Global warming, the gradual increase in Earth’s temperature because of high levels of greenhouse gas emissions, poses a serious threat to Earth and its rapidly growing population.

The greatest challenge, especially for people living in the industrialized nations, is whether our need for healthy survival can be given a higher priority than our desire for luxury.

Earth’s population has quadrupled in the last century requiring enormous demands for electricity usage and the burning of huge amounts of fossil fuels for heat, industry and transportation. In the last 200 years, Earth’s average temperature has risen one degree Fahrenheit. Some scientists predict the average temper-atures may rise 3 to 10 degrees in this century.

One percent of Earth’s atmosphere consists of carbon dioxide, water vapor and other gases known as greenhouse gases. Because of rapid industrialization and accelerated burning of fossil fuels, a surplus of harmful greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, is filling the air.

Greenhouse gases do not form a bubble around the Earth as a greenhouse does with plants. The gases do, however, act in the same way a greenhouse does. When the sun’s rays shine down on the Earth, plants, water, soil and greenhouse gases soak up the heat and hold it in Earth’s atmosphere.

The effects of global warming are becoming easy to see. Recently, I attended a screening of “An Inconvenient Truth,” a documentary inspired by former Vice President Al Gore which laid out a thorough argument that global warming must be taken seriously. As the documentary shows, major glaciers in the Arctic and Antarctic have begun serious melting, and unless action is taken, within 15 years, sea levels may rise as much as 20 feet.

Climate change is causing pollution levels to soar and the growing intensity and occurrence of disastrous storms are also confirmed by the World Meteorological Organization to be the result of global warming. Over the last 30 years, the number of level four and five hurricanes has doubled.

In 2003, the French government pointed the finger at global warming for a heat wave which killed more than 10,000 people in France. Serious diseases are becoming more widespread and according to the World Health Organization, global warming is estimated to cause more than 150,000 deaths and 5 million illnesses each year including malaria, malnutrition and diarrhea.

Increasing rain in South Asia has led to worsening outbursts of dengue fever, killing nearly 100,000 people. The dreadful disease has spread to an estimated 120,000 people. As the temperature increases the incidence of disease is more common.

Human activity is clearly the cause of global warming. Can we stop it? We can, at least, slow it down if we are willing to give up some luxuries. There are many safe and healthy ways to slow down global warming, and nations like the United States need to step up and take the proper route. The technology and resources are available. We can decrease our dependence on fossil fuels, design better cars, buses and trucks, commit ourselves to energy efficiency and develop renewable energy industries using wind, solar, geothermal and biomass technologies.

In America, one-third of the carbon dioxide emissions comes from cars and light trucks. Every gallon of gasoline burned is transformed into 22 pounds of carbon dioxide (more than three times the 6.5 pound weight of one gallon). In our country more than 190 million cars hit the road every day. If the average daily fuel consumption is 4 gallons, that’s 360 million gallons of gas turned into 7.92 billion pounds of global warming carbon dioxide. If U.S. cars could get a 5-mile-to-the-gallon improvement, a gain of about 22 percent in fuel efficiency, we would have large fuel cost savings and reduce carbon dioxide emissions daily by at least 1.74 billion pounds daily or more than 600 billion pounds a year.

Large quantities of hybrid cars which rely on an effective electric battery-fuel engine need to be developed as soon as possible.

Governments of all nations need to come together. The Kyoto Protocol,developed at a conference in Japan, required in 1997 that the participating nations commit to significant reduction of carbon dioxide and the five other absorbing greenhouse gases to 5.2 percent below the 1990 levels by 2012. In November 2005, in Montreal, Canada, the United Nations Conference on Climate brought 189 countries that agreed to the Kyoto Protocol. President Bush opposes the United States’ participation saying our country would lose 4.9 million jobs and suffer economically. Many experts dispute this. China, from 1997 to 1999, taking actions in relation to the Kyoto Protocol, reduced its carbon dioxide emissions by 19 percent and its economy grew by more than 15 percent.

The United States needs to pick up its implementation to use renewable energies and cut down its greenhouse gas emissions to slow down global warming now. Winston Churchill once said, “… The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to a close. In its place, we are entering a period of consequences…”

The world needs a team effort, and if one player will not participate then the team loses. Global warming needs to be taken very seriously or there may be no turning back. You can make a difference in this world by putting necessity over luxury.

Harvey K. Shue is a sophomore at Hampden Academy.