photo taken by (C)mkyg
Atlantis is not somewhere else but could be in our close future.
The increase of CO2, carbon dioxide, in our atmosphere is causing a global warming that leads climate changes all over the world. Many scientists and climate experts are claiming 350ppm concentration of CO2 in the greenhouse gases of our atmosphere is the safe limit for humanity but currently is already up to nearly 390ppm.
The greenhouse gases are important for us because when we receive the heats from the sun, the greenhouse gases in our atmosphere prevent them going out to the space, and keeps them on earth to provide warmth for living creatures to survive; in other words, without greenhouse gases, a lot of creatures will die because the average air temperature on earth will be around -18C. However, what we are facing now it this precious gases are continued to being thick, or we can say condensed , the heats are overly staying on earth and that is causing the global warming.
It is because 70% of the greenhouse gases are CO2, and its emission has been increased since 18th century after the human started to rely on the fossil fuels for their energy. Majority of the CO2 are created when we create the energy from oils and coals. Most significantly, one research showed that among the over 190 countries, only few countries are high emission countries such as America and China, almost 40% of all the emission, and followed by Russia and Japan, nearly 10% of all. And another research shows the average emission for per person in the developed countries like America, Australia, Canada, Singapore, Russia, German, Japan, UK, Italy and France are 3 times more than the one in the developing countries. It is clear that the people in some countries are using much more energies on their livings than the others...
Here are some of the possible effects of the global warming:
1) Glaciers
Glaciers everywhere will melt and disappear faster. This invokes the loss of land and lack of drinking water. For the island countries, loss of land means a loss of country. And source of many headwaters of rivers or spring waters, those provide us drinking water, are the glaciers.
2) Plants & Animals
The ecosystem will be damaged. When the ocean temperatures become higher, many marine species, for example corals, will have difficulty surviving. All in all, the ocean will not absorb CO2 as much as before. The animals will relocate to find the new land with enough food but some could not find a new home will be disappear from the earth. The mosquitoes pandemic will distribute new diseases to the countries where used be a cold weather.
3) Human
The effect on agriculture will be obvious. The farmers are hard to predict the weather, temperature, as a result, they cannot utilize the existing farming routine or methods, as well as the product to grow will be limited. In addition, the increase of natural disasters promotes increase of diseases, deprivations and depressions in human societies.
The first step is, I think, to know it better..
WWF International
http://www.panda.org/about_our_earth/aboutcc/COP15
http://en.cop15.dk/350.org
http://www.350.org/about/science... and discuss with your friends & family.
