which is what makes it such a large contributor to world pollution. Plastic bags and containers are a
common household product and it is hard almost impossible to make a grocery trip without coming
home with a ridiculous amount of plastic that will be thrown away immediately.
Barcelona has already passed a law that prevents stores from giving their customers plastic
bags unless they pay 5 cents. It may not seem like a lot, but now customers bring reusable bags with
them to shop. This has changed how much plastic we are using in Barcelona. You can help continue
this change, by simply using the same bags everytime you go to the grocery store or go out shopping.
Although global warming will greatly affect humans, it will also impact the wildlife,
perhaps more heavily than it will affect us. The following shows how different environments are
affected and how the impacts differ from one another.
1. Sea level rise; rising sea levels can/will affect tens of millions of people, especially the ones
living on the coast and on islands.
2.
Coral Bleaching; Changes in ocean and sea temperature strip the color away from coral
and leave it more susceptible to disease and dying. This means that 1 - 9 million marine
species will be losing their habitats and will most likely go extinct.
3. Reefs; Less than 1,000 reef building species are known to mankind and reefs are
connected to almost everything in the ocean. This issue even connects to us, as a lot of our
seafood comes from reefs.
4. The Arctic Poles; the arctic poles will experience ice-free summers. Arctic ice recedes
every summer, but with the warming of the atmosphere, completely ice-free summers in
the arctic could be completely possible, leaving animals like polar bears and species of
penguin will be left to survive in an environment they have not evolved for.
5. Heat waves will also become much more common and will affect millions to billions of
people and communities. According to CNN, “...about 30% of the world's population (...)
experiences at least 20 days per year on which the deadly threshold(temperature) is
reached. By 2100, this percentage jumps to 74% of the population (...) if emissions
continue unchecked”. This means that deadly heat waves will become more and more