Sea Level Persuasive Speech

Imagine if one day the beach you went to last summer disappeared, or if the house you live in today became a part of the ocean. Does it seem to you like something almost impossible? It might. Sea levels rise because of global warming, for two reasons: first, hot water expands, and second, it causes glaciers to melt, and water from these glaciers goes straight into the ocean. This problem might seem like a tiny one compared to others, but it isn’t. Today I want to inform you about why sea level rise is a bigger concern than what it seems to be, especially in the upcoming years, and why we should care about it.

Did you know that sea levels had been slightly decreasing up until the Industrial Revolution, according to The Christian Science Monitor?
According to The Washington Post, a three-foot rise in sea level, which is expectable to happen by 2100 if we do not take action against sea level rise now, nearly 1.9 million U.S. homes could be underwater, displacing over 4.2 million Americans, and $882 billion worth of homes would go down the ocean. It would cost about fourteen trillion dollars to relocate all of these people. Even worse, a six-foot rise, while only double that of a three-foot rise, would displace about thirteen million Americans, over triple the amount. This means that displacement of people rises exponentially in proportion to sea levels. These numbers don’t even account for people living in other countries that could be seriously affected by sea level rise. If we think even further into the future, many or all coastal cities, including Vancouver, could be flooded and people would have to move, clumping the world’s population into a much smaller area, and perhaps a lot of money spent by governments to help the move.

There are also other consequences of sea level rise, one being that it increases the chance of storms happening. It also threatens fresh water supplies, which could be one of the world’s biggest problems in the future and it hurts vital economic