CLEAN FACTS. On global warming

Global warming is the result of an increase in the earth’s average surface temperature due to over-emittance of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane . According to NASA, “the global average surface temperature rose 0.6–0.9 degrees Celsius (1.1–1.6°F) between 1906 and 2005, and the rate of temperature increase has nearly doubled in the last 50 years .”

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Since the

industrialrevolution in 1700, the level of carbon dioxide on earth has increased by 34 per cent . Human activities like burning of fossil fuels, deforestation, industrialisation , and pollution are seen as a few of the factors responsible for the rise in global warming.

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More than one million species have become extinct due to disappearing habitats , ecosystems and acidic oceans — all due to global warming . Even if the temperature change is at the small end of the predictions, the alterations are expected to be serious: More intense storms , more pronounced droughts , coastal erosion , and increased distribution of infectious diseases .

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The colder zones are warming even faster than temperate or equatorial zones. In the past 60 years, Alaska has warmed by about 3 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s twice as fast as the rest of the US .