A record was broken recently. And it’s a scary one. On February 6th, 2020, temperatures in Antarctica reached 65 degrees Fahrenheit, the highest temperature ever recorded on the continent. That’s a warmer temperature than it is here, in Wisconsin, in the midst of winter! As The Washington Post notes, this is not the only record broken regarding temperature this year. This January was the warmest ever recorded. Global warming, folks. It’s happening.
I was shocked when I heard how warm it was in Antarctica. I recently studied ecology as part of a biology class, and we looked in depth at the warming of the planet over the years and the effects that is causing, but it did not occur to me just how drastic and dire this warming could be. When I think of Antarctica, I think of extreme cold, ice, polar bears, etc. And whether it’s necessarily true or not, I think of it as the coldest place on earth, or one of them at least. And now, to hear that it reached 65 degrees, a temperature that the midwest United States might not reach until May, is mind-boggling.
I hope that when other people see this news, they have a similar reaction to mine. I especially hope that politicians and policy-makers are getting the news flash. Big changes need to be made now in the way that our companies operate and in the way that we respond to slow this warming. I think that the environment should be of utmost importance in the upcoming presidential election because, in all honesty, if nothing is done to reverse or slow the damage we could be in danger of not even having future presidential elections.