Mollie's Mission to Protect the World

Once upon a time this planet was perfect. But now, things are different: the oceans are being polluted by litter and carbon dioxide. Humans are producing too much carbon dioxide because of the way we power our homes, our transport and our factories. This is causing the oceans to be more acidic and making shells disintegrate, so anything with a shell is vulnerable. Rainforests are being deforested which means trees are being cut down and animals’ homes are being destroyed.  As well as all this, carbon dioxide traps the sun’s heat which heats the atmosphere, causing lots of extreme weather.

65 million years ago this happened before; volcanoes produced lots of carbon dioxide and caused mass extinction. Now, humans are producing the carbon dioxide, more than all the volcanoes in the world combined.

What are the effects?

As the earth warms it causes droughts and floods and it is hard for animals to survive. For example, elephants in Africa are being affected by this and it is killing off lots and lots of them because they need a lot of water but there is less rain there than ever.

The main protection we have against carbon dioxide is trees because they absorb it. But lots of trees, like in the Amazon rainforest are being cut down. This is killing animals, damaging the balance of nature and raising carbon dioxide levels.

What can be done?

There is an orphanage for elephants in Africa and they release them back into the wild when they are fully grown. Also, in Africa there is a project aiming to plant 5000 miles of trees. This will help reduce carbon dioxide and also helps to maintain water in the soil. This helps the people and animals who live there, and the wells are filling up again. In the Amazon there is another project where they are planting lots of seeds to try to re-grow the jungle. In 6 years, they will have replanted the same as 30,000 football pitches of rainforest.

Oceans

Not only on land, but also in the oceans humans are having a devastating effect. Overfishing means that the species like sharks and dolphins are being fished out and might become extinct. We need to put pressure on governments to protect more of the oceans. Carbon dioxide is also killing off plankton which produces oxygen which means that lots more marine life is dying.

What can we do?

1.     Walk or ride your bike instead of taking the car whenever possible

2.     Turn off lights when you are not using them.

3.     Eat food that has been produced locally- so that it hasn’t been transported around the world or the country.

4.     Sign my petition to put pressure on the government to do more to save the planet!