Climate Change
Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.
— Oscar Wilde.
Climate change blog
By: Jernej Marčič
In this blog, I want to talk about Climate change, What causes climate change, how can we stop or slow it down it, what people think about it and how you can help.
What is climate change and why we should be worried?
Evidence
![This graph, based on the comparison of atmospheric samples contained in ice cores and more recent direct measurements, provides evidence that atmospheric CO2 has increased since the Industrial Revolution. (Source: [[LINK||http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/icecore/||NOAA]])](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/BYvBzBZyDgxM63r71oYx-jYNXohZmypd5KobDRjzOa5XJ2I8wdS3WO7kqg8BdkFPhPTcn12xbc9iwrScBII_4vRfgGADD-lbzNDm746QJyTwSv2AnjNn_XJNb8GFhBETJj8pSASs)
Carbon Dioxide or CO2 is proven to be a greenhouse gas which means it traps the Sun’s heat in the atmosphere.
This graph shows that after we started using fossil fuels carbon emissions skyrocketed.
We are the reason for these changes and many people choose to ignore them. The amount of CO2 particles is not the only evidence. Because of these carbon emissions, the average temperature increased by 1.5°C since 1880, and this is not because the Sun got warmer or because there are more solar storms; this is mainly due to us and is really shown by the Greenland ice caps melting.
How much CO2would be deadly?
5,000 ppm: this indicates unusual air conditions where high levels of other gases could also be present. Toxicity or oxygen deprivation could occur. This is the permissible exposure limit for daily workplace exposures. 40,000 ppm: this level is immediately harmful due to oxygen deprivation.
Why should we be worried
We should be worried because the melting ice caps will cause the oceans to rise and sink many countries (Maldives,..). Extreme weather events are getting way worse. Chunks of Antarctica have broken off. Mosquitos are able to expand their territory spreading deadly disease (malaria,…). Now wildfires seasons are months longer (as we have seen in Australia). Coral reefs are dying because sea is becoming more acidic from the increased CO2 in the atmosphere. Because of all those changes we have triggered the sixth mass extinction…
The sixth extinction
become endangered there has to be 250 of them left on Earth. Scientists estimate that 150-200 species of plant, insect, bird and mammal become extinct every 24 hours. This is nearly 1,000 times the “natural” or “background” rate and, say many biologists is greater than anything the world has experienced since the vanishing of the dinosaurs nearly 65m years ago. As from 2019 1.000.000 from 8.000.000 of species are on the verge of extinction.
How much trash I produce in a week EXPERIMENT
For this experiment, I decided to monitor what and how much trash I produce and carbon emissions I produce, also what food eat
Day 0 28/1/20
So, I decided to monitor my trash this afternoon.
Me and my mom ate at McDonalds. Luckily most of it is cardboard, but there were:
2 plastic caps (plastic)
2 sauce cups (plastic)
1 ketchup bag (plastic)
2 fries bags (cardboard)
2 cups (cardboard)
2 food boxes (cardboard)
1 sheet of paper under the reusable tray
Some scarps of food
Day 1 29/1/20
6.50-8.05
Today I drove with a car. It uses 6.7 litres per hour. It is a diesel car. We drove in it for 12:07:69. On the drive, we used about 1.34 litres of fuel. There were 3 people in the car including me. I don’t eat breakfast so I didn’t produce that much trash yet.
THIS IS AN ONGOING PROJECT, IT IS NOT FINISHED YET
SOURCES
https://www.edf.org/climate/why-fighting-climate-change-so-urgent
https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/earth-carrying-capacity1.html
https://www.worldometers.info/watch/world-population/
https://weather.com/news/news/2019-12-28-thousands-of-koalas-feared-dead-in-australia-wildfires
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17910054-the-sixth-extinction
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sixth_Extinction:_An_Unnatural_History
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change
Climate Change 