global warming

One of the major challenges of the 21st century is global warming.
Global warming is when the earth heats up (the temperature rises). It happens when greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, water vapor, nitrous oxide, and methane) trap heat and light from the sun in the earth’s atmosphere, which increases the temperature. This hurts many people, animals, and plants. Many cannot take the change, so they die.

Greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere that collect heat and light from the sun. With too many greenhouse gasses in the air, the earth’s atmosphere will trap too much heat and the earth will get too hot. As a result people, animals, and plants would die because the heat would be too strong.

Many things cause global warming.One thing that causes global warming is electrical pollution.Electricity causes pollution in many ways, some worse than others.In most cases, fossil fuels are burned to create electricity. Fossil fuels are made of dead plants and animals.Some examples of fossil fuels are oil and petroleum.Many pollutants(chemicals that pollute the air, water, and land) are sent into the air when fossil fuels are burned.Some of these chemicals are called greenhouse gases.

The government is doing many things to help stop global warming.The government made a law called The Clean Air Act so there is less air pollution. Global warming is making people get very bad illnesses that could make them disabled, very sick, and sometimes even die. The Clean Air Act is making many companies change their products to decrease these problems. Part of the law says that you may not put a certain amount of pollutants in the air. Hairspray and some other products, like foam cups, had this problem. Making and using these products let out too much volatile organic compounds (VOC’s), ozone-destroying chemicals (chlorofluorocarbons (CFC’s),and related chemicals (such as CO2) into the air. Now, almost all of these products have a label on them telling people what this product can do to the environment and many people.

The Clean Air Act has also made car companies change some of the things inside of the cars. Cars pollute a lot. While cars make more than half of the world’s smog (visible pollution in the air), many things that cars need to move and heat up make even more pollution. Some things that are inside of cars, buses, trucks, and motorcycles, like gasoline, pollute the air when the fuel is burned. It comes out as a chemical and when mixed in the air, forms smog.