The world is a crazy place right now. All around us, in every way, shape, or form, the world’s changing constantly, but its not always not in a good way. Slowly but surely global warming is affecting our day to day life. Some of us don’t understand why or how all of this is happening.

What Gases are Causing This?

Basically we live in a greenhouse; this “greenhouse” contains certain gases that affect, and these gases are methane, carbon dioxide, water vapor, and nitrous oxide. These greenhouse gases are what continues trapping heat inside the atmosphere around earth. The greenhouse effect isn’t just because of us, this is completely natural, but if we didn’t have this greenhouse, we wouldn’t be able to survive on our planet. Many things such as landfills and livestock industries all produce methane gases which is are very harmful gases, not only to our environment but to us as well. There’s a wide variety of things that produce methane gas and other harmful chemicals for an example there’s rice cultivation that is producing methane and waste management. As well as there being ways to emit less carbon dioxide into the air, we can also reduce our methane emissions by eating less red meat, reasons why is because when you eat beef the dead cows do produce a ton of methane into our atmosphere.

Why is this happening?

The heating of the earth is caused by burning fossil fuels or most of our day to day activities. The high amounts of carbon we release into the atmosphere is also having dramatic effect on our planet’s global temperature, like driving, or an example it produces so many harmful chemicals into our atmosphere that we are all breathing in. Of course us as humans are exhaling carbon dioxide.

Why is this so important?

The heating of the earth is starting to affect important parts of the earth. Antarctica’s and Greenland’s ice is starting to melt and that’s raising our sea levels drastically. Ever since 1880, sea levels have risen by 8-9 inches, it may not seem like a lot but it really is. Every year our sea levels rise by 0.1 inches If our sea levels rise even by 10 more inches most of our coastal regions will be underwater. Some states have flooded and have created dams to prevent overflow from surrounding oceans. Scientists believe that by 2050 sea levels will rise 30 cm(or 11 inches) , scientists also believe that some more coastal regions will be underwater by 2050 including New York,  Hawaii, some of Jamaica, New Jersey, some of California, and most parts of Florida. As of right now our sea level has risen 5-8 inches since 1990 and that isn’t very good.

Can we stop this?

Right now scientists are attempting to find solutions to this global problem but we as people can start trying to not produce as much carbon dioxide by biking,walking or even using public transportation instead of  driving yourself or using more green electricity. But not even including those several i listed, there are many more ways to reduce your carbon footprint in the world such as recycling, reusing items, and avoid useless purchases. If we all chipped in and started helping out the environment we could all possibly reduce the speed of the heating of the earth  and keep us and our world safe. Even though we can’t necessarily stop global warming due to it being also natural, we can help lessen the effects of it.