The earth is a lot like an oven. An oven heats up, making the internal temperature very high and cooking whatever is inside it. This is the case in today’s earth, only the thing that is getting cooked is the living organisms that reside on our beloved planet. With our technological advancements, we live out our lives easier and more convenient than ever, but at the same time, we are killing the planet that we live on. This issue is known as climate change and is keeping scientists awake at night due to the effects it has on the earth and ultimately, the future of the human race, but what exactly is climate change, and what is causing it?

Climate change is the change in global/regional climate patterns and is usually attributed to the increase of temperature in many parts of the world. This means that in regions where it is already warm, it would become warmer, making it uncomfortable for one to live there. More importantly, climate change is heating up the two poles, making the ice caps melt. This results in the rise of sea levels and could lead to the flooding of Hawaii, the Mascarene Islands, and other archipelagos. Climate change is a major problem in today’s world, but it was not an issue a few hundred years ago. In fact, this problem arose just last century, making us wonder: what is the cause of climate change? The answer to that is something that we all use in our daily lives, and that is our cars. Cars need fuel to kick start its engine, and to do so, it uses gas. When gas is burned inside the engine, the car produces carbon monoxide, which then floats up into our atmosphere. The atmosphere then deteriorates and lets more rays from the sun hit the earth’s surface. This action results in the heating of the earth, turning it into an oven. Cars are not the only producers of carbon monoxide, or what it is commonly referred to as, greenhouse gases. Things that contribute to climate change range from ore mining to factories that produce goods, and with the progression of technology and the increase of demands for a particular thing, the problem gets more and more severe. The question now then is, why is it not talked about on a daily basis?

Some may not realize it, but the topic of climate change is one that is implicitly talked about on a daily basis. Take for instance the bomb cyclone that has recently struck the east coast on the first week of January. The bomb cyclone that hit the east coast has brought record low temperatures and many inches of snow for countless states. When you think of a situation like this, you don’t contribute it to global warming, but climate change is actually the reason for the bomb cyclone. Due to there being more rays that hit the ocean, the ocean has heated up. On top of that, like I mentioned before, global warming has caused the poles to heat up, sending polar jet streams (fast air currents) down to North America. When mixed together, the warm ocean and frigid jet streams form a perfect concoction for a bomb cyclone. Now let’s suppose the problem of climate change gets worse each year. The result would be more and more records for low temperatures being broken, ultimately, turning the east coast into a winter wonderland, and no, this is not the fun kind.

As you can see, climate change is increasingly growing as a threat to the future of earth. If we are not able to combat it, we will soon be living on a not so lively planet. With that being said, innovators are coming up with ways to prevent this from happening. The cars that the company Tesla manufactures, run purely on electricity, making its cars less harmful to the environment. Also, we are now utilizing the wind in order to produce electricity, making greenhouse pollution less of an issue in nuclear power plants. The future of humanity and the world lies in the hands of the innovators of tomorrow; until then, all we can do is make sure we play our part in reducing greenhouse gas production.

<Timothy Rah Oxford Academy 10th Grade>