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Chance Stephenson

Hackney

English 10 3rd Period

28 November 2016

How Carpool Can Save the Polar Bears

In this day and age people have equipment or tools for almost everything, no

matter what it is. The problem is how to power all of this machinery. The United States of

America and other countries rely on methods, such as burning fossil fuels to power all of

the machinery humans use in their everyday lives. These methods are very harmful to

the environment and cause global warming. In addition to these issues, there are other

factors that contribute to harming the environment. In the past fifteen years, scientists

have studied the effects humans have had on the polar ice caps. Because the

destruction of the ice caps is caused by global warming, people must reduce

their carbon footprint. There is an abundance of research on how the polar ice caps

are melting. In a matter of time there will be no polar ice caps and the outcome could be

catastrophic. People must attempt to reduce their carbon output to save the polar ice

caps and all the animals that live there.

Climate change is a real issue and it will affect the ice caps. Using measurements

between 1979 to 2000 the polar ice caps have had record-low ice levels in the sea and

record setting highs in temperature (Geggel). This means that in a matter of twenty one

years, the ice caps have been more affected by climate change than it has ever been.

The reason the icecaps are melting is the record high temperatures.The sheets of ice

regulate the temperature by reflecting the sun's rays back into space cooling down the
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earth (Geggel). The ice caps are very important to the world. It cools down the earth by

reflecting the back rays of sun. This mean that if the ice caps were to melt, the earth

would go through a major climate change, more so than the changes that have occurred

so far. This would affect man and his surroundings. Jennifer Francis is a research

professor in the Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences at Rutgers University in New

Jersey. She is explaining that climate change is real and it is not just happening in the ice

caps. "The loss of the sea ice, the increased melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet, the

thawing of permafrost, the changes in the weather patterns, the rising sea level it's all

consistent with their expectations for the response of the climate system to increases in

greenhouse gases," Francis said. "It's been totally expected. What's not expected is how

fast it's been happening" (Geggel). It is happening everywhere, as she stated in the

example of Greenland. She also explains that it must have to do with the increase in

greenhouse gases, which is carbon dioxide. By connecting the increase in carbon dioxide

and the climate change people have had in the past couple years, she has made a

relevant and crucial connection. Some statistics are, our analysis shows that livestock

and their byproducts actually account for at least 32,564 million tons of carbon dioxide

per year, or 51 percent of annual worldwide GHG emission (Anhang). A very large

number of carbon dioxide is produced by livestock. All of this research supports that the

ice caps are being affected by climate change and that climate change is being caused

by the increase of carbon dioxide produced by humans.

The ice caps are melting away at a very fast speed and climate change is coming

at a very alarming speed as well. Santas Sweltering article on the topic of ice caps

melting says Birkel an Arctic scientist said the broader background is that the climate
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is warming, (and) the Arctic is warming very much so, more so than any other part of the

globe,(Geggel). Birkel is saying that the world is warming but it happening especially

fast in the arctic where all the ice caps are. According to Lahra Geggel, in 2000 the North

Pole was thirty-seven degrees fahrenheit warmer than its has been in the past ten years

(Geggel). This is very alarming that a whole thirty-seven degrees has increased in North

Pole. The amount of increase in temperatures in different parts of the world could be the

difference between wearing a winter coat and wearing shorts and a t-shirt. Satellite data

tells us that West Antarctica is not melting on the surface as much as it usually is said to

be, but is losing a large amount of mass do to the warmer waters surrounding it

(Conway). The ice caps aren't melting on the surface as much as usual but is

disappearing without showing obvious melting. This can be dangerous because the ice

caps are going away fast and making it where people can overlook the melting because

it is in such in an abnormal spot. Research shows that Gravity data collected from space

using NASA's Grace satellite show that Antarctica has been losing more than a hundred

cubic kilometers (24 cubic miles) of ice each year since 2002 (Conway). Over twenty

four cubic miles of ice is disappearing each year. This is a very fast pace of melting. This

is larger than the size of New York which is 22 cubic miles. Understandably, one New

York sized ice is gone after each year and all of these sources show that the the ice cap

are disappearing at a fast rate.

Humans are the reason that there is global warming. An article on why carpooling

can save the world says Governments are responding with incentive programs for those

who use green transportation and with faster-moving carpool lanes on major highways

and interstates (Gibbons). Some governments realize that the burning of fossil fuels are
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harmful and they are trying to reduce the amount that people burn. About two of the

three people who carpool are doing it so that they can reduce their carbon footprint

(Gibbons). Along with the government, the average person knows that it is bad to burn

gasoline at that the rate people do so they carpool to try and reduce their carbon

footprint. An article on human made carbon dioxide and how it affects the environment

says Livestock (like automobiles) are a human invention and convenience, not part of

pre-human times, and a molecule of CO2 exhaled by livestock is no more than one from

an auto tailpipe (Anhang). All of this carbon dioxide is bad for the environment and

people need to reduce the amount of the the carbon footprint not by just carpooling, but

also by reducing beef consumption. The amount of carbon dioxide humans make directly

or indirectly cause the offset of balance of carbon dioxide to the amount of carbon

dioxide that can be taken in by plants (Anhang). The amount of the carbon dioxide

humans produce must be reduced to equal to the amount that plant can naturally take

up. Thes information tells us that people must fix the bad habits that they have of

producing so much carbon dioxide, in order to save the world that humans and animals

share.

There has been damage to the ice caps, but people can prevent further damage. If

people will realize that climate change is real, it is coming fast and that it is up to us to

fix it, then people can prevent the ice caps from melting away. Then maybe people can

make changes to make a better and cleaner planet.


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Works Cited

Anhang, Jeff and, Goodland, Robert. "Livestock Contributes to Global Warming."

Vegetarianism, edited by Amy Francis, Greenhaven Press, 2015. Current

Controversies.

Conway, Erik. "Antarctica Is Melting." Can Glacier and Ice Melt Be Reversed?, edited by

Roman Espejo, Greenhaven Press, 2014. At Issue.

Geggel, Laura. Santa's Sweltering: North Pole Soars 36 Degrees Above Normal. Live

science. Nov. 13 2015.

Gibbons, Jonathan. Reduce your carbon footprint and help make carpooling cool again

Nooga. April 25, 2016.

Terrell, Rebecca. "Are the ice caps melting? The phrase 'the ice caps are melting!' is

almost a chant by those hanging on to climate-change theory despite much

evidence of IPCC-scientist fraud. So what's up with the ice?" The New

American, 15 Feb. 2010,

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