Title: Scientist Letter #3: Landlocked or Ocean Access
Course: Transfer of Heat

Greetings all!
I see you’re back for another installment of: (cue music) Griffin’s Grand Researches! This time, I’ve been to the North and South Poles to see what’s been happening to all the ice in the world. Let me tell you, it’s not good. I hope you are ready to swim! What would happen to the land area of the countries of the world if global warming continues at it’s alarming rate?

Global warming heats up the Earth at an unnatural rate, and the world’s glaciers are melting. Where will all that water go? Over coastal land that’s where! Say goodbye to your favorite vacation beaches. Adios California! Sayonara Florida! But I digress.

Think for a moment what would happen to the USA if we no longer had California, Florida, the East Coast or many of the other states that border our oceans. Where would all those people go? Inland of course! Are you willing to share your backyard with the cat lady from Ocean View Senior Living Apartments? Ocean View?? More like backstage passes if this heating up continues. Again, I get away from my point. My apologies.

In the USA, we have a lot of space and, although this wouldn’t be awesome, it wouldn’t totally over crowd us. We’ll just dig up some crops and build houses. That should solve the problem right? Uh oh, I forgot. What will we do for food if we dig up all the crops?

On a more serious note, what about the small countries who don’t have as much space as us? Where will all those people go? Probably to a country who doesn’t border an ocean or two. We call countries that don’t border an ocean landlocked. Many landlocked countries will be taking in people from countries who have the ocean for a border. We’ll have to squeeze the world’s population onto less and less land. This will leave less and less land for cattle, crops, rainforests and baseball diamonds. Plus, if we start cutting down the forests to make room for people, more greenhouse gases will get into the Earth’s atmosphere because trees and plants actually take in some greenhouse gases. If they aren’t around to do this then the whole global warming thing will actually speed up!

That 1 degree Fahrenheit is looking worse and worse. I need time to gather my thoughts.

Sincerely in Science,
Griffin Boyle