Climate Change
1- The environment is showing clear signs of climate change. The snow on mountains is disappearing while the droughts in the Mediterranean are getting worse. In the tropics there are more and more huge storms that bring floods and landslides. Something quite unusal is happening and it cannot be explained by natural forces.
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2- Studies of weather patterns, rocks and ice show that the world is the hottest it has been for 2000years.Scientists around the world believe that Earth is getting hotter and that this global warming is due to the greenhouse effect.
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3- The greenhouse effect is a metphore because a green house is used to explain Earth's changing climate. A greenhouse is made of glass and it is used for growing plants. The sun's heat travels through the glass walls. While some heat escape, most of it gets trapped inside the greenhouse so that plants can be grown in the warmer temperatures that are produced.
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4- In reality, the glass in the greenhouse is the atmosphere and the plants are the Earth.During the last few hundred years, greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have increased. As a result, more heat is trapped in the atmosphere and the Earth gets hotter. These greenhouse gases include water vapour (H2O). carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and chlorofluorocarbons(CFCs).
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5- People are responsible for greenhouse gases. For example, when people burn fossil fuels, such as coal, petrol and gases, they release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. In addition, methane is produced by bacteria which break down waste material in landfills, rice fields and the stomachs of animals such as cows, camels and sheep.
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6- We need to reduce greenhouse gases or the climate will continue to get hotter and our environment will continue to change. For example, as the ice caps melt, sea levels will rise and people may have to move away from the low coastal areas.Some places may experience a drier climate which could result in drought, desertification, food and water shortages.Finally, the change in temperature around the world may cause tropical diseases, such as malaria, to spread around the world.
