Abel Gaytan

Sefferino Ramos

English 102

10 February 2020

INLAND EMPIRE GLOBAL WARMING

            Global Warming is a term that we have all heard of. We know that it is happening somewhere, somewhere else. We have heard of the ice caps melting, and sea levels rising, but we don’t live near the water so why do we care? I personally grew up hearing the message of save the planet, Recycle, and cut 6 pack plastic can holder rings because 100,000 animals die every year. What animals were dying? The sea turtles, and ocean birds, but again let the people who live near the ocean worry about those problems. The polar ice caps are far far away, and Australia fires are not here, so my fear is that the community’s in the Inland Empire, my local area may feel that global warming is not real, and that there is no need to take action, and even if we did that our efforts locally would not make an impact on climate change anyways. This was my old way of thinking, and this reason is exactly why I am researching and sharing. After looking into the reality of Global Warming, and the urgency of actions needing to be taken, I have prepared the below information to make you the reader better informed of what I find to be a real concern not just for those in the devastating areas, but in the those living in the Inland Empire as well. I have aditionally included the information of who we can contact, and what organizations we can join as we should feel compelled to take action on our real problem.

Is Global warming really effecting us here in Southern California? “More than 1,000 dissenting scientists (updates previous 700 scientist report) from around the globe have now challenged man-made global warming claims made by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and former Vice President Al Gore” (Special Report). Following the link below on the Special Report will show dozens of the scientist rebuttal statements. They are saying to “Stay Calm” “No reason to worry” and denying that humans have any impact on the earths climate change. So each of us must make the decision to decide based on what we know is happening in our world, what humans have done, and the impacts we are making on the earth, and ask ourselves if its just a coincidence like 1000 scientist say, or decide to take action and do all that we can to slow climate change. 

We did experience a drought here locally here in California from 2011 to 2019, but unless you were a homeowner, you likely were not aware of the water bill increase for over use, or changes in rationing water in landscape. The latest concern among many residents in Southern California is the objective to get citizens to comply with water restrictions to 55 gallons a day per person per house. There is no infrastructure or way to monitor or confirm how many people live in a house at this time, however the date to begin is scheduled for January 1st, 2022, and is scheduled to be enforced by 2023. Additionally the plan is to then decrease the amount of water used by each persons every year by 5 gallons per day. The actual bill (Bill Text) can be found on the link below, or all over google on the internet. Did you know that we aside from ranking #1 is most dangerous city in the United States, we also rank #1 in our air quality here in the Inland Empire as among the nations worst (Horseman). “Los Angeles has had the worst smog for 19 years of the 20-year history of the report”  ( Rice ).   Global warming is so much more than just the water restrictions and bad air.  A few more of the direct impacts that we locally have begun to see affecting us here are record breaking temperatures, water drought, wildfires. Should we be concerned with global warming?

            “As long as we burn fossil fuels and load the atmosphere with carbon pollution, it all gets worse,” climate scientist Michael Mann told Business Insider in an email (Mcfall-Johnson). Over the next 10 years if we do nothing, than what we can expect is for things to get much worse. The global warming heat we are feeling with our record high temperatures, causing droughts, and we have already seen our own share of devastating forest fires locally. “A 2016 study found that climate change nearly doubled the amount of forest that burned in the western US between 1984 and 2015, adding over 10 billion additional acres of burned area (Insider). Dozens of examples of breaking records in the “Record heat in California is no Fluke, experts warn” left Nina Oakley with her own conclusion “We are seeing the impacts of climate change now,” said Nina Oakley, regional climatologist for the Western Regional Climate Center in Reno. “This is certainly it. It’s happening”(Rong-Gong and Panzar). (IPCC), Says the planet will reach the crucial threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels by as early as 2030 if we do nothing. This is 34.7 degrees hotter making parts of the world unbearable. In the article “5 key questions about climate change in the 2020’s” it asks the question of “what impacts are people most concerned about? The answer was refugees be (Berardelli)! While this may sound unrealistic, or like it might not be something that will happen over night, it is happening. Think of the people who will be forced to migrate for survival because living near the equator is no longer possible, they will not be able to farm, they will have to move to other habitable areas to include where we live. 

            Here is what needs to happen, “Global net emissions of carbon dioxide would need to fall by 45% from 2010 levels by 2030 and reach “Net Zero” around 2050 in order to keep the warming around 1.5 C”(Miller). What I am gathering is that in the next 10 years even if we take the necessary action we will have an estimate 3 degree temperature rise, drought, and shortage of food. The concerns we should have about our future is more along the line of the compounding impacts, if the earth is going to be hotter, we are going to want to have the Air conditioning on all the time, and that takes electricity. We must begin by doing all that we can to cut emissions, start building more infrastructure for renewable energy, and this means for us to start looking at electric vehicles, public transportation, ride sharing, and trying to reduce unnecessarily burning fossil fuels. While Donald Trump did pull the US out of the Paris Climate Accord, it does not mean that he is not aware of the need for change. President Trump said that the fund was costing the United States a fortune. In the most recent 2020 State of the Union address President Trump made a commitment to One Trillion Trees Initiative, which is a private-public initiative., but that is the President. President trump and committed to planting 1 trillion trees over the next decade, we need to do the same thing even if on a small scale carbon dioxide. 

So what do we do now? There are many more ways for each of us to get involved and play our part to slow global warming. I believe that there is not one fix all for everyone to all do the same thing. The warning signs, and evidence is all around us. I think that the right answer is to educate yourself on global warming, find an organization or group near you, that you find interest, and that you are available to contribute, play your part, and be the change. I would like to share our closest group at our local Crafton Hills College here in Yucaipa F.O.R.C.E.E. where we will work together with our first mission to put in place the a recycling program where the recyclables being put into a blue bin on campus will be recycled and not dumped into the same dumpster at the end of the day. Additionally I encourage you to be aware of a few resources such as Ipccc at https://www.ipcc.ch Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, this is a great resource to see scientific reports. Additionally local Yucaipa residents your city is already aware of the need for change, check out http://www.yucaipa.org/wp-content/uploads/disaster_prep/Yucaipa_Climate_Action_Plan_Annex.pdf . You can also check out what San Bernardino has reported to include some very compelling predictions of the future concerning climate change at https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/OHE/CDPH%20Document%20Library/CHPRs/CHPR071SanBernardino_County2-23-17.pdf. To find more specific about California in an easy to read picture format take a look at California Climate Assessment page at www.climateassessment.ca.gov/state/overview/

I have presented as much as I can about climate change for us in the Inland Empire living in the Yucaipa, Redlands city areas. What action will you take? 

Annotated bibliography

“SPECIAL REPORT: More Than 1000 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims – Challenge UN IPCC & Gore.” Climate Depot, 18 Dec. 2019, www.climatedepot.com/2010/12/08/special-report-more-than-1000-international-scientists-dissent-over-manmade-global-warming-claims-challenge-un-ipcc-gore-2/

“Bill Text.” Bill Text – AB-1668 Water Management Planning., 31 May 2018, leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180AB1668

Horseman, Jeff. “Study: The Fight against Climate Change Added 41,000 Jobs to the Inland Economy.” Press Enterprise, Press Enterprise, 4 Aug. 2017, www.pe.com/2017/08/03/whats-fighting-climate-change-worth-to-the-inland-empire-9-1-billion-a-new-study-finds/

Rice, Doyle. “Bad Air Days on the Rise: The Nation’s Most Polluted City Is …” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 24 Apr. 2019,

 www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/24/air-pollution-smog-soot-worst-california/3551734002/

McFall-Johnsen, Morgan. “Painfully Slow Hurricanes, Deadly Heat, and Cities without Water: What the Climate Crisis Will Look like in the next 10 Years, According to Experts.” Business 

Insider, Business Insider, 22 Nov. 2019, www.businessinsider.com/climate-change-in-the-next-decade-2019-11.

Lin, Rong-Gong, and Javier Panzar. “Record Heat in California Is No Fluke, Experts Warn.” Phys.org, Phys.org, 6 Aug. 2018,  phys.org/news/2018-08-california-fluke-experts.html

Berardelli, Jeff. “5 Key Questions about Climate Change in the 2020s.” CBS News, CBS Interactive, 23 Dec. 2019, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-change-2020-questions-about-global-warming-impact/ This article asks key questions to inspire the reader to ask themselves about climate change, and at a glance receive answers about how the change will effect them personally. I will be using this article as a supporting structure to my paper. I will be asking the questions with the target audience of Crafton Hills College students. The author of this paper Jeff Beradelli is a Meteorologist and Climate Specialist, working for CBS News in New York. He has a Master of Arts in Climate Change, and BS in Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology.

Miller, Brandon. “Planet Has Only until 2030 to Stem Catastrophic Climate Change, Experts Warn.” CNN, Cable News Network, 8 Oct. 2018, www.cnn.com/2018/10/07/world/climate-change-new-ipcc-report-wxc/index.html.

California, State of. “Key Findings.” California Climate Assessment, www.climateassessment.ca.gov/state/overview/