June 23rd, 1988 was the day that a landmark testimony based on climate change was brought to national attention. Dr. James Hansen, the director of NASA’s Institute for Space Studies at the time spoke before the senate and explained the threats of climate change, as well as explaining how humans have contributed to it by the use of carbon resources. Since then, countries have pushed more eco-friendly agendas, usually for public image, yet the problem still continues to affect us and our environment. With each passing year, it seems like we set a new record for the number of wildfires, species going extinct, or the hottest temperatures recorded. Despite this, in the U.S. about 59% of the population sees climate change as a serious threat; if everyone knew the causes behind it or some of the threats it poses to our world, would they change their opinion? In this essay, I will be examining some of the causes behind climate change, what are the potential dangers we should be cautious of, and what are some of the things we can do, as well as some of the things that are currently being done to assess the problem.
Now the Earth had already been warming leading up to the industrial revolution despite human activity, but the rate of this warming was very slow and the amount of greenhouse gasses trapped in the atmosphere had remained at a relatively constant level. However, since the industrial revolution and the advancements in technology, the human species has developed a lifestyle in which we rely on the immense usage of fossil fuels in order to function with our daily lives. It is unrealistic to place the blame solely on the individual, even though most of our daily activities or the things we consume contribute to global warming; the responsibility mainly falls on governments and big corporations that shape our world such as agriculture, gas companies, or infrastructure manufacturing. Nevertheless, as a species our impact on climate change is undeniable and according to Earl Ritchie, writing for Forbes Magazine, states, “The Earth is generally regarded as having warmed about about 1° C (1.8° F) since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, around 1750” (Ritchie, 2018) and provides this graph to give us a visual representation. This shows us the alarming rates at which we are contributing to global warming just by sustaining our daily needs.
As we now know, global warming is an issue that has plagued us for a very long time now and we have already begun feeling its effects in our everyday lives. Humans’ impact on global warming has changed the climate forever and the correlation between global warming and climate change has been a subject of study for many years now. In fact, Stephen Ornes writing for PNAS magazine discusses the annual collection of studies on the impact of climate change on extreme weather events from the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. The findings conclude, “Events highlighted in the most recent report ranged from flash droughts in southern Africa to extreme rainfall in Australia and China. Of all the studies highlighted over the years in BAMS reports, roughly 65% have found that climate change did, indeed, increase the severity or likelihood of an event.” (Ornes, 2018) The correlation between climate change and severe weather changes is clear and it is happening all over the world. Severe weather and natural disasters not only destroy the places they occur in but they affect the overall health of an individual, psychological development, and they cause major economic issues. In a place that most of us are able to relate to in some form, New York City, is committing $14 billion in order to combat climate change according to the official government website of New York City, which goes to show the concerns behind the whole issue.
Now with this information, it is easy to see why most people, when they think of global warming, tend to solely associate it with climate change. They aren’t wrong, because it is the most discussed aspect when it comes to global warming but they also are not aware of the massive impacts it will have on all sectors of our life. One of the most concerning aspects, especially in the face of an ever growing total population, is food supply. Alice Hill, Madeline Babin, and Sabine Baumgartner writing for The Council of Foreign Relations stress the issue concerning food supply explaining, “Over the past several years, heatwaves and drought have caused an estimated 20–50 percent losses in crop yields globally. A 2018 heat wave-cut agricultural yields by half in areas across Central and Northern Europe. More than one-third of the world’s agricultural land that cultivates wheat and rice—crops that constitute nearly 40 percent of the average individual’s diet—could endure devastating heat waves of five days or more by 2050.” (Hill and others, 2021) Global warming has clearly affected our ability to produce food and will continue to in the future, leaving us to scramble to think of alternative ways on how to meet our food supply.
At face value, the extinction of wildlife caused by climate change seems like it wouldn’t affect humans or the environments we live in. This notion is incorrect and the extinction of our wildlife would affect aspects of life that one wouldn’t even think of. The health of humans is directly associated with the health of biodiversity and we can all think of an example of this connection; COVID-19. The rate of infectious diseases increases as the rate of biodiversity decreases and Natasha Gilbert writing for Nature News gathered information from multiple studies commenting, “The review analyzes studies of 12 diseases, including West Nile fever and Lyme disease, in ecosystems around the world. In every study, the diseases became more prevalent as biodiversity was lost. For example, three studies showed that a decreased diversity of small mammals in an area causes the prevalence of hantaviruses — which induce fatal lung infections in humans — in host animals to rise, thereby increasing the risk to humans.” (Gilbert, 2010) From this information, we can see how the loss of even small mammals in specific regions can have a huge impact on our society. Not only would the loss of wildlife have effects on health, but it would also dramatically have cascading effects on medical advancements, plants, in terms of carbon levels in order to produce oxygen and the food chain in the wild and for humans.
Despite the mounting evidence on climate change and how it will affect our future, not all is bleak. There are many ways you and I can help the fight against climate change and there are new technologies being developed solely to do just that. One of these new technologies is called carbon capture and it is a broad term because it describes many methods on how to reduce carbon emissions. Some of the main carbon capture technologies mentioned in the book Energy Reports, are pre-combustion, post-combustion, and oxy-fuel combustion which are now being, “re-investigated to simultaneously combat climate change while producing sustainable, synthetic fuels, therefore triggering renewed interest in these technologies.” (Omoregbe and others, 2020) Although there have been advancements with these technologies they are yet to produce efficient results on a large scale. Luckily, there are things we can do in our daily lives to reduce the effects of climate change which include, eating more vegetables, recycling, wasting less, getting involved in local politics, and even consider using a bike or public transportation more often.
Global warming has been a house-hold topic for years now and it will continue to be for the rest of our lifetimes. Even in the face of natural disasters, protests, and so much more, governments and large corporations continue to affect our planet in the most negative ways possible, leaving us with an uncertain future. The writing of this essay really helped me understand some of the ways global warming has and will continue to affect all sectors of life as we know it and what are some of the things we can do on an individual level to help combat it. With this being said, I hope you are aware of these things too and will be proactively supporting the fight against global warming, making sure we have a home for future generations on this big blue planet.
Works Cited:
Ritchie, Earl. “Exactly How Much Has the Earth Warmed? and Does It Matter?” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 10 Dec. 2021, https://www.forbes.com/sites/uhenergy/2018/09/07/exactly-how-much-has-the-earth-warmed-and-does-it-matter/?sh=6d08cf915c22.
Ornes, Stephen. “Www.pnas.org.” PNAS, 14 Aug. 2018, https://www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10.1073/pnas.1320294111.
Hill, Alice, et al. “A World Overheating.” Council on Foreign Relations, Council on Foreign Relations, 18 Oct. 2021, https://www.cfr.org/article/climate-change-world-overheating-how-countries-adapt-extreme-temperature?gclid=Cj0KCQjwl7qSBhD-ARIsACvV1X1ZMf6VTcwhzPdAcyNLpxsL8Hksf3QN1KTBPljGPnex7WL9k6CmMwoaAvQ1EALw_wcB.
Gilbert, Natasha. “More Species Means Less Disease.” Nature News, Nature Publishing Group, 1 Dec. 2010, https://www.nature.com/articles/news.2010.644.
Omoregbe, Osaze, et al. “Carbon Capture Technologies for Climate Change Mitigation: A Bibliometric Analysis of the Scientific Discourse during 1998–2018.” Energy Reports, Elsevier, 14 May 2020, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352484720301244.