Let's talk about what might be the
elephant in the room this week.
For some of you climate change,
you may think it's a political hot
button issue, but I'm here to tell
you that it's not a political issue.
It doesn't need to be a political issue,
we're just talking about the science,
the science of our Earth that we live on.
An our ancestors have lived on
for years and years and years,
and Earth is pretty amazing.
There's no other planet in our solar
system that can support our life,
and the reason why our Earth is able
to support water plant like you and I.
Because of our atmosphere,
it's pretty amazing.
This is kind of a slice into our atmosphere.
In this atmosphere,
it's like a blanket and it protects us.
It protects us from the heat of the sun.
It protects us from what's happening
in outer space an like Goldilocks
and the three bears.
The atmosphere has to be just
right to support life on Earth.
That's why other planets don't have life,
because Mars and Venus,
their atmospheres are either
too big or too small,
but our atmosphere is just perfect,
but our atmosphere has been changing.
Our Earth has been changing over many,
many, many years.
Our climate has been changing as
the Earth goes through course,
natural processes of heating and cooling.
But some of these changes in the last
100 years. We gotta talk about now.
Our atmosphere is made up of gases, right?
You know about oxygen and nitrogen.
Those are the.
Largest components of what are areas outside,
but we also have about 1% of these
gases that are called greenhouse gases.
Water vapor is one of them.
Carbon dioxide is one of them as well,
and carbon dioxide is something we gotta
talk about because these greenhouse
gases behave a little bit differently.
OK,
normally we have energy from the
sun that's coming into the earth
and some of that energy is able
to be re-admitted through our
atmosphere back into outer space.
That's why our earth doesn't get way too hot.
But some of these greenhouse
gases help to trap that heat.
From the sun kind of locks it into place.
Well,
we keep pumping more and more of 1
particular greenhouse gas carbon
dioxide into the atmosphere.
Our globe in our atmosphere is slowly
warming an here's the relationship
between carbon dioxide and what's
happening with our global temperatures,
and you can see both lines since
the Industrial Revolution going
up at a much faster pace than what
was happening back before the
Industrial Revolution.
Now this may not seem like much 'cause
we're zooming in really tight and
this is only about 1 degree Celsius.
But when you're talking about this
in the grand scheme of things,
that's a big deal where most of these
extra greenhouse gases coming from
transportation, electricity consumption.
Right,
an industry that's where most of these
greenhouse gases are coming from.
But even though our atmosphere may
only be heating up by 1 degree
Celsius over that 100 plus years.
Most of the heat that is in excess
because of those out of greenhouse gases
is not being stored in our atmosphere.
It's being stored in our oceans in fact.
93% of this extra heat is going directly into
our oceans and our oceans impact the weather.
So what does this all mean?
Well, it means basically as our oceans
warm and our atmosphere warms over many,
many years, we're going to see some
changes to our weather patterns.
What can happen?
A warmer atmosphere leads to
more extremes with our weather.
Speaking lead to stronger hurricanes,
it could lead to more extreme droughts,
which can lead to bad wildfire
seasons for us.
More heavy rain events
as the atmosphere warms,
it can hold more water vapor and
that can lead to heavier rains
and more flash flooding events.
And also as our atmosphere warms,
we're also looking at eventually a
rise in sea level and that could mean
some huge changes along our polls.
So this week.
During Earth Week and Green Week,
I want you to think about this
not as a political issue,
but just as a science issue.
This is our home Earth is our
home and what can you do to reduce
your carbon footprint?
Whether that be trading in for
maybe an electric or hybrid vehicle,
turning the lights off in your
house more often,
maybe eating less meat and more plants,
just think about it.
It doesn't have to be political,
it's just science.