Global warming through the eyes of a child

"The era of procrastination, of half measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to an end. In its place, we are entering a period of consequences," proclaimed Sir Winston Churchill after a terrible storm in the 1930s in continental Europe. Sir Winston tried to warn people and to tell them to prepare for change, but they didn't want to believe it then, just like many people don't want to believe it today.

Hi! My name is Leah Walters and an important issue has come to my attention. That issue is global warming. Global warming wasn't brought to my attention by my school, but by looking around; it's everywhere. For example, Lake Tahoe's annual snowfall has declined over the last 33 years, according to a study completed by UC Davis research ecologist Robert Coats in a Jan. 14, 2005, article in the UC Davis Science Daily.

"Weather-pattern changes in the northern Sierra are likely to affect water supplies for cities and agriculture in much of California. They have the potential to impact the entire operation of the state's system of reservoirs and rivers, and the ecological systems they support," said Coats.

Coats also found that nighttime air temperatures rose 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit in the past 90 years.

"Also, in looking at the precipitation data for Tahoe City over the same period, we found a significant shift from snowfall to rain," he said.

The change from snowfall to rain is easy to see just by visiting the mountains surrounding Lake Tahoe. There is no snow pack. As a member of the school ski club, I see it up close because the lack of snowfall has caused the ski runs to have exposed rocks and bushes. This is not normal and definitely not natural.

Many people don't understand what global warming is so here's the information. It all begins with carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. Our atmosphere is thin enough that we humans are capable of changing its composition. We have the capacity to dramatically alter the concentration of some of the molecular components; in particular, we have vastly increased the amount of carbon dioxide, the most important of the so-called greenhouse gases.

As the sun's energy enters the atmosphere in the form of light waves it heats up the Earth. Some of that energy leaves the Earth by being re-radiated back into space in the form of infrared waves. Under normal conditions, some of the infrared energy is trapped by the atmosphere and that is a good thing because it keeps the temperature on Earth within comfortable bounds.

The problem we now face is that this thin layer of atmosphere is being thickened by huge quantities of human-caused carbon dioxide and other green house gases. And as it thickens, it traps more of the infrared energy that would otherwise escape the atmosphere and continues out of the universe. As a result, the temperature of the Earth's atmosphere, its oceans and large lakes is getting dangerously warmer.

That is what the climate crisis Ð global warming Ð is all about.

So in retrospect, global warming is a hard concept to grasp, but it is very real, and everyone can play a part in helping to save our environment. The most important thing we can do is to conserve energy because the generation of electricity and the burning of fossil fuels generates the most amount of carbon dioxide.

Below are the top 10 energy saving measures that everyone can use. Please help out by trying one or more of these ideas and I promise you, you will see an improvement.

1. Don't leave appliances on standby.

2. Install at least three energy-saving light bulbs.

3. Only boil as much water as you need to cook and clean.

4. Add insulation to your attic.

5. Install cavity wall and floor insulation.

6. Upgrade your heating boiler and water heater.

7. Buy Energy Star appliances.

8. Turn your home thermostat down to 60 degrees or lower at night and when you leave for work.

9. Wash your laundry in cold water whenever possible.

10. Don't use your car for short trips and combine trips whenever possible.

If you try some of these measures, it'll help a lot in the environment we have to live in the rest of our lives.

-- Leah Walters is a Carson Valley Middle School 7th grader and a Minden resident.