The Crisis We Should All Be Focusing On
The Climate Crisis and how it will define the rest of our lives.
If NASA announced today that there was an asteroid on a collision course with Earth whose impact was expected to destroy life as we know it, there would be a frenzy, even if this impact was still decades away. We would certainly expect a lot of time and resources to be redirected to formulating ways of averting this impending disaster.
Strangely, we are facing a similar threat, in the form of climate change, and yet most people seem to be insufficiently informed and/or unbothered by a threat that over 97% of scientists agree (based on the data) could spell the end of human life on our world. The reality is that climate change will affect us all, and if we are to pull ourselves out of this downward spiral, we must act, and to do that, we must know both what we are up against and what we can do about it.
Is there evidence for climate change? Are we responsible for it?
Given the amount of evidence for climate change — and there is a lot — there’s still a shocking amount of climate change denial going on, giving a false impression that this issue remains debatable. The Greenhouse Effect is real. We need only to look at our sister planet, Venus (a planet with surface temperatures hot enough to melt lead), to see where the path we are on leads.
The heat-trapping nature of gases like CO2 and methane is well documented. This is evidenced by the 0.9℃ increase in average temperatures since the late 19th century driven by increased CO2 emissions from the Industrial Revolution. Most of this increase has been in the last 35 years, and the three warmest years on record have all been since 2010, with 2016 being the warmest. The melting ice sheets provide the best evidence for this, with Greenland and the Antarctic losing a combined total of over 400 billion tons of ice between 1993 and 2016. Sea levels have risen by over 8 inches in the last century, and the rate of increase has doubled in the last two decades.
There is certainly no doubt that climate change is happening, and there is even less doubt that we are playing a major role in it, but the real question may be what this means for us, especially in the near future.
If we do not act, average global temperatures will most certainly continue to rise. As a result, the polar ice caps, which contain the vast majority of Earth’s fresh water, will continue to melt — the effects of that alone being potentially disastrous. Some of these include the worsening of the clean water crisis, rising sea levels which will drown many islands and low-lying coastal areas, potentially displacing millions of people, and increasing soil salinity. The latter will reduce the amount of available arable land, worsening food shortages, especially in Latin America and Africa. On top of that, some areas should expect more frequent and intense droughts, while others will be ravaged by flooding worse than what we already see today.
The result will be that large habitats will be destroyed, and a significant percentage of Earth’s plant and animal species will go extinct. All this, being just the tip of the iceberg, is the result of our actions today, and as such, this nightmare will be our legacy.
“Hmm, that’s bad, but will it affect me?” one may ask.
Well, first of all, remember that tropical vacation you have always wanted to go on — maybe to Bali or Bora Bora or another one of those places? Maybe you’ve always wanted to own a beach house overlooking the ocean. Well, unless you’re Aquaman, those places will soon be inaccessible to you.
Natural disasters will become more frequent, meaning if you hated being locked up due to COVID-19, you may want to start looking up indoor hobbies as we’ll all probably be spending more time trapped in our homes for extended periods. If you’re someone who is even just the tiniest bit affected by the images of starving children in famine-ravaged regions (I’d be worried if you weren’t), then you can rest assured that things will not only get worse for them, but more people will end up being forced to live like that, too.
If you’re a young person reading this, the things I’ve just listed above may be the least of your worries. Heat waves, which will certainly become more frequent, are known to have the worst effects on the elderly, and, I’m just taking a shot in the dark here, but I’d guess that if you’re young now, you’re probably going to be old in the future.
If at this point you’re fired up and ready to find out what you can do to make this better, your diet may be a good place to start. While veganism would be the best option, a vegetarian or flexitarian diet would suffice, however, if you’re not quite ready to give up meat products completely. A study by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported that 14.5% of all emissions were from the agriculture industry, while a subsequent study by WorldWatch Institute placed that number higher at a staggering 51%.
This would also have the added benefit of greatly reducing the number of innocent animals that are forced to suffer due to our inhumane factory farming practices.
Another thing we could all do is to eat organically produced products, which are both good for us and the environment. We can also buy locally produced goods, thereby reducing carbon emissions from transportation. Seeing as that renewable sources of energy have yet to completely replace fossil fuels, we also have to become more conscious of our power consumption. This doesn’t just mean switching off lights when we’re not using them, but also means cutting down on things like air-conditioning and saving it only for those times when the temperatures are extreme.
We can also fly less, and maybe, instead of driving to work or school every day, we can learn to use public transit, walk or cycle, with the latter two having significant health benefits, too. We are fortunate enough to still be in a position where we can choose what sacrifices to make, but the longer we wait, the closer we get to Mother Nature taking that choice away from us, and we may not like the options that remain.
If you find yourself feeling overwhelmed by all the sacrifices that we need to make, then you’re not alone.
My words may not be enough to convince you that we need to make a change, but if you’re a parent, or plan to become one at some point, then take a moment to think about the world you’ll be bringing your child(ren) into. It isn’t just about us anymore — it’s about every human being that is ever going to be born. We may not think much about future and past generations, but one quick look around is enough of a reminder that pretty much all the luxuries we enjoy today are here because of the actions of those that came before us.
“Just as descendants of slave owners look back contemptuously at the actions of their ancestors, so too will our descendants look back with disdain at our refusal to act”
The task we face is daunting, but even the longest journeys started with a single step. You may feel like the actions of one person don’t matter, but they do — your example may convince one person to take that first step, and they may convince another, and so on, and so on. In times like these, there’s no such thing as neutrality — your actions will either play a part (no matter how small) to improve things or to make them worse; the least we can all do is to try and be on the right side.
