Global warming is a big thing to worry about, but for a long time people didn't believe it was happening or that is was caused by people.

There is now lots of evidence that it is caused by humans and is affecting people right now.

This house is falling down because the frozen earth that it stood on has now melted. 

Al Gore, who was vice President of the United States, made a film called An Inconvenient Truth all about global warming. This is the trailer.

  

How does global warming work?

·      The sun shines on the earth and some of the rays stay in the earth’s atmosphere to keep the earth at just the right temperature and some of the rays bounce back into space.

·      Global warming happens when greenhouse gases are made and not as many rays are able to escape from the atmosphere so the atmosphere  warms up.

·      The earth’s atmosphere is like a blanket. When there are too many greenhouse gases, it's like the blanket gets thicker and so the earth gets warmer

     Greenhouse gases are named after greenhouses because they make the atmosphere warm up just like a greenhouse keeps plants warmer than they would be in the air outside.

This diagram shows how global warming works.

What are the greenhouse gases?

 The greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide, ozone, CFCs, methane, and nitrous oxide.

Many greenhouse gases are natural gases. Carbon dioxide is produced by cars, burning fossil fuels, and all humans and animals breathe it out. Ozone is in the atmosphere, CFCs come from aerosols (spray cans), and methane comes from decomposing organic matter (rotting food, or grass, etc) and cow farts!

Extra greenhouse gases are produced through pollution. One of the ways that humans pollute the atmosphere is through extra animal waste, burning too many fossil fuels (coal, gas), using our cars a lot, or  cutting down rain forests  (because plants use carbon dioxide to make food so if you cut down forests, you take away lots of the plants that would take in the carbon dioxide).

the green bit is what is left of one of the rainforest and the rest is how much they have cut down.

What about the ozone layer?

This is the hole in the ozone layer.

The ozone layer is another layer of the earth’s atmosphere. It is made up of ozone, which is a type of oxygen.


Ozone protects the earth from too many harmful sun rays.


Man’s activities are making the ozone layer get thinner so more harmful rays can get through to the earth.


Over the Antarctic there is a ‘hole’ in the ozone layer.

So what could happen?

This poor polar bear has been stranded on this block of ice  because of the ice caps melting.

•     Snow and ice would melt at the ice caps and this would make the sea rise.
•           Lots of cities could flood   and that could flood or destroy people’s homes.
•           More hurricanes and storms could come because of the changes in the atmosphere!
•           Some animals and plants could become extinct because the earth will be too hot for them and with plants being extinct we wouldn’t have as much oxygen.
•           Some rivers and lakes could dry up and that means we wouldn’t have as much water which would cause more droughts
•          There will be less water for drinking, washing and swimming. So a lot of us could be smelly from not washing or die from thirst because a lot of drinks need water in them.

What can we do to help?

There are lots of things we can do to try to stop global warming:

• ·      We can take glass bottles, jars, paper, tins, and plastic to be recycled.
• ·      Take showers instead of baths to save water
• ·      Use old plastic bags instead of getting new ones 
• ·      Use both sides of paper.
• ·      Pick products in the supermarket that don’t use much packaging
• ·      Lots of people go to school in cars. So instead, take some friends along
• ·      Walk, cycle, or use public transport instead of the car when you can.
• ·      Turn off the lights, computer, TV when you’re not in the room; it saves electricity.
• ·      Wear a jumper instead of turning the heating up
• ·      Wash clothes at 40 degrees or lower 

This is an example of metal recycling

It is hard to try and stop Global Warming because it is not just one thing it is lots of things and you have to do them all the time.