l Elyssa Aigner
Professor Patrick Hill
COM-100-094
Potent heroin and the cross breeding of grizzly bears and polar bears surprisingly have one thing in common- and that's climate change.
First off, what is climate change? let's start with refreshing our knowledge of the Greenhouse effect
So carbon dioxide, methane, and other gasses create a layer in the troposphere which is the lowest level of our atmosphere.. They regulate both sunlight and heat all while entrapping the heat we already have.
The driving force in climate change occurs when we burn fossil fuels, and in turn it increases those gasses, creating more insulation-almost like a giant heat bubble.
Now, we all hear time and time again about the polar ice caps melting, and the forest fires but it's rather difficult for our brains to really process the severity of those issues. So let me help put it into perspective.
An article published in March 2019 by the Union of Concerned Scientists shows that climate change has affected both precipitation patterns and temperature patterns, meaning extreme heat and longer and more intense droughts. This directly affects farming by accelerating crop failures along with loss of livestock. Generally speaking this means food production ultimately decreases, in turn creating a larger food insecurity issue which can most likely result in widespread famine.
According to an article published by the United Nations relating to Global issues, they estimated that nearly 690 million people worldwide are hungry, and an estimated 2 billion people did not have regular access to safe and sufficient food in 2019.
Despite having one of the world's largest food surpluses, this food insecurity directly affects the US. What I'm trying to say is that in these somewhat ideal conditions the world is already hungry, and it's only going to get a lot hungrier.
Now to make matters even worse, we'll eventually run out of space to live in. Published on February 11th 2021 by Statista.com with data backed by research from Scientific Magazine Nature Communications, 200 million people will live below sea level by 2100. This study assumes an average temperature increase of 3.6 degrees fahrenheit and DOES NOT take into account the accelerated rate that ice sheets are melting at.
That data is being extremely conservative in its estimates and yet catastrophes are only 78 years away. Ultimately with less land, and worsening living conditions, people will migrate- (usually) migrating to places where they are already having issues supporting their population.
So in the midst of all this I believe that there is still hope. That hope, coming in the form of managing our renewable energy and investments in sustainability. Statista.com published a chart on March first 2021 with data collected from the world bank. The USA is at the top in emissions with an average of 17.6 metric tons per capita. These emissions are bad, but this chart truly highlights just how dependent we are on fossil fuels. (now) There is no way to stop our dependency on this energy, but we can start by beginning to replace some of those energy sources. Replacing that source of energy is something that we as a country should consider a priority. In turn, this doesn't mean everyone has electric cars. It means revitalizing our infrastructure by creating less cars on the roads and more buses and utilizing high speed rails along with the change to public transit.
Climate change is a major issue that is not focused on as much as it should be. Our production of waste is directly affecting the world we live in and the creatures that live in, including us. Animals are constantly losing homes to forest fires or all-to-common natural disasters and to add to that, we are even losing certain species to climate change.
This world we live in is fragile and according to many, is already on the brink of extinction. We have dug our graves so deep that it seems easier to just say "it's too late to fix anything," but I believe there is hope. In WWII, all of the factories, banks, and other countless job institutions worked together to support those fighting. Now, we are still at war but it's not a nation against another nation, but rather life against time. The only solution left is to actively go greener while keeping the health of the world in the back of your mind.
