ENGLISH FOR ENGINEERS ENGLISH V

Essay draft 15%

Name: Alejandra Restrepo Gañan ID 1039884876

Type of essay: expository

DANGER!! WARNING!! THE HUMANS CAME TO THE BLUE PLANET.

While our ancestors have been around for about six million years, the modern form of
humans only evolved about 200,000 years ago. Civilization as we know it is only about
6,000 years old, and industrialization started in the earnest only in the 1800s. While we’ve
accomplished much in that short time, it also shows our responsibility as caretakers for
the only planet we live on right now.

The Earth's climate has changed throughout history. Just in the last 650,000 years there
have been seven cycles of glacial advance and retreat, with the abrupt end of the last ice
age about 7,000 years ago marking the beginning of the modern climate era — and of
human civilization. Most of these climate changes are attributed to very small variations in
Earth’s orbit that change the amount of solar energy our planet receives

Impacts from climate change are happening now. These impacts extend well beyond an
increase in temperature, affecting ecosystems and communities in the United States and
around the world. Things that we depend upon and value — water, energy,
transportation, wildlife, agriculture, ecosystems, and human health — are experiencing
the effects of a changing climate.

The planet's average surface temperature has risen about 1.62 degrees Fahrenheit (0.9
degrees Celsius) since the late 19th century, a change driven largely by increased carbon
dioxide and other human-made emissions into the atmosphere. Most of the warming
occurred in the past 35 years, with the five warmest years on record taking place since
2010

On Earth, human activities are changing the natural greenhouse. Over the last century the
burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil has increased the concentration of atmospheric
carbon dioxide (CO2). This happens because the coal or oil burning process combines
carbon with oxygen in the air to make CO2. To a lesser extent, the clearing of land for
agriculture, industry, and other human activities has increased concentrations of
greenhouse gases.

The industrial activities that our modern civilization depends upon have raised
atmospheric carbon dioxide levels from 280 parts per million to 400 parts per million in
the last 150 years. The panel also concluded there's a better than 95 percent probability
that human-produced greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous
oxide have caused much of the observed increase in Earth's temperatures over the past
50 years.

The potential future effects of global climate change include more frequent wildfires,
longer periods of drought in some regions and an increase in the number, duration and
intensity of tropical storms. Credit: Left - Mellimage/Shutterstock.com, center - Montree
Hanlue/Shutterstock.com.

The human´s impact the physical environment in many ways: overpopulation, pollution,
burning fossil fuels, and deforestation. Changes like these have triggered climate change,
soil erosion, poor air quality, and undrinkable water. These negative impacts can affect
human behavior and can prompt mass migrations or battles over clean water.

The consequences of environmental pollution can be seen in the form of severe health
diseases. Humans are also regularly harmed by pollution. Long-term exposure to air
pollution, for example, can lead to chronic respiratory disease, lung cancer and other
diseases. Environmental pollution has become a great concern to save our planet. Our
earth is moving on the way to unhealthy future for every living being. Governments are
also emphasizing on planting more trees, eliminating plastic products and limited the
pesticides. For the marine life the production of plastic has many consequences and the
outlook for turtles that eat plastic is bleak: for 22% ingesting just one plastic item can be a
death sentence. Sharp plastics can rupture internal organs and bags can cause intestinal
blockages leaving turtles unable to feed, resulting in starvation.

Climate change is one of the most complex issues facing us today. It involves many
dimensions – science, economics, society, politics and moral and ethical questions – and is
a global problem, felt on local scales, that will be around for decades and centuries to
come. Carbon dioxide, the heat-trapping greenhouse gas that has driven recent global
warming, lingers in the atmosphere for hundreds of years, and the planet (especially the
oceans) takes a while to respond to warming. So even if we stopped emitting all
greenhouse gases today, global warming and climate change will continue to affect future
generations. In this way, humanity is “committed” to some level of climate change.

NASA is a world leader in climate studies and Earth science. While its role is not to set
climate policy or prescribe particular responses or solutions to climate change, its purview
does include providing the robust scientific data needed to understand climate change.
NASA then makes this information available to the global community – the public, policy-
and decision-makers and scientific and planning agencies around the world.

Let's start a change today, our planet, our home.

https://www.techtimes.com/articles/61545/20150619/early-humans-have-been-
polluting-the-earth-400000-years-ago-says-researchers.htm

https://www.worldwildlife.org/threats/pollution

https://www.history.com/topics/natural-disasters-and-environment/water-and-air-
pollution
https://climate.nasa.gov/causes/

https://www.universetoday.com/38125/how-long-have-humans-been-on-earth/