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How many times have you heard that a human has the basic instinct for survival?

I'll agree that a single human being will fight to survive, but as a global population, I can dispute survival theory without a problem.

As a single human being, if your house was on fire, you'd do everything humanly possible to put it out, to save human life and to salvage your belongings. We are so concerned about fire damaging our home, that almost all of us have fire insurance. We know how hard it would be to lose everything we know and try to start over again, if that was even possible.

We put fire detectors & extinguishers in our homes and everyone knows how to contact your local fire department. We have mock fire drills for our family so everyone knows how to get out of the house on time, and fireman come to our children's schools to talk about fire safety.

All that time and preparation for an event that may not even happen in your lifetime. Just the thought of what could happen, makes us diligent in our efforts to keep it from actually happening.

That is survival of a human being.

But as a human race our house is on fire, and it has been smoldering for sometime. In a very short period of time, it will be completely engulfed and lost. Yet, as a human race, we just continue to ignore it waiting to see if it will burn to the ground and leaving future generation of human beings to pick up the pieces, if possible, or just die out like another extinct species.

Of course I'm talking about Global Warming. Maybe I shouldn't use that term. Maybe that term has been so overused that we have somehow become desensitized to it. We have been laughing at science and ecologists for years making jokes about the weather continuing to ignore the signs that have become so obvious that they can be seen all around us in everyday life, no matter what part of the house you live in.

The scientific data is not an opinion, it's a fact. Over the past 100 years the Global temperature has increased by about 1 degree. Doesn't seem like much, does it? Of course not, but the thickening layer of Carbon Dioxide pollution will continue to raise the Global temperature and before the end of this century it could be raised another 3 to 9 degrees.

The effects of this trend will be felt in every corner of our house. There won't be anywhere we can go to escape it. There will be no fall-out shelter and the fall-out will be catastrophic.

Sea levels will rise and flood coastal communities. This will be a permanent rise, so reconstruction will be impossible. This change will also wipe out our coastal wetlands

Warmer temperatures will increase the probability of drought and higher evaporation during the summer and fall will add to the problem making wildfires more of a problem then they already are.

We are already living with the health effects of these rising temperatures. Extreme heat waves have caused thousands of deaths around the world within the past decade.

The warming of our oceans pumps much more energy into tropical storms which have increased over the past few years along with the temperature.

Our ice glaciers are melting at an alarming rate. You can view pictures of this on the internet. If you look at photos of our glacial regions from 10 years ago and compare them to photos taken today, the difference is sobering.

As we continue to disrupt our ecosystem, entire regions will lose their ability to support life, be it human or otherwise.

It's happening, and it's happening fast.

Our House is on fire and there is no insurance to buy, no global leader to look to and no hose to be found.

If the human race doesn't start using it's survival instinct, human beings won't stand a chance.

Learn more about this author, Joe Dively.
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