Climate Change the United States Environmental Protection

Climate Change

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) warns that climate change is real. In the past one hundred years, the average temperature of the Earth has risen 1.4 F. Scientists read evidence in tree rings, ancient coral, and bubbles trapped in ice cores; they have concluded the Earth is warmer than it has been for at least a millennium (Pearce, 2006). More dramatic climate change is predicted for the next hundred years, when temperatures are expected to rise another 2 to 11.5 F. Even a rise in temperature of just a few degrees can mean large and potentially dangerous shifts in weather and climate ("Climate change basics," 2012).

The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) defines climate change as "a study dealing with variations in climate on many different time scales from decades to millions of years, and the possible causes of such variations" ("Artic climatology and meteorology," n.d.). When climate change is discussed in the media, the term usually refers to the significant change that has been seen over the last century -- a very short period of time in the history of the Earth -- and the economic, environmental and social effects that result.

The average person may remark that winters do not seem to be as cold as they used to be; summers seem hotter. It is not just the collective imagination. The Earth has warmed rapidly in the past thirty years, when natural temperature modulators such as solar cycles and volcanoes should have cooled the planet (Pearce, 2006). Climate change has brought about more frequent and severe heat waves. Changes in rainfall have meant more rainfall in some areas. In the fall of 2011, parts of Vermont were ravaged by the effects of Hurricane Irene. Vermonters tend to take blizzards, wind storms and torrential rains in stride. Writer David Goodman observed, "It's all part of the rhythm of the seasons in these small towns that cling to the flanks of the northern mountains and valleys" (Goodman, 2011). One does not think of a hurricane striking a landlocked state, but damages were estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars after whole towns were flooded, homes were washed away, and bridges and riverbanks collapsed. Changes in rainfall have spelled severe drought for other areas. The hot, dry summer of 2012 was disastrous for many people across the United States. More than two million acres were burned in western wildfires, more than 110 million were living under extreme heat advisories by the end of June, and more than two-thirds of the nation experienced drought. Thousands of new daily-high temperatures were set. The twelve months ending in June 2012 were the warmest twelve continuous months on record. Michael Oppenheimer, a climate expert and Princeton professor, proclaimed simply, "What we see now is what global warming looks like. The heat, the fires, these kinds of environmental disasters" (Walsh, 2012, p. 16). People around the world have similarly experienced the shifting weather patterns resulting from climate change. "Canada's Inuit see it in disappearing Artic ice and permafrost. The shantytown dwellers of Latin American and Southern Asia see it in lethal storms and floods. Europeans see it in disappearing glaciers, forest fires and fatal heat waves" (Pearce, 2006).