There is quite literally a storm coming for those who ignore the threatening increase of fossil fuel emissions, such as CO2, into our atmosphere. A direct correlation has been noticed between increasing greenhouse gas emissions and the worsening weather we have experienced in recent months including uncharacteristically frequent tornado warnings and record-breaking floods. Because we believe that this harsh weather is a result of carbon emissions, we also believe that there are ways we can prevent weather from getting worse.

When fossil fuels are burned for services such as electricity, heat, and transportation, they release carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the air which trap solar radiation into our atmosphere and contribute to global warming. According to a study done by the Berkeley Surface Temperature group, Earth’s land has warmed by about 1.6°F since the 1950s. Over the course of the past century, there has been a significant increase in carbon dioxide, methane, and other harmful greenhouse gas emissions mostly due to industrialization. Warmer air increases water evaporation which consequentially increases the amount of water vapor available for storms to turn into rain. This can explain the massive amount of rainfall that we have received in the previous months. This excessive rise in temperature has also led to more severe thunderstorms from which more tornadoes are able to form.

Many people may look at the carbon emissions from 2020 and notice that they have significantly dropped from previous years. Those under the impression that this is proof of carbon emissions becoming less of an issue fail to recognize that this decrease is due to a lack of industrialization throughout the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Carbon emissions in 2019 were at an all-time high right before the world shut down. But now that the world is back into its routine of pumping greenhouse gases into our atmosphere, emissions are once again rising. In fact, the IEA’s Global Energy Review for 2021 saw that CO2 emissions grew by 1.5 billion tons from 2020’s levels, which far surpasses the levels of 2019.

Although the issue of carbon emissions is a wide-scale problem, there are still actions that you as an individual can take against it such as carpooling more, researching and using cleaner energy sources in your home, and urging your community to also rely more on clean energy over carbon-producing sources.