Climate Change and the effect humans have on it.

By Cathy Reese  

Ok, I am assuming most of us will agree that climate change is affected in several ways by natural causes and many of us will not argue that these natural causes do affect our lives and the climate we live in.

Let’s talk about a more debatable topic. Climate change and what we as Human beings are doing to change it.                                  

I have my top 5 beliefs of what we are doing, let me list them here and see if you agree.

**The burning of fossil fuels which emit high amounts of Carbon Dioxide into the

     air creating what we know as the "Greenhouse Effect."

     Certainly our love for the automobile is one of the greatest contributors.

**The cutting down of our forests for building purposes or to increase farming.

**Our use of plastics and cleaning supplies that we use in everyday life.

 **Farming, both factory and industrial, which kills natural habitats along with the

     use of fertilizers and chemical herbicides and pesticides. 

 **Our highly disposable lifestyles, the methods we use to waste and the 

      throwing away of items we use in our personal and individual habits

  

 Along comes the Industrial Revolution and with it new agricultural and industrial practices which began to change our environment.  It wasn’t until human activity during this time that we had any greenhouse gases being pushed into our atmosphere. Population growth, deforestation, and the huge use of fossil fuels are all huge contributing factors by us humans.

So, this leads to a question.  If,  climate change and global warming are caused by humans, who is most to blame?  What country is most responsible?

Well, most scientist will agree that the nation that has injected the most amount of harmful CO2 into our atmosphere, where it will remain for years, piling up and adding to the heating of our planet is……. 

You guessed it, the United States.  But, If it makes you feel any better, China is a distant second.

Nobody meant for this to happen, but it has.  So now what?  Where do we go from here? 




Photo source provided by Sources for Climate change

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