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Amber Lowry
Geography 1000
10 October 2014
Global Climate Change
Global climate change has become quite an epidemic not only among scientists, but also
among the general public as well. In the text it states, As the world population grows and the
use of industrial technology intensifies, human activity has increasingly had unintended and
uncontrolled effects on the atmosphere; effects seen around the globe. (Hess, Darrel. Pg. 62).
With all of the growing industries, pollution in our atmosphere and other impurities are causing
change in our global climate, affecting our agriculture which could possibly cause prices to
increase for crops, and its also harming other forms of life as well.
A study done by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, states that
agricultural production is sensitive to weather and thus directly affected by climate change. They
have done studies to see what needs to be done to improve the representation of agricultural
adaptation responses to climate change. I believe that if we cant come up with a way to help our
agriculture, then we could lose crop production, which in turn would cause prices to increase
significantly, causing an economic problem as well. To back up my reasoning, I found a study
done by The Council on Food, Agricultural and Resource Economics. (C-FARE) Their study
shows how climate change is affecting our hydrologic cycle, our overall heat, and crop
biodiversity. It clearly states, The hydrologic cycle now includes more frequent and intense
droughts and floods in many agricultural regions. These events can damage and at times even
destroy crops. (www.c-fare.org.) With these changes possibly destroying crops, the price will
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rise for the most important agricultural crops such as rice, wheat, corn, and soybeans. This will
lead to higher prices on animal feed, which will then cause the price of meat to increase as well.
We can make a difference though. Because I believe that global climate change is truly
happening, whether it starts to greatly affect us in 10 years or 100 years, its going to happen. I
am a believer that events such as this will continue to happen for the entire duration of Earths
life, just look back at the last million years, and how many glacial periods or ice ages that we
have gone through. Now with the ozone layers depleting, it is causing the stratosphere to warm
causing more of a global warming. If you pay attention to the effects of carbon dioxide on sea
level and the greenhouse effect, you will realize that when carbon dioxide levels increase, sea
level rises, and vice versa. When it comes to the greenhouse effect, the text states, Carbon
dioxide is thought to be responsible for at least 60 percent of the human-enhanced greenhouse
effect. Carbon dioxide is a principal by-product of combustion of anything containing carbon,
such as coal and petroleum. (Hess, Darrel. Pg. 104). This backs us my reasoning of how global
warming or climate change is happening because of the rise in our industries.
Will all of this said and the research backing up my belief that global warming is
happening, I know that we can and need to do something to help. Scientists should begin to
develop crops that have a higher resistance to major climate change. We need to start using water
more efficiently and develop low cost but efficient irrigation systems. In past research that I have
done on pollution and what we as a community can do to help our air quality and economy, I
discovered a company called L.E.E.D. Our current and future generations need to start planning
now on what we can do to help diminish climate change, and I believe that we have already
taken the first step, by creating more buildings to be environmentally friendly by using L.E.E.D.
Leadership in Energy and Environmental design, (LEED) is an internationally recognized
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building certification developed by the U.S. Green Building Council. They create buildings that
limit parking, which in turn will lower gas emissions into the air. They also incorporate water
conservation systems, and solar panels into buildings to help them be more naturally sustaining.
In an article published by the Washington Post, scientists have confirmed that the atmospheric
layer that protects Earths inhabitants from the suns harmful ultraviolet rays is slowly rebuilding
itself. They believe that it will take until 2050 for the ozone layer in the mid-latitudes to return to
relatively healthy conditions from before the 1980s conditions. (Sullivan, Gale. Washington
Post).
As youve read above, global warming is definitely something that is happening. There
are many things that are man-made that have contributed to the ozone depleting causing the
atmosphere to warm, but there are many things that we as a community, a nation, and the world,
can do to start to lower the effects of global warming, and hopefully as the years pass, we can
continue to help our ozone layer rebuild itself as its already doing on its own.








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Reference Page
Hess, Darrel. (2014). Mcknights Physical Geography: A Landscape Appreciation (11
th
ed.)
Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
Sullivan, Gail. Washington Post (2014) Earths ozone layer is recovering.
The Council on Food, Agricultural and Resource Economics: How will Climate change Affect
Agriculture? www.cfare.org/.../climate_change_summary.
http://m.pnas.org/content/111/9/3274.abstract

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