Humanities Project

1. Global Warming in Canada and the Artic Circle By: Mitchel Elliott 9B

2. What is Global Warming Global warming is basically the world heating up because of green house gases. The green house gases, which are carbon dioxide, water vapor, methane and nitrous oxide, trap the heat of the sun’s rays which stay in the atmosphere. Since it is in the atmosphere the rays heat up the world more than they should. This is what warms the earth.

3. The Public Needs To Know Global warming is an increasingly important issue that needs to be presented to the public. Effects from global warming in Canada affects the north more than it does the south; although global warming does impact all of Canada.

4. Negatives of Global Warming It takes the ice longer to freeze over. This means snowmobiles cannot cross the rivers on their machines until the ice freezes over. Glaciers are melting and are getting very small and scarce in certain places. The melting glaciers can rise the sea levels and will eventually cause flooding. The ice also affects the polar bears. The bears stay around land until the ice freezes over. The bears need the ice to freeze over so they can hunt. They won’t hunt unless the ice is frozen over and this will affect the population of the polar bears if global warming keeps up.

5. We Need the Ice People depend on the ice for many things. Another big reason of why we need ice is the ice road truckers. Towns in the north of Canada that is near the border of Alaska depend on getting their supplies by the trucks that use the ice roads. If global warming keeps up then the ice will melt and those towns will have to find a brand new way of getting the supplies that they need.

6. Global Warming Needs to Stop In the northern parts of Canada such as Nunavut global warming even affects the brightness outside. In Nunavut since it is so high up north they have three months of darkness. Pretty much the sun doesn’t come out for three months. Global warming is making this stage brighter so it’s not as dark in those three months as it used to be. Global warming affects more than just the polar bears. Global warming increases the sea level therefore killing/drowning plants on islands that are only at sea level. When these plants die then the animals that eat those plants will have lost their food source. That means that, that animal will die and the animal that eats the animal that eats the plants will also die because their food source have died.

7. We Can Help There are many things that can be done to help decrease global warming. There are small things that can help such as car pooling, so you do not release as much carbon dioxide into the air as you would going to school or work by yourself. You can also turn off electrical appliances when you are done using them and you can change your light bulbs to the new energy efficient light bulbs. Doing all of these in home things to prevent global warming will help but it will not give us all the help that we need. Basically we would need to do bigger things such as, when cutting down trees plant one for every tree you cut down; shut down polluting factories until they can reach environmental requirements.

8. Take The Extra Step A new way that can help you and the environment is clean energy. Clean energy can be solar energy, wind energy and hydro energy. All three of these things take natural things to create energy that can be used in your home. Solar energy is very effect full when you are in some place sunny such as the Middle East. All you would need to do is put a solar panel on your roof and hook it up to a generator that can store your energy. This is one way that people can help the environment and themselves just by staying at home.

9. Bibliography " Global Warming Hits Canada's Remotest Arctic Lands." commondreams.org. commondreams.org, Web. 1 Feb 2010. <http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0419-07.htm>. "Global warming and Canada." clean energy ideas . clean-energy-ideas.com, Web. 1 Feb 2010. <http://www.clean-energy-ideas.com/global_warming/global_warming_and_canada.html>. "What is global warming." Global Warming. Web. 1 Feb 2010. <http://library.thinkquest.org/CR0215471/global_warming.htm>. "1995-2004 Mean Temperatures." Web. 1 Feb 2010. <http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/sage/climate/lesson2/images/Global_Warming_Map.jpg>. "How to prevent global warming." ways-to-stop-global-warming.com. Web. 1 Feb 2010. <http://www.ways-to-stop-global-warming.com/how-to-prevent-global-warming.html>. "melting ice caps." Web. 4 Feb 2010. <http://search.creativecommons.org/#>. "polar bear mother and cub." Web. 6 Feb 2010. < www.flickr.com/photos/merula/152599254/>. "Ice Road Truckers." Web. 6 Feb 2010. <http://realitytvmagazine.sheknows.com/blog/images/2008/06/ice-road-truckers-2.jpg>. "Northern Lights ." Web. 6 Feb 2010. < www.flickr.com/photos/11304375@N07/2045648290/>. "Spruce Tree." Web. 6 Feb 2010. <flickr.com/photos/redclayproject/2748798146/>. "Wind Turbines." Web. 6 Feb 2010. < www.flickr.com/photos/stuartyeates/93821358/>.