The Earth Has a “Fever”—Is There a Cure?
THE symptoms are showing—the temperature is rising. A case in point is the Alaskan village Newtok, located in the subarctic. The once frozen subsoil—known as permafrost—on which Newtok is built is melting. “I don’t want to live in permafrost [anymore],” lamented a resident named Frank. “It’s too muddy.” Studies say that within ten years, this coastal village could be washed away. The “warming of the climate system is unequivocal,” concluded the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Rising global temperatures testify to this fact. What scientists call climate change has resulted in extreme weather, including droughts, heavy precipitation, heat waves, and hurricanes worldwide. What will happen to our planet? Is there a cure? What Causes Global Warming? There are three positions on global warming: (1) that global warming is not occurring and so neither is climate change; (2) that global warming and climate change are occurring, but these are natural, cyclic eve