Climate Change
Climate Change has been a topic that has been talked about since the 1970s. Today the effect of it is much more clear: lakes are drying up, forests are burning up, and floods are becoming more common and devastating. The most recent U.S climate change assessment shows that climate change is affecting the country more than ever and that if we don't change our ways soon, it'll just get worse. So, what's making everything so bad? Firstly, the United States is 2nd in the world for most carbon dioxide emissions, behind China. However, it's not just the carbon dioxide that contributes to the world's problem, it's also methane. Methane is a greenhouse gas that is a lot stronger than carbon dioxide, and the places where it is most abundant is America's cattle ranches and Siberia's Permafrost. The Great Plains of the United States is host to one of, if not the largest, the largest cattle population in the world, and those cows produce a lot of methane. In Siberia's permafrost, methane was frozen into the ground long, long ago. Now, with the ice melting due to warming, the methane is finally being released into the air.
The effects of climate change will bring disaster to the country, and it already is doing just that. In California, wildfires have ravaged forests and burnt neighborhoods to crisps, leaving thousands homeless. If we continue to ignore climate change, the assessment fears that the same could happen with the Southeast. In Texas and North Carolina, flooding from high tide hurricanes has caused billions of dollars of damage from hurricanes that were supercharged by warmer waters. Worst of all, the Florida Keys have begun to sink, and scientists fear that if nothing is done, we will be saying goodbye to the southern half of Florida. However the effects don't just impact the United States, they have an effect on the entire world. In the Pacific Ocean, islands have already begun to start sinking, in Africa and Uzbekistan the climate is getting hotter and lakes are drying up, and in major rainforests, such as the Amazon, deforestation is getting worse and worse, and with fewer trees, there will be fewer animals and more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Climate Change can also have an impact on a country's political or general stability. As desert countries continue to have less and less water, wars will break in attempting to gain it, and this will cause deaths of millions of people. So in order to save the world, we must act now.
The effects of climate change will bring disaster to the country, and it already is doing just that. In California, wildfires have ravaged forests and burnt neighborhoods to crisps, leaving thousands homeless. If we continue to ignore climate change, the assessment fears that the same could happen with the Southeast. In Texas and North Carolina, flooding from high tide hurricanes has caused billions of dollars of damage from hurricanes that were supercharged by warmer waters. Worst of all, the Florida Keys have begun to sink, and scientists fear that if nothing is done, we will be saying goodbye to the southern half of Florida. However the effects don't just impact the United States, they have an effect on the entire world. In the Pacific Ocean, islands have already begun to start sinking, in Africa and Uzbekistan the climate is getting hotter and lakes are drying up, and in major rainforests, such as the Amazon, deforestation is getting worse and worse, and with fewer trees, there will be fewer animals and more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Climate Change can also have an impact on a country's political or general stability. As desert countries continue to have less and less water, wars will break in attempting to gain it, and this will cause deaths of millions of people. So in order to save the world, we must act now.
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