Global Warming: Threat to the Entire World by Olivia Fleet, age 10

In our "Letter to Congress" issue, which is just beginning to arrive in our subscribers' mailboxes, we featured an article about Global Warming called "We're Just Warming Up." Girls have been asking us for a long time to feature an article about Global Warming. Girl Journalist Olivia sent us some additional information about this issue. - New Moon Editors

Some people may not know what global warming is, so before I begin talking about what it's doing, I'll explain exactly what it is. First off, global warming happens when the Earth begins to get very warm. There is a gradual warming of the Earth's atmosphere that is caused by the burning of fossil fuels and industrial pollutants. Some examples of those are the fumes that come from cars, as well as the black stuff you see coming from the chimneys of factories. These gases get trapped in the Earth's atmosphere and cause the global warming, which makes ice caps and other ice shelves (including the glaciers) melt. Because of this, polar bears are nearly extinct!

My mom just told me about something she read today on the Yahoo! homepage. A 25.5 square mile ice shelf broke off in the Canadian Artic, located close to Greenland. The actual break happened in August 2005, but at that time no one was able to pinpoint exactly what had happened. But satellite images helped geographer Luke Copland piece together what had happened. "This loss is the biggest in 25 years, but it continues the loss that occurred within the last century," Copland said. "What is important and interesting is that it is a sudden, quite alrge event. In the past we looked to climate change and thought that perhaps ice shelves would just melt apart by losing a little piece day by day, but now it seems that when you reach some kind of threshold, when you reach that level, the whole thing just breaks apart." This is why polar bears are nearly extinct.

We need to make changes! I'm an animal lover, and I hate to hear that polar bears are in danger. But they may be overlooked if Congress doesn't see the huge issue at hand. I urge you to go to www.NRDC.org and see what you can do! - Olivia, age 10