When people think of climate change they only tend to think of one side effect or one solution, but when it boils down to it climate change has ever lasting effects on the environment. One may ask why this is happening now. Why and how could this happen under the careful watch of the human race? The answer is simple. Because the human race isn't careful. Humans don't care about long term solutions. In other words the solution that works at that very moment will be the one used to fix the problem. Why would humans care about the environment and the organisms within it when they can't even stop killing each other first? There are more complex answers to this question I'm afraid. Answers that hopefully can show those reading this that the world is in need of help and fast. Temperatures will continue to rise, weather will become violent, extinction of species will continue, and worst of all carbon dioxide levels will rise as oxygen levels fall. 

The first question to answer is what are others saying about this?  What are other people around the country doing about this crisis? The answer comes from an article titled One in Four in U.S. are Solidly Skeptical of Global Warming written by Lydia Saad. This article was written about a survey taken by the Gallup's annual Environment survey, which has been taken seven times since the year 2001. This survey was executed through the phone by contacting 1,048 individuals who were 18 or older and asking them how they felt towards climate change. The results were surprising with 25% of people labelling themselves as cool skeptics. The other 75% was split with 39% claiming to be concerned believers and 36% identifying as mixed middle. These numbers indicate that 1 out of every 4 Americans doesn't consider climate change a threat. The worst part about the numbers is that over half of the mixed middle had no college experience or less than one quarter. Education is a major key in helping the youth understand climate change and it is just unacceptable that climate change and its threats aren't taught more in high schools. The bottom line of these findings is that "as with many issues in the past decade, Americans' views have grown more polarized" (Saad 306). In order to help the environment people need to learn to find common ground on major issues. 

A question many skeptics ask is how are humans effecting this process? This question stems from the belief by some that climate change is an Earthly cycle that shouldn't be worried about. First off, let's correct these people. Yes, climate change is an Earthly cycle, but the only problem is that the cycle should be sending us into an Ice Age any time now. If an Ice Age is approaching then how can temperatures keep rising? Secondly, let's say it is a cycle then humans should be even more worried. The Earth's cycle wouldn't just raise the temperature a couple of degrees, it would increase it by at least 10 degrees, which would make some places on Earth nearly unlivable. But here's the situation, humans are speeding up the cycle at an alarming rate though pollution, waste run off, garbage dumps, and burning of fossil fuels. Carbon dioxide levels have reached an all-time high in recorded human history and weather patterns have been all over the place recently. In the article U.S. Climate Has Already Changed, Study Finds, Citing Heat and Floods the author, Justin Gillis, cites scientists in saying that over the past century temperatures have risen close to 2 degrees and are expected to reach a 10 degree increase by the end of this century. In this article the author cites a report on climate change that states "over the past half-century, the proportion of precipitation that is falling in very heavy rain events has jumped by 71 percent in the Northeast, by 37 percent in the Midwest and by 27 percent in the South" (Gillis). This increase in rain fall has caused extensive damage recently. Examples include Nashville where 20 inches fell in two days back in 2010, two years ago Colorado flooded, and a year ago the Florida Panhandle had over two feet of rain in 24 hours. Rain isn't the only effect of climate change. Hurricanes will begin to move north as northern waters increase in temperature and the warmer winters have allowed for mountain pine beetles to reproduce exponentially, which has led to the devastation of pine forests in the American West and Canadian province of British Columbia. Scientists even expect to see droughts and heat waves like those in Texas back in 2011. These effects don't even scratch the surface of what will happen in the oceans and to the coast lines. 

Besides rising sea levels, the oceans seem to be the last place that humans think of climate change effecting. This is also due to the fact that it doesn't affect us directly, which can lead to being a "cool skeptical". The truth is the oceans are effected the most by rising carbon dioxide levels and temperatures. The oceans are effected due to ocean acidification. Ocean acidification is the process in which the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere diffuses into the oceans. This process is causing the pH of the oceans to increase, which can lead to the destruction of many shelled organisms. In the article Ocean Acidification Is Affecting Demography and Adaptation Potential of Marine Organisms, Study Says the author, Tyler MacDonald, shares the results of a Plymouth University team's findings, who used a species of gastropod as their subject. The findings state that the "results showed that those at the CO2-rich site had a significantly shorter shell length as well as thinner shells than those at the neutral-CO2 sites. Furthermore, there were fewer females present in the acidic pH site" (MacDonald). These findings show what climate change is already doing to some organisms in the oceans. It's only a matter of time before more organisms are effected and if this keeps up then more consequences are bound to come. Rising sea levels will wipe out coast lines, coral will die off from the CO2, sharks will migrate north into New England waters to stay cooler, ocean currents all over the world will change, and massive populations of fish will move from the tropics to the mid latitudes for cooler waters. These effects, if not stopped, can cause the destruction of the whole ecological food web and spell out some terrifying effects for humans. 

This destruction of the environment needs to stop. People from around the country, even the world, need to be educated more on this subject in order to help stop it. Because if it's not stopped, then the planet may very well be heading for an extinction event. That previous statement is not an exaggeration. As of right now, the rate of extinction among the species today is at a higher rate than any of the last five major extinction events of our planet's history. That includes the Permian-Triassic extinction, which wiped out 95% of all living creatures on Earth. This is not some problem to put off for future generations anymore. The problem has arrived and it's time to fix it. 

