Climate Change: How is it Effecting The Life of Penguins?

What is climate change? Climate change is when the climate has had a drastic difference in weather in the past. Does this mean it changes from summer to winter? No. When the weather changes from summer to winter, it is a huge difference in temperature but its considered a normal routine. It doesn’t do enough to hurt the environment. When the climate changes, this means it is changing in a way that it has never changed before. The most common type of climate change would be global warming. Global warming is when the Earth’s surface is warming up because of the amount of CO2 in the air. Global warming affects many animals of the polar regions, including penguins, polar bears, whales and many others. Penguins have recently become a huge factor in animals getting harmed.

To start, climate has influenced life of penguins for years. For a long time, climate changes helped penguins. Recently it’s been proven that the climate is no longer helping penguins but instead harming them. In recent studies done by the papers Scientific Reports, it’s been estimated that by 2060, over thirty percent of the Adélie penguins on Earth will be gone. In another study, in 2099 the population will have a decline of around 60 percent. During the cold winters of Antarctica, penguins, such as Emperor penguins (largest penguins; growing up to four feet tall), create huddles to keep each other warm. Huddles can become broken up by gusts of warm air. If global warming continues to be a problem, penguin huddles will be broken up when they feel as if it’s too warm. Antarctica is covered with icebergs. An iceberg is also known as a large mass of ice that has been frozen for billions of years. They froze from the freezing cold air that surrounds that area of the world. Global warming can make these icebergs melt, which means that if penguins or other species lived on these, their homes are now destroyed.

How can we stop global warming? There are many ways that we can help prevent global warming. After all, we did create it. Global warming can be caused by many different things humans do every day. One thing that has a giant impact on global warming is greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gases are caused by the Earth’s atmosphere and the radiation from the sun combining to make a warmth in the environment. Things humans do, effect global warming and climate changes more than anything else on Earth. Some chemicals and gases that us humans use can be harmful to the environment and species that live in them. The most common gas that is harmful is carbon dioxide (CO2). CO2 absorbs infrared radiation, so the more carbon dioxide we use; the more radiation becomes transmitted into the air. This can become very harmful to many species in the lower regions especially. Again, look at the penguins, if Antarctica becomes too warm the glaciers may start to melt and ruin some of their homes. Also, if Earth is too warm species like krill (a penguin’s prey) can die and their population rates can go down and the penguins won’t have enough food for all of the to eat. This would cause all the penguins to die and without penguins the seals and polar bears can’t eat and it begins a long spree of extinct species. Today, Donald Trump (current president of the United States 2017) is backing out of the Paris Climate Act. Scientists say this could have a long term effect on the climate on Earth. Trump is also rolling back on federal environmental regulations.

To conclude, I urge you to stop drinking out of disposable water bottles to prevent greenhouse gases. Try and avoid as much pollution and using plastic as you can. It’s impossible to avoid plastic for good, but try reusing plastic and recycling the plastic you don’t use. After all, what’s more important, all species (including humans) being in danger or you drinking out of a bottle you can never use again?

  1. What should the United States of America do to stop global warming?
  1. Is dropping out of the Paris Climate Change act a good or bad thing to do? Why?
  1. How will climate change effect US in the future and how will it effect penguins?

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