Sponsored Writing contest : Global warming

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The global warming became the most important issue of this century. More and more scientists along with politicians started to pay attention to Mother Nature's signals. Something has gone deeply wrong and today we are facing a major climate change.
How many of you noticed that summers are not what they used to be? Winters? No, dramatic displays of snow storms and fearceful cold.

In order to fight the global warming, we must understand what it is. There are many interesting articles all over the web related to this topic. To summarize them, a simple definition of the global warming, according to dictionary.com would be: "an increase in the earth's average atmospheric temperature that causes corresponding changes in climate and that may result from the greenhouse effect.".
Reading the above definition, it becomes clear that the major cause of the global warming is the greenhouse effect.
How can this be explained? Well...imagine Earth like a greenhouse, surrounded by the atmosphere. The difference between the atmosphere's composition and the different materials we use for building greenhouses is that it allows heat to disperse into the space. What's wrong then? We filled the air with carbon dioxide and different pollutants and we all know what happens if we spend some time inside a greenhouse with no source of ventilation.
We managed to break the atmosphere. Some of these substances can last for years, even centuries so we are a little bit doomed. Unless... we take the latest weather events as a wake-up call.

During the past several years we experienced severe weather conditions like heatwaves, heavy rains followed by floods, snow storms etc. Hurricanes and tornadoes sweep the Earth surface all over the world. As a perfect example, the heatwave in the UK and Japan, major fires in the US and Europe, heavy rains in Eastern Europe. You're not safe anywhere.

Other effects of the global warming are:

Sea and oceans levels increase - we might loose some coastal cities.
Ice melting all over the world (mountain glaciers, ice sheets covering West Antarctica) - wonderful wild species are in danger to become extinct as their habitat is about to disappear.
More and more invasive species are thriving - this effect leads to major impact over the farming and health.

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Considering the above, it becomes more difficult to picture our near future, let's say 10 years later. Even some of the scientists gave up and just embraced the inevitable. A controversial claim came from Guy McPherson, professor of Biology at University of Arizona: "It's locked down, it's been locked in for a long time - we're in the midst of our sixth mass extinction.".

I, personally, want to believe that there is hope. I want to trust the fellow humans that we all can do something to change these grim predictions.
The most important methods to reduce (or just slow down a bit) the global warming are within our reach. Perhaps if we plant trees instead of cutting them down, the CO2 levels will decrease. Riding a bike instead of driving fast cars is also a good thing to do. Burning fossil fuels and deforestation are a deadly combo for Mother Nature, and this is where we should intervene. Let's follow India's example who planted 50 million trees is one day.

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I finish this article on a positive note and ask the fellow steemians to take note of what is happening around us and make a change. As Captain Planet used to say, "The power is yours!".
Also, I have something to ask the politicians and all those who have the POWER:
Don't take away our children's future!

This is my entry to Writing contest hosted by Hive account@steem-contest. Feel free to join as the theme is one of major importance for all of us.