
imagine that all of the ice gone and yes that likely means extinction for the polar bears within a hundred years and it's not just polar bears, some species of ice dependent seals will die off if they can't adapt including harp ringed ribbon, and bearded seals,then there are the ivory goals, and ox ivory goals, have already suffered a ninety percent population reduction in Canada over the past 20 years then there's the walrus, the arctic fox, small plant eaters like ground squirrels, hairs lemming,s involves,
large planters like moose, caribou, reindeer, and musk ox ,and meat eaters like weasels, wolverines, wolve,s foxes, bears,
and birds of prey, the melting ice is likely to cause a domino effect, knocking out species that other species depend upon for food.
melting ice brings us to our next category- rising sea level over the past 100 years the global sea level has risen approximately seven inches, the more alarming fact is that the rate of rise in the last decade is nearly double the rate of the entire last century, at this rate rising sea level puts coastal cities and islands at great risk, SC water reaches further inland it can cause destructive erosion flooding of wetlands, contamination of aquifers, and agricultural soils and lost habitat for fish birds and plants most projections show the sea level will rise between point 8 and 2 meters by 2100 which would be catastrophic for many low-lying islands and much of the eastern coast of the United States, more dire predictions based upon the complete melting of the Greenland ice sheet project a rise up to seven meters that's enough to submerge London.
the third category is the one with which most people are familiar
global temperature rise
as CO2 accumulates in our atmosphere the temperature creeps steadily upward theannual increase is measured at roughly
1.7 degrees Fahrenheit, this increase in temperature could cause the most drastic immediate effects of all three categories
the list is long and distressing so here we go-
global warming will cause droughts and heat waves, which are already responsible for killing more people per year than floods hurricanes lightning and tornadoes combined it will aggravate the spread of disease, the warmer weather allows disease bears to be active longer and further abroad warmer ocean temperatures will allow pathogens to flourish as we've already seen with the widespread coral bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef, this coral houses twenty-five percent of all marine diversity and the reef is already declined by fifty percent in the last thirty years when the coral goes we'll lose hundreds of thousands of species
dependent upon it for shelter which will collapse much of the marine food chain, back on land fishing will suffer droughts will destroy crops and livestock and create a water scarcity pushing farmers and people in rural areas into the city, this will cause overcrowding and help spark civil wars that killed hundreds of thousands like it did in Syria, GDP is expected to plummet by twenty-three percent by 2100 caused by property damage from flooding droughts wildfires, storms loss of productivity loss of
tourism and illness.
you can see how quickly the situation can snowball wildly out-of-control it seems very dire but what can we do?
is it too late to stop the changes we put in motion ?it's hard to say for sure, but the affect humans have had on this earth is severe and the changes have indeed been set in motion even if we stopped emitting greenhouse gases today global warming would continue for at least several more decades since carbon dioxide can linger in the atmosphere for up to centuries,
some experts believe we're approaching a tipping point, a point at which abrupt perhaps irreversible changes would tip our
climate into a new state, however it may not be too late to limit some of the worst effects of climate change two important steps are required.
one - mitigation, the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere
and two- adaptation, learning to cope with and adapt to the climate changes that have already been set in motion recycling and driving fuel-efficient cars are important steps in the right direction, but not sufficient on their own it will take a globally coordinated response such as clean energy agreements between nations as well as local efforts on the city and regional level such as sustainable City Planning, public transportation upgrades, and energy efficiency improvements, so yes climate change is the biggest threat to existence as we know it..

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