Rational Argument Rough Draft #1

Aidan Armstrong

Professor Kyburz

First-Year Seminar: Writing

31 March 2023

Climate Change: A Bigger Issue than we Realize

In 2021, an assessment report published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) uncovered that “human emissions of heat-trapping gases have already warmed the climate by nearly 2 degrees Fahrenheit (1.1 degrees Celsius) since pre-Industrial times (starting in 1750).1 The global average temperature is expected to reach or exceed 1.5 degrees C (about 3 degrees F) within the next few decades.” (nasa.gov).  Climate change is greatly affecting the change in temperature on Earth, and one cause of it is due to human actions.  This is concerning because it could reform how I, and many other people, live their daily lives, for the better or worse.  However, many people also aren’t paying attention or aren’t focused on this issue.  This begs the question, why aren’t we considering climate change as a bigger issue?  Climate change should be considered a bigger issue because of how it affects the environment, how humans are contributing to the problem, and what could happen if we let climate change become an issue that we cannot control.

The environment has been considerably altered because of the effects of climate change.  For example, one thing that climate change can create is drought.  The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a federal agency that works with the state of the oceans and the atmosphere, found that “In the western U.S., drought conditions reached a peak coverage of 91.3% of the region on May 3. Drought coverage across the West shrank as the summer monsoon reduced some of the coverage in the Southwest. The multi-year western U.S. drought resulted in water stress/shortages across many locations in 2022 as some major reservoirs dropped to their lowest levels on record.” (noaa.gov).  Not only did drought cover a large portion of land, as well as reach a peak coverage in 2022, it also created a big problem with there being a water shortage in some areas in the western U.S., sapping an important natural resource.

Works Cited

Atmospheric Administration, National Oceanic and. “Climate Change Impacts.” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, https://www.noaa.gov/education/resource-collections/climate/climate-change-impacts., 

Atmospheric Administration, National Oceanic and. “Record Drought Gripped Much of the U.S. in 2022.” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, https://www.noaa.gov/news/record-drought-gripped-much-of-us-in-2022., 

NASA. “The Effects of Climate Change.” NASA, NASA, 2 Mar. 2023, https://climate.nasa.gov/effects/.,