I never really grasped the total effects of climate change. I knew it was happening, and I knew that it wasn’t good, but I never really thought of it as something that would directly affect me. In fact, I didn’t realize that the more sever effects would take place in my lifetime. While examining Global Weirding (http://globalweirding.is/here), I began to have a sinking feeling in my stomach. I was surprised to observe that Climate Change was already beginning to have significant effects on the world right now, and even back in 2013-14. We have had the three warmest decades in a row in recorded history, which shocked me in a way, as there is quite a bit of recorded history.
Another aspect of climate change that I wasn’t aware of was that there could be intense flooding as a result of more precipitation from the evaporation of water. In fact, in North America, there could me more extreme weather events like storms or flooding due to this phenomenon. I think the some of the reasons the website might be called Global Weirding is due to the more strange and obscure events that many of us didn’t expect, like the increased spread of aquatic pathogens or that power plants could have problems with excess jellyfish due to increased reproduction because of higher acidity of the oceans due to carbon absorption.
I think the effect that frightens me the most from the slideshow is the lack of water that begins to dominate the news in the future. I never really thought in my head that I would ever have to deal with problems such as water shortages, as we don’t live in a dry or arid climate, but the more temperatures rose on the slide, it seemed that a huge water shortage crisis would manifest itself in the future if climate change isn’t addressed. Climate Change would also affect poorer, less developed nations much more heavily than developed countries with a stable government and advanced infrastructure, as the developed nations already have an abundance of water and systems in place for disasters. What I didn’t realize was that even if everyone on the planet were to contribute to halting greenhouse emissions and cease all fossil fuel use, there is already enough carbon in the atmosphere that some climate change is already inevitable.
The end of the first scenario seemed to be the apocalypse. Multiple mass extinctions would occur and irreversible damage would make several places uninhabitable by people. Despite the fact that some climate change is now unavoidable, I still believe we as a society can make a change for the better and eventually cease emitting greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. It only depends on when we act, and to what extent we change. Like as what was said in class, it seems that the belief in climate change is still a partisan issue in the United States, when a vast majority of the world’s scientific community states that climate change is very much real, and affecting us right now. An issue like this can’t afford to be partisan when the fate of the world is at stake.
1. “Global Weirding.” Global Weirding. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Jan. 2015. (http://globalweirding.is/here)
I also had a mini heart attack when looking at all the different possible effect on global weirding. It seemed I was waiting to see “United States of America” float along the screen every time I saw a new comment pop up. Although you see many more post about the other half of the world rather than the US, it still puts knots in my stomach that all these things are true facts that could happen while we are still alive.
It was interesting to look at global weirding because the things that they said were going to happen just did not seem possible. The fact that most of the population was going to be without sufficient water or the rising temperature impacts were almost too much to comprehend. That website really opened my eyes to global warming as a whole and I think that it was an important website that everyone should look through.
Global Weirding really interested me because it was the first website that I had seen before that predicted future climate change effects all over the world. It scared me when I realized how many of those impacts would most likely be true in the future. I do agree with what you said about how even if everyone on the planet were to stop emitting greenhouse gases and cease all fossil fuel use that it wouldn’t stop climate change because the emission of greenhouse gases and fossil fuels have been happening for far too long. Unfortunately, now we really can’t stop climate change completely, which is scary.