Global Climate Change

Throughout my time here at Western Michigan University I have learned a lot about global climate change.  My freshman year I took, what I thought was the generic version everyone took, a first year experience (FYE) course and its main objective was about climate change.  At first I was slightly bummed to find out I enrolled for this course and not the typical one that everyone takes, however I ended up gaining a lot of knowledge from the semester.  Our class split up into groups to work on separate semester long projects, mine was based on the wind turbine located at the engineering campus.  I learned a lot through this course about global climate change and the effects it has on our planet.  The biggest thing I took from this class was how important it is to be energy efficient, the actions of just one person can make a huge impact in the long run!

Currently, in my microbiology course, we have been learning about how the change in our climate can impact many microorganisms.  For example, an increase in CO2 emissions causes the acidity of our oceans to increase, therefore causing shellfish to become more susceptible to attack by many microorganisms.  The impact on shellfish can lead to many gastrointestinal infections when the shellfish is consumed, this will only get worse as CO2 emissions increase.  Also, a 2ºC increase in global temperature will lead to a 20% increase in Malaria cases in certain regions of the world.  These are just two of the many disturbances that can occur from an increase in global temperature.  
The main thing about global climate change is that the future of it is in OUR hands, this sounds intimidating, however the truth is we can make change happen.  Little things like being more efficient with heating our homes will help decrease CO2 emissions as well as other things like limiting unnecessary driving and recycling more often.  Everyone can take part in the small aspects that will help as well as getting involved in researching ways to find more renewable resources!