What is climate change?
It's hard to think of things powerful enough to disrupt life across our entire planet. Pretty much anything you can think of as catastrophic, as horrible as it is, is almost always confined to one part of earth. Natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis and hurricanes can affect millions of people, but their impacts are usually confined to just one region of the world. Global warming however is potentially the biggest threat to the human species. This is because it’s not a contained issue, it’s a global issue. Global warming is the gradual rising of Earth's temperature. If we act on the problem soon, we could help stop this transformation that our planet is going through. Global warming will make the climate much more unpredictable, cause sea levels to rise, and contribute to the extinction of many animal species.
How does it work?
The world's weather is powered by the Sun. Since Earth rotates on a tilted axis, different parts of our planet are heated at different times of year, making some regions hotter than others and causing the seasons. As Earth warms up, the oceans warm up too. Water expands as it warms. As the oceans are heated, the water they contain takes up more space, and this makes the level of the seas rise. The seas also rise as the ice caps melt, feeding more water into the oceans. This causes a process known as “desalination”.
What is Desalination?
Desalination is the process of removing salt from water, or in this case diluting the amount of salt in the ocean. Without the proper balance of salt in the ocean, many species will not be able to survive. Think about it, if you take a tank with a saltwater fish and start pouring in freshwater, that fish will eventually die. You can even forget about the fish for a minute, but what else will rising sea levels do to us humans? Rising sea levels means many beaches and coastal cities could eventually be underwater.
Classroom Session:
One of the most famous hurricanes to have hit the USA was Hurricane Katrina back in 2007. This was a category 5 hurricane(the strongest possible) and hit city of New Orleans, Louisiana. The city of New Orleans actually sits below the sea level, which means that the ocean surrounding would actually be above you if you were standing on any New Orleans street. This sounds like a problem doesn’t it? Well New Orleans built something called a flood protection system that normally keeps the city from flooding more regularly. However, hurricanes cause sea levels to rise around it and when Katrina hit, the flood protection system was breached more than 50 times causing water to flood into the city and caused thousands of deaths. While this is a very extreme case of what kind of damage higher sea levels can cause, every city that sits near the ocean is at risk of losing some of its land to the sea if climate change is not reversed.
During the ice age, the planet warmed by 5 degrees over about 5000 years. Modern climate change threatens to produce the same amount of a warming in as little as 100 years! Think about that! Once something as big as a planet starts to warm up, it's very hard to slow down the process—and almost impossible to stop it completely. Due to all the fossil fuels we burn, there is now more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than at any time in the last 420,000 years combined. Currently, more than 75% of our energy comes from fossil fuels. And as countries around the world develop, the amount of energy people use increases as well.
As Earth warms up, the oceans warm up too. Water expands as it warms. As the oceans are heated, the water they contain takes up more space, and this makes the level of the seas rise. The seas also rise as the ice caps melt, feeding more water into the oceans. Certain places get hotter over time, but most places will simply see more erratic and extreme weather. That could mean longer periods of drought, more tsunamis and hurricanes, and other natural disasters.
We often forget that we are not just humans, but animals too. We are a huge part of the complex global ecosystem. When people think about climate change many think about the ice caps melting far far away in the north pole. Although you may not realize it, we are already feeling the effects of climate change much closer to home. Erratic weather patterns are increasing which means greater storm damage and the loss of coastal areas to rising seas. Our government has to spend millions of dollars on natural disasters, which is money that indirectly come from all of our pockets(aka our taxes). Some even predict that climate change flooding could make around 100–200 million people permanently homeless by 2100.
How will Climate Change impact our world?
Climate change will make life difficult for plants and animals all over the world. Some predictions say climate change could make 30–40 percent of the world's species extinct.
Polar bears depend on sea ice for hunting and traveling. If all the ice disappears, as predicted, polar bears may be unable to survive and will most-likely become extinct within our lifetime.
Millions of migratory birds fly to the Arctic every summer to breed and nest. But global warming will alter the plants that can thrive in the Arctic. Around 50 percent of breeding habitats for some birds may disappear, threatening the species that depend on them.
With warmer climates Pests and diseases are predicted to spread much further , spreading diseases to more people at a much quicker rate.
Mosquitoes, for example, breed faster in a warmer planet. By 2100 malaria is expected to spread much more widely, placing two-thirds of the world's people at risk.
So… yeah, global warming is a BIG ISSUE and it's up to US to do something about it. This is a problem that requires all of us to work together to save our planet. It’s not the type of issue you wait for someone else to do something about. It starts with you.
What can I do about climate Change?
Find out what candidates support renewable energy and vote for them! The little things we do have a big impact, but what has an even bigger impact is the laws that NEED to be put in place. In order to slow down global warming big corporate companies need to support and switch to renewable energy sources like solar or wind. Oil companies need to have stricter regulations to lessen the amount of fossil fuel produced.
Additional things you can do:
Educate others! Don’t undervalue the spread of knowledge! Influencing others goes a long way!
Recycle!
Install solar panels
Use reusable bottles, avoid plastic waste
Don’t litter! It’s easy to throw your trash out the window and not think twice about it. But what's cooler than taking the easier route is setting an example for everyone else. Throw your shit away in the trash. And if you see someone else littering. Politely educate them on the effects litter can have on animals, such as seabirds, with 90% of them having plastic in their guts.
Drive a fuel efficient vehicle
Drive less, take public transportation more
Buy energy-efficient products
Replace your light bulbs with energy saving bulbs
Turn shit off! Don't leave your lights on. It will use less energy and cost you less
Support alternative wind and solar supply companies instead of major power companies like ConEdison, National Grid, Pacific Gas & Electric(PGE).