Over the past century, humans have raised our planet's temperature. They did this by industrial activity and by using internal combustion engines which generate gases that trap the sun's rays in the atmosphere. This then causes what's called the greenhouse effect. The greenhouse gases are methane, nitrous oxide, and especially carbon dioxide. The more C02 that is released in to the atmosphere, the hotter it gets. Before the Industrial Revolution, the atmosphere contained about 280 parts per million of C02. Today the figure is 360 p.p.m. Top climatologists, say by the end of next century the C02 level will be somewhere between 480 to 800 p.p.m.

1995 was the warmest year since they started to keep global records in 1856. 1991-1995 was the warmest five year period in recorded history. The temperature is rising because of human activity and it has risen one degree this century. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts the temperature will rise another 2-6 degrees Fahrenheit over the next century. In many areas of the West, Midwest, Northeast and Northern U.S. the temperatures are already three degrees warmer. In the future we may see deadly heat waves such as the heat wave in Chicago that occurred in 1995 and killed so many people the morgue couldn't handle all the bodies.

Jonathan Boots

Source: Global Climate Change, Sierra Magazine, 1997.