Article Review - 8 Summer Miseries made worse by Global Warming

Some of the year 12 Students will be improving the breadth and depth of their reading in coming months. Some of them will also be sharing their reviews of it to try and help other Geographers engage with interesting material. Jack's review of a National Geographic article on potentially negative effects of global warming is below:

Review of ‘8 Summer Miseries Made

Worse by Global Warming’ - Jack.L

As you would expect from the title, this article published on the National Geographic website explains the worsening of many of the bad parts of summer ranging from decreasing air quality to the increased danger to swimming in rivers.

The author Brian Howard goes into detail about the following eight topics; heat waves, bad air, biting insects, poison ivy, hay fever, food-borne illnesses, dangerous swimming and the risk to national parks and landmarks. Howard goes into basic details about each of the items stated about how they would be made worse in the future due to the global warming. For example he states that global temperatures are likely to increase by up to 5°C by 2100, if emissions are not reduced. Also that increased temperatures will lead to increased ground-level ozone pollution; which will lead to increased respiratory diseases, such as asthma and currently 27 million people in the US suffer from asthma.

All in all, I found Brian Howard’s article interesting and would recommend it to anyone that is interested in the effects of global warming.

Here is a link to the article:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/07/140701-global-warming-summer-climate-change-science/?rptregcta=reg_free_np&rptregcampaign=20131016_rw_membership_n1p_intl_se_w#

Tourists overlook Navajo Canyon in 1948 at Mesa Verde National Park, which is now vulnerable to increased flooding and more frequent wildfires.

PHOTOGRAPH BY WILLARD CULVER, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC