You may want to reconsider your mode of transportation before you next step on a Michigan bus.

Last week, a report released by Greenpeace, a national, non-governmental organization that works to increase environmental awareness, found that the state of Michigan emits more global warming pollution from fossil fuel consumption than 167 out of the 184 countries studied.

Greenpeace’s report was based on a study conducted by the World Resources Institute between 1960 and 2005. The study found that Michigan alone emits more pollution than many countries, including Canada, the United Kingdom and Germany.

Kate Finneran, a Greenpeace field organizer from Ann Arbor, places some of the blame on Michigan’s excessive emissions from coal plants.

“We’ve got some really massive coal plants in the state,” she said, citing the Monroe Power Plant in Monroe, which has released 21 million tons of carbon dioxide pollution into the air since its establishment in the early 1970s.

According to a Greenpeace press release, the Monroe Power Plant is the largest source of carbon dioxide pollution in the state. But 40 percent of Michigan’s carbon dioxide emissions comes from electric power and 30 percent is produced by transportation.

These carbon emissions have contributed to the rise in local and global temperatures, Finneran said.

Over the last century, the average temperature in Ann Arbor has increased from 46.6 degrees to 47.7 degrees Fahrenheit.

While this may not seem like much, Finneran said the whole country is experiencing a similar rise in temperature, which is causing more natural disasters.

“We’ve been seeing these floods and fires have been happening every day across the country,” she said. “They’re becoming such a common thing in the news. (Climate change is) impacting here, but this is something happening nationally and globally.”

Catherine Badgley, assistant professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, said climate change is posing real environmental issues in Michigan.

The decreasing length of winter, moving ranges of fish and mammal species, disappearance of animal populations and earlier melting of ice on the Great Lakes are all effects of global warming, she said.

“From my perspective living on a farm, we have new disease organisms that have moved into the area just in the last decade,” Badgley said. “All of that is temperature-related. There certainly are impacts on nature and on creatures big and small.”

Badgley said there has been an increasing amount of data published in the last few years demonstrating the effects of climate change on ecosystems.

In a University study published last month, Philip Myers, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, found that many southern Michigan mammal species — like the white-footed mouse, southern flying squirrel and eastern chipmunk — are moving North in response to climate change.

Of the nine species studied during the last 30 years, five have declined in population size.

LSA junior Julie Earnest worked with Greenpeace last semester in San Francisco, Calif. She said it’s becoming apparent that the United States is emitting more than its fair share of carbon emissions.

“We’re still emitting more than everyone,” she said. “And I think that says a lot, not only about Michigan, but just the entire American mentality — that we can kind of take all we want, and it’s never going to affect us, but it obviously is.”

Though Michigan emits more carbon pollution than many countries in the world, so do other states.

The World Resources Institute’s report ranked Michigan as the state that produces the eighth largest cumulative greenhouse gas emission in the country.