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| The Earth |
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| It's in danger because of us, now's the time to act |
As you may know, we live in a period of time where we are facing what many call "Global Warming". Global warming is caused
by greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, that build up in the atmosphere, let sunlight in, but trap some of the sun's
heat from escaping back into space. CO2 levels can be viewed on the widget below, provided by co2now.org, a solar-powered
website that provides CO2 level measurements in a comparison of the current month in other years. Naturally, CO2 levels should
not be higher than 300 parts per million (ppm). We've taken the level over that by burning fossil fuels and wood. We are now
seeing the effects of global warming in the real world that many of you can relate to. The flooding in Asia, all the wildfires
in Russia and their record of 100 degrees in Moscow, and two of the dryest and hottest years for the US in 2010 and 2012.
Atmospheric
CO2 this year is expected to exceed 400 ppm. This would be the first time in at least the last 700,000 years that atmospheric
CO2 has reached this level of concentration. Continued CO2 emissions above this level are going to have serious consequences,
and undoing the damage caused by these emissions will be increasingly difficult, if not impossible.
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