The Dangerous Enemy of the World: Climate Change

By: Sachi Ramachandran

Climate change is a problem that has plagued our Earth since the mid-20th century due to a phenomenon known as the “Greenhouse effect.” The Greenhouse effect describes the atmosphere containing certain chemicals that block heat from escaping, thus warming our world and causing severe natural disasters. These effects are often catastrophic weather changes that can result in an increase in wildfires, severe hurricane seasons, and a rise in global temperature. Climate change is not something that affects only a small percentage of the world, it affects all of us. This topic should not be “up for debate” or considered political. It is a human issue that we should all care about and fight to stop.

One of the causes of climate change is the abundance of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. The increase in this gas is the main reason the Greenhouse effect has had such a drastic impact on our world. Carbon dioxide makes up a small percentage of the atmosphere and is released in a variety of natural ways, which include the respiration of humans and animals and volcanic eruptions; but the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is most drastically affected by human activity. The burning of fossil fuels is the most obvious example of this, but deforestation and changes in land use also contribute to the increase in carbon dioxide. As a human race, we have increased the prevalence of this chemical in our atmosphere by more than a third since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in 1760. The rise in carbon dioxide partnered with other chemicals, such as nitrous oxide and water vapor, creates an even more drastic warming effect on our planet. The rise of factory production has caused atmospheric carbon dioxide levels to rise from 280 parts per million to 420 parts per million in the past 150 years. The IPCC (International Panel for Climate Change) states that there is a 95% chance that human production of greenhouse gases is the cause of global warming. Since we know how the problem was caused, we should also be able to devise a solution.

The effects of the increase of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere are the following: a rise in temperature across the globe, a rise in sea level, an ice-free Arctic, severe weather patterns, changes in precipitation, and droughts (leading to wildfires). Climate change and the evidence behind it should shock us into changing into a more eco-friendly society. Some effects of climate change that we see in Alabama would be extreme heat and droughts. Droughts in places like California and Australia resulted in dangerous wildfires. The wildfires spread rapidly and are detrimental to wildlife. In Alabama, due to the effects of climate change, we will experience more severe thunderstorms during hurricane season. Hurricanes will grow more and more intense and the season is said to lengthen as the global temperature increases. The Arctic ice decreases in mass by 12.85% each decade and will accelerate if we don’t change. Many scientists argue that the loss of ice in the poles is already irreversible and is a disaster. Not to mention a growing list of endangered species across the world as a result of the destruction of our planet. It is a debate within the scientific community about when we will reach the “tipping point” of climate change, but we should act now before we get to the point that there is no turning back.

Climate change experts say that in order to stay on track with the Paris Agreement, (a global climate change initiative enacted during the Obama Administration), the global community must reduce carbon emissions by 7.5% per year until 2030. This reduction is only possible if governments across the globe decide to address this issue and face it head-on. President Trump famously backed out of the Paris Climate Agreement (June 1, 2017) in order to grow factory production and businesses. One could argue that this would stimulate the economy and decrease unemployment rates; but will there be an economy to stimulate and people to employ if we keep destroying the planet we live on?

President Trump has repealed many acts that protect certain areas from excessive drilling, including the practice of fracking and rolled back an Obama-era coal rule that restricted coal production in order to reduce emissions. Additionally, President Trump’s administration proposed rollbacks to rules on endangered species acts, partially cut funding towards NASA’s climate monitoring program, cut funding for clean energy, and reinstated plans for the Keystone Pipeline, an oil pipeline in Canada and the United States that uses fossil fuels rather than renewable energy. To combat the bad press he got for these actions, President Trump signed a Save Our Seas bill which is supposed to hold nations that contribute to plastic waste in the ocean accountable. This bill sounds effective, but in reality, it places the blame of plastic waste on other, smaller countries, instead of holding our own country accountable. A more effective bill would have been a law to hold the United States accountable for the plastic waste we have contributed. President Trump signs environmental bills every now and again, but they never prove to be effective and usually focus more on the economy rather than the danger of climate change. His plan compared to Finland, a country with five female leaders, who stride towards becoming carbon neutral in 15 years, simply does not compete. For a country so large and powerful, if we made strides towards fighting climate change, we could make an enormous difference in our survival.

The changes that this situation calls for should come from all of us. Cutting down on the production and use of plastic, eating less meat, recycling, and drinking plant-based milk may sound like dumb solutions, but they could help lower emissions into our atmosphere. I implore older generations and people in power to put climate change at the top of their list because while they have had their whole lives to live, my generation will not. Give us the chance to enjoy the planet and quit calling climate change a political issue or a hoax. It would be a disaster to think that we destroyed our own planet because we were willfully ignorant of the issue.

Edited By: Austen Wyche and Vaishali Ojha

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