Program #2047
ambience: Sound of climate change
The temperature of the earth’s atmosphere appears to be rising over time. And although we still don’t fully understand why this change is occurring, some scientists feel that it’s not too early to take action. I’m Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet, presented by DuPont.
We’re listening to one-thousand years of climate change, translated into sound. Those rising notes indicate higher global temperatures over the last century.
“It’s clear that the temperatures that we’ve seen, especially in the last decade or so, the 1990s have just been increasingly warm throughout the globe and you become increasingly convinced that something quite unusual is going on.”
Raymond Bradley, Head of the Department of Geosciences at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, tells us that this rise in global temperatures probably has to do with human industrialization-particularly the burning of fossil fuels and the resulting rise in greenhouse gasses, which trap heat in the Earth’s atmosphere. And even though not all scientists agree on the causes of global warming, it’s a warning that we humans may need to change our ways.
“I mean we can argue about whether the temperature changes that we’ve seen over the last century are partly due to natural variations but let’s face it, the fact is that greenhouse gases are very likely to double in the atmosphere. These would be absolutely unprecedented levels of greenhouse gases. Unprecedented for tens of millions of years. Are we being good stewards of the planet to say oh, there’s not going to be any effect of that. We don’t know. We can’t be sure and it would be absurd not to take that threat seriously.
Pulse of the Planet is presented by DuPont, bringing you the miracles of science, with additional support provided by the National Science Foundation. I’m Jim Metzner.
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