So, I raise the question - How many of you have seen that the snow is slowly but surely disappearing? Or you opened the news and saw that everyone is talking about the glaciers that are melting, causing the rise of sea levels. While this also implies no home for the polar bears, penguins, and many helpless animals, it also has huge negative impacts on natural phenomena at a global level. It should make us much more than sad!
The latest rise in year-on-year temperatures has brought wildfires that are spreading and destroying everything in their way. Extreme weather conditions are happening at an increased rate that threatens to destroy our environment. I know we all see it - it’s impossible not to.
And it’s frustrating to think about who did this and who caused Global Warming. Because frankly, we all did. Well, this tough question has been discussed repeatedly throughout the years. And the annoying part is that there are more blameworthy actions that caused the climate crisis, so not only one actor can be blamed for all of it. So, it will be at least necessary to mention the main concerns and further raise attention to what needs to change.
Let’s set the mood! Imagine you are a happy little squirrel or maybe a fox. You go out to look for something to eat. After a long day, you come back home, and suddenly your house doesn’t exist anymore. Gone just like that! What do you do? Nothing, you are now helpless as an animal can be. You can’t call your friends or parents to ask for help. You certainly can’t move to another city. But what you can do is feel the pain that deforestation brought to you.
But wait! Wild fauna is not all that deforestation can have an impact on! Drumrolls, please… It also highly impacts global climate change. Many researchers have found that deforestation can decrease the intake of CO2 by trees and cause global warming or the Greenhouse effect. Once the CO2 can’t be transformed into Oxygen by the same trees we cut, it is released back into the atmosphere. So, the global warming process is accelerated. To make it easier: CO2+No trees = Increases in Climate Change.
Now, let’s switch our focus to the Greenhouse effect. Well, in a greenhouse, sunshine enters, and the heat produced is kept there. The Greenhouse gas effect is something similar but at a global scale.
We have the Earth, the Sun, and the Atmosphere. The Earth absorbs a little less than half of the energy the Sun radiates. A percentage of that heat should then be re-radiated from the Earth into space, keeping the temperature on Earth at favorable levels.
The bad part is that human activity is causing more Greenhouse gases to get stuck in our atmosphere, causing it to resemble the glass panels in a greenhouse. And unfortunately, while heat can pass through our “glass”, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, and other greenhouse gasses are making it harder for it to radiate back into space. Imagine greenhouse gasses as a blanket that holds too tight, suffocating Earth. And a not-so-fun fact - CO2 can stay in the atmosphere for up to 1000 years…
So you might be wondering what produces those greenhouse gasses. The answer is, in part, burning fossil fuels to produce energy that powers our day-to-day operations and lives. And while regular humans have an impact, researchers have found that a third of the emissions released into the atmosphere are produced by the biggest 20 companies in the fossil fuel industry. If this doesn’t scare you, I don’t know what does.
Even more so, the manufacturing industry that we all benefit from is highly responsible for overall climate change. Think about all the energy burned to take raw materials to the final form that consumers can use. Producing plastic, cement, and refining metals means burning huge amounts of fossil fuels in the process.
Not to mention the clothing industry that not only contributes to global warming by manufacturing items but also transporting and storing them. And to think about the amount of waste associated with the clothing industry puts the blame on all of us.
To top it off, it is now known that the richest 10% of the population reportedly uses 20 times more energy than the 10% of the poorest. And since a bad thing never comes alone - It is also a known fact that the biggest, most powerful economies produce way more greenhouse gasses than the rest of the countries. In fact, more than 53% of the world’s global greenhouse gas emissions are produced by the biggest 5 actors in the global economy - China, the US, India, Russia, and the EU.
To think that China is responsible for more than 26% of this total is staggering. And while some of them try to take the initiative and reduce their emissions, like established in the Paris Agreement in 2015, it does look like things are moving too slowly.
So, you may or may not feel responsible for climate change. But the effects of it are taking a toll on everyone, and they act faster than we seem to respond. We can’t just be searching for the one to blame when it’s clear anyone participates in one way or another.
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