Climate change is the changes in the world’s weather, in particular the fact that it is believed to be getting warmer as a result of human activity increasing the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, quoting from Cambridge Dictionary.
Still don’t get it yet?
Basically, climate change is the after-effect of global warming and the cause of a numerous amount of environmental damage on earth.
What are the examples of environmental damage and what is global warming?
See the picture above? Those are corals located in the Great Barrier Reef, the world’s largest coral reef system. If you’re thinking “why are the corals white? Are they dying out of age?” You’re right, they’re dying, but not out of age. They are dying from global warming.
Remember the wildfire in Australia which killed almost 3 billion animals and burned more than 3,000 houses? Scientists said global warming worsened the event by 30%.
These two events may not sound ironic anymore to us since we’ve heard a lot of them in the news. But they don’t only occur in Australia. Every possible corner of the earth is suffering from this kind of catastrophe. And the more it happens, the worse our climate will be.
Now, global warming, frankly, is a situation where the earth gets even warmer.
Global warming is the reason why we can hear people talking about rising sea levels and see polar bears losing their home in the poles because the ice is melting significantly.
Who’s responsible for climate change?
Human.
However, humans are not the only guilty party. The planet itself is on behalf of it. Even if there is no human, the climate will always change by time and destruction would still be unavoidable. Let’s just take dinosaur extinction and the loss of the ice age as evidence.
But, why put the blame on humans, then?
The present average global temperature is known to have reached more than 1°C. Sounds like a small number, right? But it is bad. Look at the graph below.
Even if you don’t know how to read the graph, it can be seen clearly that there’s been a drastic change since the late 19th century, which was the start of industrial revolution. And there’s no way animals or plants are the one in charge of the industrialisation.
Why does industrial revolution matter?
Because industrial revolution is what caused the increasing CO2 emission by 50% in just 30 years.
CO2 is the greenhouse gas that is responsible for 64% of man-made global warming. Followed by CFCs, HFCs, PFCs, SF6, and even methane by 17%.
Greenhouse gases are what makes the heat from sun trapped on earth, thus making the earth even warmer.
Where did the emissions come from?
- Fossil fuel and coal burning,
- Untreated waste from manufacturing facilities,
- Agricultural sector,
- Eating too much meat,
- Fast fashion,
- Excessive electricity usage,
- Deforestation fires,
- Consumptive lifestyle, and many more.
And, how to reduce greenhouse emission?
Easier than easy.
Do the opposite of what will release greenhouse gases. Or do the cliché movement; reduce, reuse, recycle, and raise awareness.
And to generous people, note this: Thank you for your kindness, but donation doesn’t really matter. It will only help the victims in a short period of time, yes. But if disasters keep happening, are you sure you will always have the resources to help others?
But, what does climate change have to do with us?
Of course nothing, but a series of catastrophes.
As if the damage from the fires in Australia, K’gari, and California isn’t enough, East Africa and Central America had to experience severe drought which wiped out their crops and oh! We also got floods in Indonesia and a wide spread of Southeast Asia, Kenya, and most of West and Central Africa, only then to be followed by apocalyptic hurricane season in the Atlantic which broke the record for 29 storms happened in just a year. All these disasters happened in 2020 alone. (Thank you Matthew Hoffman from The Conversation for compiling these).
We may be laying on our cotton bed right now or just had a nice dinner with our family. But, no one knows when the planet will return the inconvenience we gave, back to us.
