Only You Can Prevent Climate Change

By Erin Lofgran

While the Presidential debates are filled with arguing over stupid petty things, Hillary Clinton decided to take some time and have a speech focused directly on… you guessed it, climate change. In her speech on Tuesday, the 11^th of October, she explained to the people of Florida that she has all of these things that she wants to do as president that will help protect the people of America from the effects of climate change. She stated “if you need proof that climate change is real there you go” talking about the struggles that the people of Florida are dealing with every day. Clinton had Al Gore with her where he also talked about the issue of climate change. Clinton has many ideas and initiatives that will help the people of this country. Out of her and Trump, who doesn’t think climate change is actually a thing, and Clinton who is trying to help, for those people out there who also believe this to be a problem, she mas more going for her that someone would think. Climate change is an issue that scientists are dealing with every day. A country can’t stop the works of nature. It just happens.

Everyone and their dog are wondering just what is climate change. What evidence is there to prove it? How can we as people help stop it. Is there anything the we can do?

When a person thinks about climate change they think of global warming and that they are the same thing. But they are not entirely the same. Global warming refers to the temperatures and the weather on the earth’s surface, while climate change is the ongoing change of the climate.

Climate change is supposed to happen. The problem with this round of climate change is that we humans have spread the process up by a lot. This year is the hottest year on record. It is scary how drastic thing have changed just in the last 100 years. CO2 levels have risen which is a huge factor to climate change. Ecosystems are being damaged because of this. Weather patterns change, devastating storms are the result of the warming of the atmosphere. Yet people still deny its existence. Which doesn’t make sense because the evidence is right in front of us.

According to the NASA site there are so many reasons and things that show that it is happening. Not only is the temperature of the ocean rising, but the ocean itself is rising. Sea level rose about 17 centimeters I the last century, which if this continues, there will be many coastal cities and countries that will no longer be above sea level. Another one is that the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are shrinking. As are the glaciers around the world, and the arctic sea ice. Yes, they melt. But they are melting at a rate that is very fast compared to what it used to and should be. Of the water that is on the earth, most of it is in the oceans, the next most concentrated place is in the ice that is found in Greenland and Antarctica and so if they continue to melt like they are, the ocean will continue to rise because all water ends up in the ocean. So if all of this is happening, how can we, as people of the earth, help? The first thing we can do is get people into office who understand that something has to happen if we want to have a healthy world because they will be the ones who set policies and solutions to this issue.

The government has data bases that can inform the rest of us on what is happening and what can be done one of the is the Climate Database where you can read up on all the things. With all the information that is out there, the people are becoming more and more aware that it is an issue that we have pushed along. So what can we do to help? Every day we see the effects of this issue so it is no wonder we want to help. Something that NASA is doing, or trying to do is mitigation and adaptation, where mitigation is stabilizing and reducing the greenhouse gases that are in the atmosphere, and adaptation is changing how we do things in an already damaged world. What we can do is study up on it and try to be cleaner and not be idiots.

The picture above shows the CO2 levels for the years before 1950. This picture is from Wikipedia.

Climate change isn’t something that we can read or hear about on the news and think that it won’t affect us. It is happening everywhere. Climate change isn’t going anywhere. The oceans are rising and the ice sheets are melting. Things are getting warmer. We as the human race, started this and we are going to have to deal with it. There are things that can be done to stop damage and to try to not make it worse. The emissions we have been giving off for years has built up and it’s not really possible to make it all go away.  But we can bring people into office that can help, even a little to get policy in place help.