Various weather events have highlighted the effects of climate change in the public eye. These include wildfires, hurricanes, and heavy rain. Ross Powell is a professor of sedimentology and climate change at Northern Illinois University. He's noticed significant ice loss during his research in the Arctic. He said the U.S. could quickly heat up if nothing is done to curb greenhouse gas emissions. "By the turn of the century, 2100 or so, Illinois' climate could be something like North Texas or South Carolina today." This would mean 20 to 60 days of summer hotter than a hundred degrees Fahrenheit. Powell said warmer days could be particularly dangerous to those living in urban "heat islands."

As the climate warms, people will need to use more electricity for cooling. That could create even more climate-changing emissions. Powell says to avoid that the energy economy would need to move away from fossil fuels. "[The energy economy] really requires us and dramatically shows that we need to be changing our energy structure to things like wind resources and solar and so on to mitigate the production of greenhouse gases."

Professor Kevin Martin is part of the Institute for The Study of the Environment, Sustainability and Energy at NIU. He said the biggest greenhouse gas emitters are power generation and transportation. "We certainly need to look at more and more electric vehicles and then we also need to back that up with more renewable generation, so the whole well-to-wheel emission is dramatically reduced." Last year, Illinois was ranked the sixth in the nation for installed wind capacity, more than 5,000 megawatts. Martin said there are also transportation policies in the works.

"And the governor recently in August actually released a plan where he's targeting to have 750,000 electric vehicles in Illinois by 2030." This would require adjustments to transportation infrastructure. "For a vast majority of trips, you don't drive more than 40 miles a day. And so, by doing that ability, you can look at very much localized energy charging networks, certainly along the Interstate systems," Martin said. He said this can be done by directly generating electricity or using the power to create another fuel via electrolysis. "And from that process you'll be able to split that water molecule part into hydrogen and oxygen, collect the hydrogen and use that in a fuel cell, which takes oxygen from the air, and in the process, creates water vapor again." Martin added that "going green" also has economic benefits. "By investing in energy efficiency programs, by investing in renewable energy systems and having competitive power pricing, companies come to those states and then they set up shop and more jobs and more tax dollars."

Even so, experts like Powell say it's important to make the switch soon -- before it's too late to counteract the effects of global climate change.