For those of you who are hip hop fans you probably recognize part of my title from Sean Paul’s summer single, “We Be Burnin,” but he was not referring to global warming. On the other hand, I AM referring to global warming because honestly “we be burnin” and it’s no laughing matter (so no lol - laugh out loud - here). Global warming is really happening and we should actually figure out why.
OK…so before we can figure how to stop global warming, we should probably know what global warming really is. Dictionary.com refers to global warming as “an increase in the earth’s average atmospheric temperature that causes corresponding changes in climate and may result from the greenhouse effect.” For those of you who aren’t familiar with environmental terminology, the greenhouse effect is defined as “a planetary atmosphere warming phenomenon, resulting from the absorption of infrared radiation by atmospheric constituents.” According to Dictionary.com it is simply the act of “ radiant energy arriv[ing] at the planetary surface mainly as visible light from the Sun, which is then re-emitted by the surface at infrared wavelengths as heat. Carbon dioxide and water vapor in the atmosphere absorb this infrared radiation and behave as a blanket, with the net effect that atmospheric temperatures rise.”
Ok, so in regular terms, the greenhouse effect is caused by our increased use of fossil fuels and mass destruction of forests which are both increasing the effect of the Sun’s radiation on the Earth and thereby causing the Earth’s atmosphere, which can usually absorb all this radiation, to become weakened and less effective, causing global temperatures to rise.
Today, scientific research has shown that the temperature has been rising and the weather in many areas has been warmer than usual. Everybody’s noticed that….I mean why is it still 90 degrees in October! Clearly something is going on and global warming is the cause. So it is obvious that there is some truth to why we’ve been “burnin” so much this year and I think we need to start making a change.
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5 comments:
I definitely thinks there needs to be change to this cycle of warming to protect not only the Earth but ourselves and all the other species in the world. I love how your blog is very vivid and creative in it's content, a far cry from my science based global warming blog (globewarmyesno.blogspot.com).
Kirstin,
As a former high school biology teacher, I share your interest in this issue. I pray that others will "come on board", otherwise we are going to destroy ourselves. I am glad that Al Gore is bring awareness to global warming. I love your blog!
Kirstin,
As a former high school biology teacher, I share your interest in this issue. I pray that others will "come on board", otherwise we are going to destroy ourselves. I am glad that Al Gore is bringing awareness to global warming. I love your blog!
It is obvious to me, and it should be obvious to some people in our administration, that global warming is happening right under our noses. Although this has happened before, it is now happening at an accelerated rate becuase of our use of fossil fuels. It is upsetting that our government will not take simple steps to help reduce the emission of carbon dioxide, such as the Kyoto Protocol. The fact that every year there are record highs in every city for temperatures should be enough. Every year there is always some city that has a record high temperature for some day in October...or November...or even Christmas day. There is too much evidence there for the administration to not do anything about it.
Kirstin:
With the Nobel Peace Prize recently being jointly awarded to Al Gore and the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change because of their past efforts to alert the world to the harmful effects of global warming, you should be commended for galvanizing others through your blog about the urgency to act now to curb global warming.
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