The greenhouse effect, or global warming as we more commonly call it, happens when the sun’s radiation is reflected from the earth’s surface and gets trapped in our atmosphere by the greenhouse gases which are present.

Though we do have a plentiful supply of those gases naturally, mankind has fed the supply with the burning of fossil fuels and carbon emissions. There are many ways to describe what’s happening now that global warming is taking place. Some equate its effects to the commonly coined butterfly-effect, where a butterfly flaps its wings in Japan, and a train is derailed in Minnesota.

The polar ice caps melt and cause the water levels to heat up and rise. This phenomenon is known as thermal expansion. The warmer water which is expanding is wiping out coastlines all over the world. And that’s just the start. Economies and ecosystems will also diminish as a result and leave both marine life and human beings in dire straights if the problem goes uncorrected.

While someone in the middle of America may not think global warming is an actual threat, someone who lives on the coastline around the great coral reefs would beg to differ.

One major problem that global warming is having right now is the decreasing fish stocks throughout the ocean.

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Scientists estimate that the Earth has been around for more than 4-billion years. In that relatively short timeframe by universe standards, our planet has witnessed more changes take place than any other body in our solar system. Once a desolate place, the Earth was uninhabitable, nothing thrived here but water and ice which almost covered the entire planet. Eventually, climate changes and some geological events produced an environment in which life slowly started to grow and adapt.Over the course of 4-billion years, life of all types has roamed our planet. From the dinosaurs before us to our hairy ancestors, the apes, Earth has been the home of many species. Of all the steps among the evolutionary scale, humans are without a doubt the most deadly to our loving mother. Apes walked upright and became men before the tectonic shifting of the plates moved continents to where we now know them to be on our globe. We were all in one relatively small area as humans. Our species evolved with a few key characteristics and dispositions. We needed to eat, be safe, and procreate. They were early mans only concerns.

As the years passed, the Earth slowly started to fill up with people. As the thinking-man became king of the evolutionary chart, humans started to divide, conquer, and inhabit all the continents in the world. From humble beginnings to over 6-billion people on today’s planet, we’ve caused more than our share of harm to the Earth’s natural resources. People produce waste; it’s just a byproduct of living. Both human waste which occurs naturally through the ingestion and digesting of food, and man-made waste like plastics and chemicals that we dump into the oceans.

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