Global Warming Damages Fragile Arctic Areas

A group of over 300 scientists from 8 nations including the United States released an in depth report earlier this week on the Arctic's climate. The arctic zones are warming twice as fast as the rest of the world.

The group found many telltale signs that global warming has already caused damage. The recent cause of alarm has been the rapid warming that has occurred in arctic areas. Glaciers have become eroded, and sea ice as well as perma frost are expected to melt and change the state of the arctic environment. The arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world, and much of the wildlife in these regions is expected to die out; polar bears will not be living by the year 2100.

The rising of sea levels will amount to around 4 inches by the end of the century. Warming in arctic regions will have implications that extend worldwide.

The CNN report on November 8 stated: "Arctic temperatures are rising at almost twice the global average and could leap 4-7 Celsius (7-13 Fahrenheit) by 2100, roughly twice the global average projected by U.N. reports. Siberia and Alaska have already warmed by 2-3 C since the 1950s...Arctic temperatures are rising at almost twice the global average and could leap 4-7 Celsius (7-13 Fahrenheit) by 2100, roughly twice the global average projected by U.N. reports. Siberia and Alaska have already warmed by 2-3 C since the 1950s." Dan Lashof, a science director at NRDC Climate Center, the Natural Resources Defense Council stated, in the November 12 broadcast of NPR that "What happens in the arctic affects all of us, as ice melts there is less sunlight reflected into space and that amplifies the warming in the world as a whole. As ice melts from glaciers in Alaska and Greenland, that water goes into the oceans and ends up flooding areas like south Florida in particular and other places like New York... When they pulled all of the data together I think the scientists themselves were surprised with how stark the picture is, how rapid the warming has been and how rapid the ice is retreating, we have already seen a twenty percent reduction in summer sea ice and that has really caught people by surprise."

Senator John McCain, a republican from Arizona, has been fighting against Bush to decrease the pollutants released into the air by industrial parts of the United States. He has been trying to push the bill we wrote with Senator Lieberman that would curb the use of greenhouse gases. The bill is called the Climate Stewardship Act.

President Bush has abandoned his promise made in 2001 that he would restrict carbon dioxide from power plants. Bush has opposed putting restrictions on carbon dioxide as well as any other heat-trapping gases. Bush pulled the United States out of the 126 nation Kyoto establishment in 2001, he argued that it was too expensive to curb emissions of hazardous gases into our atmosphere, and because it is expensive, many countries would be left out. The Bush administration predicts that signing the treaty would cost the country 400 billion dollars and 5 million jobs.

Brian Eisenhauer a member of the social science department and an environmental enthusiast states that, "I personally do believe that global warming is our future. Almost all of the nations of the world do, the US has simply continued to deny it. We are the worst polluters and profit the most from it. Our country needs to join the rest of the world by acknowledging this as an issue and parcticipating in efforts to deal with it. In current administration our pollution standards have gotten weaker, and our contributions to the greenhouse effects-larger. The "Clean-Skies" program that the Bush administration put into place is classic double-speak. It allows for more emissions and less regulations. It makes dirtier skies. As just one example, the rest of the world has ratified the Kyoto protocol, and effort to reduce fossil fuel emissions world wide, but the US has refused to take part..despite the fact that the vast majority of scientists and nations in the world accept it as documented truth."

"We're seeing the effects of global warming right now in the arctic in a very dramatic way" Lashof states.