News Article

During the next 100 years, the earth's average temperature will rise by two to six degrees Fahrenheit. Record heat waves will generate severe hurricanes, tornadoes, monsoons and typhoons unlike any the earth has ever known. Many species of plants and animals will become extinct.

The polar ice sheets will melt, causing the sea level to rise three to five feet. Low-lying coastal areas will sink, putting Florida, New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Bombay, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Sydney and Bangladesh under the sea.

Intense rainfall will flood the interior areas as well.

Species

African wildlife, already threatened by the incursion of farming, will flee and die as weather changes destroy habitats. Giraffes. Elephants. Hippos. Great apes.

In North America, weather-related destruction of plant and animal habitats will bring about mass extinctions. Desert tortoise. Fennec fox. Frogs and toads.

In South America the clearing and burning of the rainforest is already destroying untold numbers of trees. Additional climate changes will speed up the annihilation of thousands to millions of species of plants and animals each year, none of which can ever be recovered. Seventy-five species per day of beetles. Elaphidiini beetles. An exquisite orchid.

Biodiversity

Our Biosphere thrives on diversity. Our survival depends upon maintaining a large variety of plants and animals.

If all species except humans died out, we could not survive, for we would have no food. If all but a few species died out, we might survive for a short time, but those species would be so vulnerable to disease and climate change that they would soon die out.

Famine

Grain yields will decline, even in developed nations. Grain-growing regions will shift. Some areas that were cold and dry will become warm and wet, while other areas that were cold and wet will become hot and dry. Deserts will expand. Heat-induced wildfires will burn out of control.

Droughts will increase in severity, causing widespread famine.

Disease

Epidemic disease will run rampant as water supplies become unreliable. Pests such as rats, mice, mosquitoes, flies, fleas, lice and locusts will multiply at astonishing rates, resulting in great losses to humans from diseases such as malaria and encephalitis.

Global Warming

The major contributor to global warming is carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, especially coal, oil and gas. These human-created gases are released into the atmosphere, where they trap the sun's heat, creating the greenhouse effect. Other gases escape into the stratosphere, thinning the ozone layer and allowing dangerous ultraviolet rays to penetrate the earth.

In a developed country each person uses about ten times as much fossil fuels as a person in an undeveloped country.

Population

As the world's population increases, each new person burns additional fossil fuels that release carbon dioxide into the air, increasing the greenhouse effect and thinning the ozone layer. Our near-future population could stress the environment far beyond what it can sustain so that the earth would change in ways that would make it uninhabitable for humans.

The Real Solution

Meredith read over what she had written.

Sounds too dry, she thought. Though all of these facts are true, the real solution must come from elsewhere, from the spiritual realm, but how to find it?