Senior Citizens and Global Warming: Polar Opposites?

(January, 30, 2015)In today’s day and age, the jaw-dropping effects of global warming have become a worldwide phenomenon and scientists can’t believe how fast it’s approaching society. Global warming is the increase in temperature on the Earth as a result of the trapping of heat by overly abundant greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide. Since 1870, global sea levels have increased by an astonishing eight inches and keeps growing at a steady rate. Also, according to the US Global Change Research Program, temperatures have rose by about two degrees in the last fifty years and only keeps getting hotter. Due to the increase in temperature, there has been an increase in precipitation as well. In addition, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are at the highest levels that they have been in the last hundreds of thousands of years.

Global warming clearly is an issue worldwide for many reasons, but more specifically for health reasons. The portion of society probably the most affected by health issues related to global warming is senior citizens. Global warming creates major risks and dangers for senior citizens because extreme heat for days at a time can cause heat strokes or dehydration and possibly even death. Senior citizens with diabetes have it one worse being that their risks for illness from the heat are greater. Also, global warming creates smog, a combination of high temperatures and pollution from greenhouse gas emissions. This smog degrades the quality of the air in the atmosphere and the higher the temperature, the worse it is. This creates a problem for senior citizens with heart and respiratory diseases and increases the risk of severe health issues and even death.

In the end of the day, global warming has had an enormous impact on senior citizens especially and its only going to get worse in the future. The bottom line to sum up this article is: senior citizens and global warming are POLAR OPPOSITES and its only getting worse.

The Fist-Bump Revolution

Recent studies show it’s time to ditch the handshake and opt for a fist bump instead. Not sure what a fist bump is? Google dictionaries define a fist bump as “a gesture of greeting or affirmation in which two people lightly tap each other's clenched fist.” Yes, it may have been familiar to you in your younger years, but doctors are suggesting that it is time to bring back this trend. Research has compared to amount of bacteria transfer between three different types of hand greetings, the handshake, the high-five, and the fist bump. The fist bump won the hearts of doctors as it proved to be twenty times more hygienic than the standard handshake. The results of the study are so revealing that people are looking to ban the act of handshaking in hospitals, to be replaced with no hand contact at all, or if necessary a fist bump.

These finding are important to the elderly who tend to be frequent visitors of hospitals, doctor’s offices, and other places where germs can spread easily. Not to mention that the elderly usually have weaker immune systems to begin with. The next time you see your ole’ buddy consider employing the fist bump to spare you and your friend from potentially dangerous germs. Hey what could be so bad? Leaders across the globe are even on board with new trend. This clearly shows that the newest professional greeting is a simple fist bump.