CLIMATE CHANGE
Global Warming is almost universally accepted as occurring as predicted and occurring as a result of human activity.
Anthropogenic (human caused) Global Warming is a type of climate change and can have serious consequences on life as we know it. Global Warming is threatening the stability of our climate in ways not seen since the catastrophes that pre-historic geological data have revealed. The relatively warm period of time that we inhabit right now (the Holocene Era which began at the end of the last ice age 12,000 years ago) is giving way to a new era which is being termed informally the Anthropocene, the era in which human activity has begun to affect the Earth. The affects that human activity have had on Earth have been largely negative; Global Warming being one of the most significant.
Some of the changes that are already being brought about by Global Warming include:
- Air and sea temperature change
- Increased storm activity/intensity
- Melting ice sheets (both land and sea based) and sea level rise
- Migratory pattern disruption & extinction
- Ocean acidification / Loss of ocean life
- Rainforest collapse
- Spread of deserts/drought
- and feedback scenarios (similar to the ‘snowball effect’) including:
~ additional releases of methane, a greenhouse gas that is 20 times more potent in its ability to trap heat as CO2, from permafrost thawing and These are serious changes that have been predicted from scientific research over the last few decades. Some are already occurring; some we hope to avoid. The only way to do so, however, is to change our activities. Humans have most of the tools and information needed to address these issues. But finding the collective will to actually adapt in time is the Big Unknown.
