For the last couple hundred centuries, penguins have roamed the cold regions of Earth freely, in prosperity. With research dating back to the 1400’s, penguins have existed on this planet since the Mesozoic Era of the dinosaurs. Just recently, a discovery of mummified penguins has been revealed to the public.

   On Long Peninsula, located on the continent of Antarctica, a team led by researcher Liguang Sun, at the University of Science and Technology of China, found multiple carcasses belonging to the Adélie species of penguins. They quickly brought them to a research facility at the university where Zhou Qing Xie and Sun tested them with procedures such as radiocarbon dating.

   These scientists soon discovered that the penguins’ death dated back to two different time periods, one around 750 years ago and the other 200 years ago. The casualty was not a product of massacre, but rather a result of climate change.

   “I’m honestly not surprised that this happened to those penguins because climate change is a reoccurring thing and even nowadays people are ignoring the signs,” said Janet Chavez (11).

   Penguins located in the eastern part of Antarctica are accustomed to the dry and cool weather. Also, a majority of the penguins found were chicks, which are young and undeveloped penguins. This means that they are vulnerable to events in which there is heavy rainfall and snow. These are usual weather conditions in result of climate change affecting the penguins since they have not developed waterproof feathers yet.

   According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, global temperatures have risen 1.8 degrees on the globe since 1880 and the amount of ice in the Arctic has shrunk by 13.2%. This is a clear result of climate change, yet people continue to ignore the signs.

   “I think it’s real and if we don’t control it or stop it soon, people will get sick more quickly and animals will begin dying,” exclaimed Ximenna Toscano (9).

   Humans need to slow down the trend of global warming and stop allowing themselves to bring it closer to this day in age. Scientists claim that if this trend continues, future penguins will endure the same result as those almost 700 years ago. Though they do not have much concern about the penguins because they are not anywhere near endangered.

   “I think global warming will happen again and humans need to start recycling all of their plastics if they want to slow it down,” suggested Kaitlyn Coite (10).

   Global warming has been so normalized nowadays and not everyone thinks about the consequences that could happen in the next decade. They could help by spreading it out on social media to make people aware which would help create a domino effect of positive attributes.

   People could begin small by trying to limit the amount of plastic they use and making sure it goes into the recycling bin if used. This could help prevent more polluting of the ocean and harm of the sea life also.

   The discovery of these mummified penguins helps bring awareness to humans and what could happen, yet again, if global warming occured just as badly.