Capstone Project - 2017: Climate Change

Articles

"Glaciers are melting, sea levels are rising, cloud forests are drying, and wildlife is scrambling to keep pace. It's becoming clear that humans have caused most of the past century's warming by releasing heat-trapping gases as we power our modern lives. Called greenhouse gases, their levels are higher now than in the last 650,000 years.

We call the result global warming, but it is causing a set of changes to the Earth's climate, or long-term weather patterns, that varies from place to place. As the Earth spins each day, the new heat swirls with it, picking up moisture over the oceans, rising here, settling there. It's changing the rhythms of climate that all living things have come to rely upon.

What will we do to slow this warming? How will we cope with the changes we've already set into motion? While we struggle to figure it all out, the face of the Earth as we know it—coasts, forests, farms and snow-capped mountains—hangs in the balance.

Article from National Geographic

Questions to Consider about Climate Change

• Which countries should take a leadership role in reducing greenhouse gases? What kinds of things should they do?
• How can developing countries limit greenhouse gases without the money to pay for new technologies?
• Which countries should spend the most money to fight climate change?
• What kind of laws should the international community pass in response to the climate change crisis?
• Why do some world leaders deny climate change? How do these leaders affect the quest to find solutions?
• What the the most important things the world can do to prepare for climate change?
• Should the world turn to nuclear power to reduce global warming?
• Should we all become vegetarians to reduce global warming?
• How will the poor -- as opposed to the wealthy -- be impacted by climate change?

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