Persuasive Essay About Climate Change

Over the last century, it has become clear that the earth's temperature is rising and that the arctic is slowly but surely melting. Even though 97% of scientists believe in climate change, not much has been done to deal with it.*1 Though some small steps have been made it would take a much greater effort for any real progress to be made. Climate change is a very big problem in today’s world. Fossil fuel burning, Fracking, and Deforestation are just some of the things that are severely affecting the world. If a change isn’t made soon, the world may not survive. Global warming is caused by the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) which trap heat in the atmosphere, which

When Fossil fuels burn, they release approximately 9.7 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere each year.*2 This is the leading cause of climate change. As a result of climate change the average temperature of the earth rises, which results in the polar ice caps melting and the sea level increasing. A consequence of the rising sea level, people who live on the coast may be forced to relocate if the oceans rise too much. Just to name a few, cities such as San francisco, Boston and New orleans would be devastated by as little as 5 feet sea level increase. One consequence that is already evident is that coral reefs have diminished by as much as 50% in the last decade. According to a recent study “If current trends continue and the world fails to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, than severe bleaching will occur every year on 99 per cent of the world's reefs within the century.”

Deforestation is the clearing of tropical rain forest and it has been going on for many centuries. According to a recent study, the deforestation rate has been rising and if it continues at this rate the rain forests will completely vanish within 100 years*6. Trees play a crucial part in regulating the climate by absorbing CO2. This is helpful because it keeps the level of CO2 in the atmosphere down. However, when deforestation occurs in the form of burning, all that CO2 that was stored up inside that tree is emitted into the atmosphere. Thus, deforestation is another major contributor to climate