Do the words climate change mean anything to you?
The World Health Organization asserts that climate change is the greatest threat to global health in the 21st century. The question on my mind and hopefully on yours is how we individually and collectively mitigate its devastating effects. Do we really care to examine our role in protecting our fragile ecosystems?
Successive United States governments have played lip-service to this issue, climate change has been used as a political football, kicked around for votes. Although climate change seemed to be on the Democratic party’s agenda, their efforts in my opinion have not gained much traction.
In 2015, nations collectively agreed under the Parris Agreement, to keep global warming under 2-degree Celsius through country specific efforts including reducing their carbon footprint. This has not been achieved.
How can we realistically achieve this milestone when industrialized nations such as China continue to expand and oil producing nations have not found the technology to harness its resources effectively without polluting the environment.
During mining of minerals and other resources, the earth gets heated through the burning of fossil fuels for energy thus creating emissions. These gasses referred to as greenhouse gasses are transparent to sunlight allowing it to heat the earth’s surface.
When the earth emits that heat as infrared radiation and gases, its absorbed and trapped near the earth’s surface. As the planet heats up, it causes changes to our ecosystems. The loss of sunlight reflecting snow cover amplifies global warming.
Today deserts are expanding, while heat waves and wildfires are becoming more common. Warming in the arctic is causing melting,permafrost,glacial retreat and ice loss. Higher temperatures are causing more intense storms and hurricanes.
Rapid environmental change in mountains, coral reefs, glacial retreat, is causing species to relocate or become extinct such as our coral reefs and fish.
Loss of coral reefs have a direct correlation to loss of life form in the ocean producing less sand for our beautiful beaches. More importantly coral reefs protect the coastlines and populated areas from strong currents,waves,flood,storms , tidal waves and tsunamis.
People will experience food and water scarcity in the near future. The results from global warming have increased flooding, extreme heat, more disease and economic loss. Deserts are expanding while heat waves and wildfires are becoming more common.
I lived through the devasting effects of Hurricane Irma and Maria in 2017 and hope no one experience such a life threating moment in their lifetime.
While the memories live on in my mind, I hope people through their leaders advocate for change through reducing the burning of fossil fuels and towards electricity generated from low carbon sources, phasing out coal-fired power plants, vastly increasing the use of wind and solar power. Switching to electric vehicles and heat pumps in buildings are viable solutions. Vastly removing carbon from the atmosphere by increasing forest cover. If we want to contribute to protecting our existence, let's start by planting a tree in our backyard where possible.
Check out my book Peace came in the morning for more resources on managing natural disasters. Cheers!!!