None

  Global Warming  Many people question to what extent the United States should be concerned with global warming. Not many people are willing to give up their way of living to live a “greener” life. Along with many people thinking this way, they are ignorant to how massive this problem has become over the past few decades. The effects of global warming are increasing and becoming a big threat to Americans today; in other words, Americans should be very concerned with the growing problems that global warming is currently causing. Global warming isn’t only affecting our temperature, there are also many other, bigger, problems that can potentially cause harm to us as a nation. Global warming also has a lot to do with natural disasters that have occurred over the past few decades, which in turn, can and has caused many deaths amongst us, deaths meaning people and animals. Global warming also contributes to health hazards with the air being polluted with CO2. Also, many animals have also already died or been affected because of global warming and the changes it has caused towards natural habitats. Global warming also has drastically affected our economy. We are currently at an economic downfall and global warming has a lot to do with it. It increases our energy bill, gas prices, health costs, etc. The United States should be very concerned with this massive issue around the world, climate change; this can potentially affect the United States in terms of death rates, both people and animals, our economic downfall, and the effect on our animal’s natural habitats. First off, the way that climate change negatively effects us in terms of natural disasters and what they have had been doing in our country for the past decade; in terms of how many deaths we have had because of natural disasters. Recently we as Americans have had to deal with many major natural disasters over the past decade. There have been earthquakes, wild fires, land slides, floods and hurricanes, all which may have been triggered by a major problem we have today which is also known as climate change. This is a problem that we as Americans can’t just “brush under the carpet”; this is something that has to be dealt with. This problem effects that natural disasters cause is economical, but more importantly they have caused many deaths and injuries. In hurricane Katrina alone, more than 1,836 Americans lost their lives. Eventually 80% of the city became flooded. Almost 2,000 Americans lost their lives in one natural disaster, not to mention the economic part of it. “In the year 1980 only 100 such disasters were reported. However that number has risen to over 300 a year since 2000. (Amodeo, 2).”  This evidence shows that the amount of natural disasters has been occurring, climate change definitely has a lot to do with this, the question is, when this all will stop. The rise in temperatures is helping because these problems and we as individuals feel helpless as to how we can help stop it. Things like forest fires can easily be caused by climate change. For example, climate change causes our whether to be hotter and with hotter weather, therefore things are more likely to catch on fire and spread much quicker. This is only one example of how global warming helps trigger natural disasters. A reason like this should make us as Americans very concerned. Something like this doesn’t only affect other countries, like poor countries), but it can also affect us. The amount of natural disasters that have occurred over the past couples decades have increased. Climate change has and continues to contribute to natural disasters in America and throughout the world. In addition, climate change can contribute to our economic downfall by increasing public health costs and energy costs around the country. It is know surprise that we as Americans are having massive issues economically as a country. With our growing population also goes our growing economic problem. This is something that each and everyone of us have been effected by. How this relates to global warming you ask, well, now that global warming has been a growing issue over that past few decades and how numbers, economically as well as temperatures, have been increasing, the economic stage that we are in is affected by global warming. Global warming has cost Americans a lot of money. “In October for example, a National Research Council panel estimated that burning fossil fuels costs $120 billion in heath expenses nation wide (Ford, 3)”. People think that even though we spend money as a nation on global warming, that it won’t effect us individually, what people lack to be informed about is how these consequences do affect us one by one. That is $120 billion dollars that comes out of each of our pockets. Because of the pollution of carbon dioxide, people’s health has been affected and now with our economic downfall, many people don’t have health coverage. Another way global warming affects is, it raises gas prices and energy prices. A majority of people drive cars and use energy everyday, therefore we are all affects. This is why we need to fix this issue. The higher energy prices would be good for alternative forms of energy like solar and wind power, which can cost two to four times as much as coal and oil. That is why gas prices are higher. It’s scarcity. Lastly, with the weather changing slowly but surely, natural habitats are being destroyed and animals, as well as Americans, are being affected by this. Since the weather is changing, animals have to start to migrate, they have a higher risk of not surviving, and we in the long run are affected by all of this. Many of our animals that we count on to supply us with food have to migrate because of the change in temperatures. Animals that live in the sea for example, we depends on them to supply us with our sea food. For the past few years the water temperatures have been rising. These types of fish are use to a certain temperature of water, now that it has been changing because of global warming; they have to know other choice but to migrate to different parts of the ocean. This is in turn affects our whole cycle of prey, predators, and the earths geology. If temperatures keep rising like they have been because of global warming, we will find that not only is our Earth’s geology has changed, but we are also affected because of our dependence and necessity of those animals to provide us with important things like sea food. “Heat tolerant species, such as shrimp, will expand northward, while heat in-intolerant species, such as clams and flounder, will retreat northward. (Fisher,1)” These are important animals that we depend on such as fish, crabs, shrimp, etc. Animals like this are part of our American everyday diet. This is why we should be very concerned. This is assuming that our animals can adapt to their new environment. If these animals can not adapt, they are cease to exist which will cause a big problems for us. That means no more sea food and our Earth’s geology will change without these animals. In conclusion, we as Americans need to be highly concerned and trying to stop global warming because of economical reasons, the amount of deaths it has contributed too in America and around the world, and also because of natural habitats being slowly being destroyed.