Climate Change: Myth or Reality?

” Climate change is no longer some far off problem; it is happening here, it is happening now. “- Barack Obama

In the recent days we’re hearing a lot of things about Climate Change and how it’s harmful for the planet, but still not everyone knows what exactly Climate change is. So let’s start by knowing what it actually is.

In simple words climate change is the significant long term change of the average weather patterns of a region or the entire planet due to natural or man-made causes. One of the famous examples is the melting of polar ice caps which is caused by increase in global or regional temperature. 

The main cause of climate change is the growing carbon footprint caused by the burning of fossil fuels like Oil and Coal which emits the greenhouse gas Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere.

Today Climate change is at its worst ever and if not fixed within the next 7-8 years it is expected that Humanity might even end till 2050. This is a shocking statistic which has put most of the people and countries into panic mode and they are finding solutions to reduce the pollution and prevent the global apocalypse. While many countries are trying their best to solve this crisis by coming together, the absence of world superpowers like the United States of America has been a huge setback.

Most of people believe that it’s the third world countries and the countries with huge populations which are mainly  responsible for causing pollution and climate change and if you are one of those who believe this. Well, guess what, you’re wrong. Even though China recently surpassed the United Stated in the greenhouse gas emissions becoming the largest emitter. But looking back over time the United States is responsible for producing a massive 27% of the total global carbon dioxide emissions and no other country was no where close to that with India and China, worlds most populous countries emitting only 3% and 11% of the carbon dioxide emissions respectively.

Inspite of all these statistics, the president of The United States of America, Donald Trump has repeatedly called climate change an ‘hoax’ and that it is a Chinese conspiracy and with all his policies favouring industries exploiting coal and fossil fuels in huge amounts causing a lot of pollution and with all the controversial decisions he has taken regarding pollution and the industries which emit a lot of carbon dioxide and especially the Paris Agreement. It is a disadvantage for everyone that the president of the world’s biggest economy is ignoring the science and all the evidence.

Climate change has some disastrous effects and we are already seeing many of them such as increase in the global temperatures which is causing severe droughts and heat waves like the one India has been facing for the last few months. Due to climate change the frost free seasons are lengthening, precipitation patterns are changing.i.e some places are suddenly facing more precipitation whereas some are facing droughts. Climate change also causes hurricanes and natural disasters more intense and stronger.

The most important effect of the climate change is that due to the increase in the global temperatures the polar ice caps and the Arctic region specifically is likely to melt and become Ice-free which will further cause the sea levels to rise by 1-4 feet by the year 2100.  

So in this case where our planet is being destroyed, what can we do to prevent human extinction especially at the time when the doomsday clock is just 2 minutes to midnight?

The solutions are simple but it is not something we usually do or forget to do for various reasons.

1. Make your commute and travel green: Today everyone has a car and drives it to college or to work and this many times causes traffic jams and not to forget, these emit greenhouse gases which destroy and harm our atmosphere. So instead of taking your car, take public transport. It is a great way to cut the emissions or better ride your bicycles.
2. Be Energy Conservative: This is something most of us are not including me at times but saving electricity and energy is a great way to prevent pollution. This means that you must make sure to turn off and unplug devices that are no longer in use. Also replace your lights with energy efficient light bulbs.
3. Vote: One of the best ways to counter climate change will be to vote for the one who will fight it and pass regulations against pollution causing industries when gets in office.
4. Recycle: This is the easiest of all solutions. Buy only those products which can used again or is 100% recyclable. This will reduce the number of new products being manufactured and products could be made by recycling things like paper, glass, etc.
5. Ban Plastic: This is one of most important solutions. Even though it does not have a direct role to play in climate change but when the plastic is discarded it lands in the deepest of waters and highest of mountains, causing pollution and deaths among large number of animals and even extinction in some, indirectly causing climate change.

In conclusion, I would just say that climate change IS very real and is harmful for us and if not stopped, it would end up killing us all. So go out there, inform people about this, spread awareness about how we can stop climate change because we aren’t out of time yet. But if we don’t do anything now. It will be the endgame for all of us.

SAVE THE PLANET!!!

This is it from me for now, hope you all are doing well. Take care, Ciao!