I visited the Koshland Science Museum for my Government and Politics class, yet I chose to go there because I am interested in and concerned about current environmental changes. This museum was an excellent source of information, providing details, statistics, and hands-on experiences to get its messages across. I had already known that humans are causing the increase in global warming, but the exhibits in the museum explained how and why. Natural changes to the carbon cycle have been very slow compared to the rate at which humans are adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, showing that human activities are indeed the main causes contributing to global warming. Some of these natural causes include land use changes, volcanic eruptions, ocean circulation, solar variations, and orbital variations. Carbon dioxide, the largest contributor to greenhouse gases, along with greenhouse gas variations are produced by human activity. Other contributing chemicals include methane, nitrous oxide, and halocarbons, while urban pollution consists of black soot which harms the low level ozone. Another huge factor is the burning of fossil fuels because carbon dioxide is a by-product of this process. Oil, coal, and natural gas are categorized as fossil fuels, and they are, unfortunately, major energy sources for almost every human endeavor in the industrialized nations. Therefore, we desperately need to find and use alternative energy sources in order to reduce the amount of fossil fuels we consume.
While the causes of climate change are significant, I focused most on the effects of global warming and what people can do to prevent further increase. The global impacts of this climate change were perhaps what affected me the most. Disappearing glaciers, water shortages, disappearing ice packs, increased air pollution, increased number of diseases, and destruction to ecosystems across the world are only some of the impacts that the world is already experiencing as a result of extreme climate change. Since many of these causes and effects are preventable, I was most fascinated by the solutions offered in certain exhibits. The lifestyle options, which can be enacted by each individual, were the suggestions I could best relate to for they are things that I can change on my own. Some of the options are: driving 100 fewer miles per week, turning the thermostat down by two degrees in the winter, replacing ten incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescents, and planting ten trees per year. These solutions seem so simple, and yet there are numerous people in this world who are either too selfish to change anything about their lifestyles or who do not think they can make a difference. But if everyone made these minor adjustments, then we really could accomplish the reduction of global warming, it is merely a matter of instilling the importance of these changes in the population. On a larger scale, there are the national options which, if coupled with the lifestyle options, could immensely reduce climate change. Among these solutions are: improving airplane fuel efficiency by 20%, improving commercial transportation efficiency by 20%, increasing industrial energy efficiency by 10%, and collecting 60% of gas that is emitted from landfills to use for generating electricity. The suggestion that would make the largest dent in global warming is increasing the use of biomass, hydroelectric, geothermal, wind, and solar energy sources to 25% of the total U.S. energy production. This is not an impossible task, so why has the U.S. not taken steps to achieve this small 25%? My guess would be laziness and greed - on a whole, the American people do not want to change the way they live their lives, and the federal government is no different. Luckily, a few of the states, such as California, have started to take matters into their own hands and are making laws and policies at the state level to reduce climate change. But we need all of the states to take the same steps, or the federal government to take a few giant steps, towards improvement or we are going to be in a huge mess and the U.S. will have to carry much of the blame. Personally, I really enjoyed this museum. It was extremely informative, but it was also interesting. The visuals and animations that were used to convey the data made the experience fun and incredibly worthwhile.