Most people don’t realize - or just refuse to acknowledge - that global warming is happening. It has been scientifically proven that Earth’s atmosphere is increasing in temperature, whether you believe it or not. People say, “I’ll change my lightbulbs” or “I’ll lower the thermostat.” But what many don’t think to do is drive less. Cars and driving are one of the leading contributors to carbon dioxide emissions worldwide. You use cars to go to work, the supermarket, the homes of friends and family, virtually everywhere. And when you drive or get in the car, you don’t think about burning fossil fuels and you don’t think about polar bears becoming extinct. But maybe you should.

How Much Do We Drive?
If you were to add up all of the miles that you drive and figure out how much gas you’ve burnt throughout the day, you’d be appalled. Take the day of the average, middle age mother. She wakes up in the morning and before driving to work, takes the family SUV to the local gym. Five miles there, five miles back. Back at home, she gets ready and takes the highway to work. Sixteen miles. Her son asks her to pick him up after school and drop him off at a friend’s house. That’s twenty two miles. Her car is low on gas, so she heads to the gas station to fill her twelve-miles-per-gallon gas tank. One mile. From there, she goes to the supermarket to buy food for dinner. Seven miles. Finally, she makes her way back home. Three miles. In one day, this woman has driven fifty nine miles. And for each mile she drives, roughly seven hundred forty grams of carbon dioxide is emitted into the atmosphere. In one day, her car has emitted forty three thousand, six hundred sixty grams of carbon dioxide. That’s just one day, though. Assume that she works five days per week. Two hundred eighteen thousand three hundred grams of carbon dioxide. She works year round, minus three weeks for holidays, family issues, vacation days, etc. Multiply the weekly carbon dioxide emissions by forty nine. Shocking, right? A grand total of about ten million six hundred ninety six thousand seven hundred grams of carbon dioxide emissions per year. But wait, that’s just one person. Earth, as of December 2014, is home to over seven billion two hundred eighty million people.

What Can Carbon Dioxide Do?
Having carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is necessary. It’s a greenhouse gas, and without it, Earth would be a frozen ice ball. But when an enormous amount of carbon dioxide is continuously added to the atmosphere, it traps heat reflected off of the Earth in the air and heats it. In simpler terms, the more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the more the atmosphere heats, and in turn, the more the polar ice caps melt. The ice caps are currently melting at a rate of thirteen percent per decade, a rate much higher than in previous millennia. According to BBC’s online article, “Will polar bears become extinct?”, the amount of time that it took to raise the Earth’s temperature one degree Celsius, about ten thousand years, is significantly longer than the amount of time it would take to raise the Earth’s temperature in the present, which is only a few decades. Polar bears cannot adapt to climate changes when they occur as rapidly as they are. Steven Amstrup from Polar Bears International says, “But it is not just the extent of warming, it is the speed at which warming would take place that poses a problem.”
 

How Long Will Polar Bears Last?
It’s estimated that by 2050, the Earth’s atmosphere’s temperature will heat roughly 2.6ºC. The increase in temperature will not affect the South Pole, for its average summer temperature is far below freezing, at a steady temperature of -28.2ºC. Why? The South Pole’s elevation is usually around 2.3 km while the North Pole’s elevation is at sea level. The inhabitants of the Arctic, such as polar bears and seals, and the ice are able to thrive at a shaky temperature of 0ºC, which happens to be freezing point. But if we don’t do anything about the carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, the air temperature will slowly rise, the ice will melt, and many of the species living in the North Pole will not be able to survive. BBC’s article, “Will polar bears become extinct?” tells us about a professor of biological sciences at the University of Alberta, Andrew Derocher, who says that “The bears simply depend on sea ice to make a living… ‘No sea ice means no seals [the polar bears' food source]. And no seals means no polar bears.’”

One doesn’t need to be a genius to see that the carbon dioxide is filling the atmosphere. If everyone could take the time to see that they are emitting this much carbon dioxide, perhaps they’d drive less. Or, they could not drive at all. There are other forms of transportation that don’t burn fossil fuels such as bicycles, boats (canoes, kayaks, rowboats), and walking. But, if everyone continues to drive their cars this much, the polar ice caps and polar bears won’t have much of a chance.