Experts say global warming is caused by a blanket of carbon dioxide that surrounds the Earth and traps in heat. Many experts refer to it as the carbon dioxide (CO2) blanket. Normally, the atmosphere allows excess heat to rise away from Earth. By pumping tremendous amounts of carbon dioxide into the air, we are creating a thick, heat-trapping blanket that is causing the planet to warm and resulting in all sorts of problems.

Climatic effects of global warming vary from region to region—they include drought, hurricanes, excessive rainfall and floods. And it does not eliminate harsh, cold winters, even as the Arctic ice melts.

Impacts of Global Warming in BC

• The largest insect plague in the history of BC’s forests has ravaged a landscape approximately the size of the United Kingdom, as the absence of cold winters facilitates the spread of the mountain pine beetle.
• Higher than usual ocean temperatures force salmon to feed farther north and travel further to return home--contributing to a significant reduction in sockeye salmon returns to the Fraser River in 2007. 
• Mountain glaciers are melting, winter precipitation is increasingly becoming rain rather than snow, and the spring snow melt is arriving earlier--all of which will stress future freshwater supplies, especially in summer.
  

Facts about Global Warming

• Many scientists say we have less than 20 years to reduce carbon emissions before the process of global warming reaches the point of no return.
• A 2006 study by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences found that the Earth is the hottest it has been in 400 years, and possibly in the past “several millennia.” The same study found that “human activities are responsible for much of the recent warming.”
• The year 2007 tied for the second-hottest year on record globally, falling just short of the record set in 2005. The six hottest years on record, in descending order, are 2005, 2007 and 1998 (tied), 2002, 2003 and 2006.
• The most profound changes are showing up in the Arctic. From 1980 to 2005, the area of summer sea ice was cut in half and thinned so much it lost 80 per cent of its volume. From 2005 to September 2007, a further 1.2 million square kilometres melted--an area 1.26 times bigger than British Columbia! The present melt rate leads scientists to predict that summer sea ice will be gone completely between 2010 and 2030.
• Polar bears are increasingly endangered as the frozen sea ice on which they depend--for giving birth and hunting seals--disappears.
• The overarching conclusions from the 2007 Fourth Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are that: 1) global warming is unequivocal; 2) human activity is very likely responsible for most of the warming; 3) the average global temperature could rise up to six per cent above 1980-99 levels if things don't change, and; 4) warming will lead to a host of other changes.
• If warming reaches two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial values, in this century we can expect to see: 1) melting of glacial ice sufficent to bring about an eventual six metre rise in sea level, and potentially several metres this century if we go beyond two degrees; 2) an increase in droughts, causing water stress for one to two billion people; 3) decreases in crop productivity in equatorial and low latitudes, and; 4) up to 30 per cent of the world's species at risk of extinction.
• Satellite observations of the Greenland ice cap show that it is losing ice far faster than scientists previously believed--more than twice as fast as seven years ago. The summer of 2005 broke all records for Greenland ice breakup and melting, and 2007 exceeded 2005 by 10 per cent. Ice melt in just one year was the equivalent of twice the ice volume of the European Alps.
  
• A national poll released in July 2006 found that a majority of Canadians believe global warming will be the greatest crisis facing humankind by 2020.