Reversing Global Warming: The Imperative Fuel Switch

In order to reverse the effects of global warming, we must stop using fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas immediately and switch to alternative fuels such as solar and wind. Global warming is already having harmful effects on our communities, our health, and our climate. Sea level rise is accelerating, large wildfires are growing and dangerous heat wave numbers are increasing. Certain areas of the world are experiencing extreme storm events which are devastating homes, destroying habitats and killing animals as well as people. . Along with extreme heat, many areas are also experiencing severe drought. Many areas are so dry that they can not even grow food or reach water to sustain life. We must take action against global warming

Whenever we burn fossil fuels such as coal, oil or gas, we are emitting more carbon dioxide into our atmosphere. Normal levels of carbon dioxide is nessessary in order for life to exist. Without carbon dioxide, our temperatures would plumment at night and soar during the day. The greenhouse effect traps in some of the heat from the sun and keeps our planet at a moderate temperature. Carbon dioxide and methane in our atmosphere absorbs heat from the sun keeping our planet from getting too hot or too cold, but after over 200 years of buring fossil fuels to heat our homes, power our electronics and fuel our automobils we have significantly increased the carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere causing our planet to hold in too much

Even as we work to reduce global warming emissions, we must also prepare for this dangerous new reality.A global leader in climate action, California has the nation 's most comprehensive, economy-wide global warming pollution reduction program.Across the Midwest, records show that spring is arriving sooner, dangerously hot weather is occurring more often, and winters are becoming warmer and less snowy.Sea levels are rising much faster along the Northeast and mid-Atlantic coast than globally, steadily increasing the risk of destructive coastal flooding events.Increasing temperatures, accelerating sea level rise, and more frequent and intense heat waves are just some of the climate impacts that Southeast states can expect.Major disease outbreaks worsened by warming waters now strike sea life five times more than when Perez, a marine ecologist with the French government, began studying the Mediterranean in the 1990s. Water temperatures have risen two to three times faster than across the world’s oceans at large. Half of the Mediterranean 's fish are pushing north, with wrasses and barracuda once native to North Africa now common off southern France.Yet just four hours away by train, international climate negotiators in Paris have been reluctant to even mention oceans in their formal blueprints outlining an action plan for