Data Journalism Edition: The Impacts of Global Warming

According to the National Climate Assessment, the main cause of global warming is human influences. Despite scientific consensus on the existence and main cause of global warming— human activities leading to increased CO2 emissions—30% of American adults don’t believe global warming is happening and more than 50% do not attribute it to humans. This is in stark contrast to the beliefs of BCA students surveyed.

90% of BCA students believe global warming is happening, and an overwhelming majority responded that it is caused by human activities.

Global warming puts coastal cities, such as New York, Los Angeles, and Miami, in danger of being submerged. Climate experts project that the world’s sea level will rise by one to four feet by 2100 according to the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC). The cause of the rising sea level is the average temperature in the Arctic, which is rising twice as fast as anywhere else on Earth. Rising sea levels result from rising global temperature, which is expected to increase by at least eight degrees Fahrenheit by the year 2100. This seemingly small difference will cause grave consequences. This dangerous global phenomenon will affect every organism in our ecosystem.

While less than half of BCA students believe that global warming is harming people currently, global warming has already impacted our lives. In 2015, the United States suffered $1 billion in losses due to severe storms, floods, drought, and wildfires, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The number of natural disasters has been steadily increasing f

or decades. Illnesses and deaths will follow extreme heat and natural disasters.

Compared to the national average of 70% of US adults, as provided by the Yale Program on Climate Communication’s ““Yale Climate Opinion Maps – U.S. 2014,” approximately 90% of BCA students have responded that they believe global warming is happening.

According to the NRDC, global warming was named ‘the biggest global health threat of the 21st century’ by today’s scientists.

The survey results also showed that the percentage of BCA students who believe human activities are the main cause of global warming is nearly a 40%  increase from the percentage of U.S. adults who have said so from a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center.

43% of BCA students believe global warming is already harming people in the US, a value that is approximately equal to the percentage of US adults who believe the same, according to the “Yale Climate Opinion Maps – U.S. 2014.”

Only a few BCA students have responded that global warming will harm them a great deal personally, contrary to the majority who responded that people in the U.S. are being harmed right now.

According to the NRDC, global warming was named “the biggest global health threat of the 21st century” by today’s scientists. Despite popular opinion, global warming is and will continue harming people in the US and each individual personally as carbon emissions stay on its current path.