By Brad Harrell/reporter
Global warming has become a major issue around the world, a TCC administrator told a SE audience recently.
“The world is such a big thing that a single person can’t affect it,” said Dr. Timothy Gilbert, associate vice chancellor for learning support services, in The Challenge of Global Warming April 22.
Gilbert said the greenhouse effect, in which particular gases absorb heat, is causing the Earth’s temperature to slowly rise, creating global warming.
For the past 50 years, temperatures around the world have been spiking. The maximum temperature of different regions is not the one that’s rising, though. It’s the minimum temperature, Gilbert said.
“According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA, since the early 1970s, the average surface temperature of the Earth has risen more than 1 degree Fahrenheit,” he said.
Surface temperatures are still warming. Gilbert said signs of global warming appear in multiple locations around the world, and some areas are at risk.
Some of these at-risk locations include Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru and even the Himalayas.
Hurricanes are also a factor in global warming, Gilbert said. With ocean waters starting to warm with the Earth, hurricanes are becoming stronger and appear in places they haven’t before. While floods are occurring in some areas, an adjacent area is having a drought.
“Up to 400 million people could end up being displaced if global warming continues around the world,” he said.
In addition, hundreds of different animal species could die off, Gilbert said.
People can make an effort to save the Earth from global warming, he said.
The Internet can also help, Gilbert said. Web sites like theclimateproject.org and wecansolveit.org offer hints on how to be greener and what people can do to help stop global warming.
