Cambio Climatico

Climate Change


Climate Change
Years ago, topics about the environment were ignored or not considered important. Only a decade ago, climate change barely caught the attention of scientists. Today, climate change is a daily topic on television, radio, periodicals, and even in our personal conversations. Almost no one can deny the suffering of a hot day or the damages of a strong storm andthe wind and floods that could come with it. It seems like today we always have “something” to blame about any natural disaster that occurs on our planet. The “something” is climate change. According to the Oxford English Dictionary “climate change is an alteration in the regional or global climate” (Simpson). “We can also refer to climate change as the change in global climate patterns. Thischange is increasing apparently from the mid to late 20th century onwards and it is attributed largely to the increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide produced by the use of fossil fuels” (Simpson). This means we are part of the problem. We are responsible for the changes that are being produced on the climate of our planet; however, even though we may suffer the consequences we have from ourmistakes, we still can help to ease the effect of climate change by improving our daily way of living.
The climate on earth has not been the same through the years. In the last 650,000 years there have been seven cycles of glacial advance and retreat, with the abrupt end of the last ice age about 11,000 years ago marking the beginning of the modern climate era — and of human civilization (NASA).Small variations in earth’s orbit make changes in the amount of solar energy we receive in our planet. For instance, we will have plenty of activity that will be considered abnormal because of the regularity in which a natural phenomenon may occur. Example of this are cyclones out of the normal period, earthquakes where they have never happen before, volcanoes that were considered inactive erupting,and the sea level increasing each year faster due to the melting of the ice on the poles (EPA). NASA has earth-orbiting satellites that have been collecting different types of information about our planet including the weather. After experts analyzed this information they concluded that since many years from today, the climate of the earth has being changing. However, is not only due to theindustrial greenhouse gases (previously referred to as carbon dioxide) produced by fossil fuels, but also due to the natural greenhouse gases that nature produces itself. It is important to establish the difference between natural greenhouse gases and industrial greenhouse gases. Natural greenhouse gases such as water vapor, carbon dioxide, and other gases exist in the atmosphere and an importantthing they do is to catch some of the energy that is radiated back into space from the heat of the earth’s surface (EPA). This natural “greenhouse effect” is beneficial because it maintains the earth’s average temperature around sixty degrees Fahrenheit, making the planet a hospitable environment. As a consequence, excessive amounts of gases emitted from industrial sources and automobiles haveincreased the planet’s ability to “trap” this energy, causing an increase in the average global temperature. It is important to recall that even though climate change has been occurring naturally, we also need to realize that global warming increased the rate of climate change and has become dangerous to all of us and the natural environment (EPA).
Something we have to admit is that we are responsiblefor global warming. Generally, when we hear people talking about environmental issues, we frequently think that we are not involved. We usually think we do not do anything to hurt the environment, so we are not able to help fix the problem with climate change or global warming. Apparently, the same happens with greenhouse gases emissions. We barely associate our daily activities with climate...