Today we enjoyed the documentary The Inconvenient
Truth. It was really shocking to see all the horrible things that are happening
to the earth, most of which we are causing. I've heard people talk about the
climate issues, the polar caps melting and issues with the atmosphere, but I
guess I didn't realize how serious it really was.
One of the factoids that I found interesting was
the melting of the polar ice caps. So, what exactly is happening to the
ice caps? Well they are melting...so what does this mean? It means a lot of
things. A couple that I found particularly interesting was the fact that the
polar ice caps are melting and how that is affecting the ocean levels and the
animals.
With the polar ice caps melting one of the main
concerns is how the rise in sea levels will affect the oceans and certain parts
of the continents. According to researcher John Wahr,
"ocean levels worldwide are rising about six hundredths of an inch per
year" In 2012,
"nearly 230 billion tons of ice is melting into the ocean from glaciers,
ice caps, and mountaintops annually" If the Titanic were to make its
journey today the likelihood that it would hit a giant ice berg would be really
slim. Where would James Cameron, Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet be today
with out their Oscar winning/record breaking film? With the glaciers melting
the immediate result would be rise in sea levels. The effects of the melting
would be small at first raising the sea level only a
few inches. This would cause some flooding problems for low-laying
costal areas. However, if the west Antarctic Ice Sheet were to collapse then we
would have a serious problem. The consequences of this would be, " it
would push seal levels up to 10 meters and
many costal areas would completely disappear beneath the ocean." This
information was looked at in 2012 compared to when an Inconvenient Truth came
out in 2006.
Obviously this is a problem. The topic that Al Gore
raised though is that if the caps melt and certain parts of continents end up
under water, where are all of the people who live there going to? Looking back
at what happened during Hurricane Katrina and how all of those people were
stranded, their homes gone, their city gone, and not knowing what the hell they
were going to do was really scary. If that happened in multiple places around
the same time what would happen? How could we possible cram all of these people
into even smaller amount of space?
Animals are also suffering because of the ice caps
melting. One of the main animals being affected is the polar bear, but other animals
are also being affected such as seals and different species of fox.
Another factoid that I found interesting was forest
fires. I didn't realize that global warming had anything to do with forest
fires. Al Gore mentioned his movie that this was also a major concern for
scientists. So, how is global warming causing forest fires? Scientists have
found that the reason that this is happening is because of warmer temperatures
and earlier snowmelt. With the temperature increasing spring is arriving
earlier and causing the snow to melt sooner, which causes the forests to be drier
and for longer periods of time. Because of this dryness it is increasing the
chance that they will catch on fire.
When Al Gore briefly mentioned forest fires in his
movie that premiered in 2005 the amount of forest fires in the United States
was 66,552 and the acres that were damaged was 8,686,753. California experienced the most
with 7,162 fires. In 2012 there were 67,774 fires and 9,326,238 acres damaged. Texas experienced the
most fires with 10,620 spreading across 179,602 acres. There wasn't a huge increase
over that 7-year time span, but the fact that is still increasing proves that
it is still a problem.
Forest fires also affect the wildlife that live in
those forests or on that land. Obviously the main concern is that it is killing
them and destroying their habitats. However the forest fires are also causing
other issues for the animals. Some of those are that they undergo major stressors
while they are trying to recover from the stress of the fire, not only is their
homes being burned, but also dramatically altering their habitat after the
fire. These forest fires are also changing the ecosystem balance.
After watching the movie I decided to look up and
calculate my own carbon footprint. After googling it I used Santa Clara University’s Carbon Foot Print Calculator that
was specified to college students. The subjects that they asked questions in
was transportation, partying, consumption, energy, food, waste and water. After
answer the questions I found out that my carbon footprint is 7132.52
KgCO2e/year. Which is more than the average citizens in Brazil, Burkina Faso,
China and France, but I was way below average for the average U.S citizen. The
U.S citizens average was 17, 584 KgCO2e/year. So I am WAY below average, which
makes me feel good. It was a lot better than I expected. The area that was the
highest for me was energy and that made sense because I never unplug electronics
in my room. They always tell you to and I always forget, so that is something
that I could work on.
Overall, this movie did really scare me. I have
always heard people talk about global warming and how we are really harming the
planet, but I have never had it all laid out like that. The statistics were
really alarming. It really reinforced my need to recycle, but I realized there
was a lot more that I could do. However, if the leaders of this country don't
get their acts together we may be in a lot of trouble. Al Gore pointed out that
we have the solution in our hands we just need the determination to do it! And
if we don’t get our acts together....YOLO!!
For more information on Al Gore's movie and global warming visit climatecrisis.net
All photos courtesy of creativecommons.org
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