Causes And Consequences Of Climate Change
Global warming has been a hot topic in recent years, it has been crucial to society and has been an important factor of many debates, causes of global warming vary from the various deforestation plants in the Amazon to the highly polluting vehicles identified within the many first world countries. In addition to the causes, many Meteorologists believe that the impacts of climate change will drastically change our environment to higher temperatures and higher sea levels which could leave irreversible effects.
Human-induced climate change is a recognized phenomenon that in the last millennia has helped speed up the warming of our planet. The first cause of the greenhouse gas effect is natural causes such as trees and plants including animals which help make up the atmosphere of our planet. The second phase of the greenhouse gas effect is a human-induced change that affects the environment by building up CO2 and N in the atmosphere further consolidating the rise of the effect and trapping solar radiation within the atmosphere of the earth and due to this climate change then causes irrefutable damage to the earth. The causes of this human-induced phenomenon can be linked to our reliance on fossil fuels and the subsequent industrialization of our species.
Ever since the late 1800s, our species has rapidly advanced and has industrialized many places but to these advancements, there have been negative effects such as the buildup up of harmful gasses and the melting of the icecaps in the following chart we can see that carbon emissions have increased dramatically and in the 1900s they were at about 700 million metric ton whilst throughout the late 40s and 50s we can see a rapid increase in the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere and in 2014 we can see the emissions to be at 9 billion. From this, we can conclude that the emissions per year have been increasing and had reached a tipping point within 2014. Industrialization Is a major concern but the issues may also lay within the increasing dependence of environmentally harming vehicles such as cars based on fossil fuels. A study found by Nasa in 2010 showed that the effects of climate change can be also largely contributed too Biomass Burning and Power Generation which both contributed to over a billion in Radiative Forcing (The amount of penetration that the earth provides.)
The effects caused by climate change will be detrimental to our existence and will challenge what we know to be normal today. One of the first effects caused by climate change will be the increase in global sea levels. A study done by the IPCC finds that we can expect a rise of 10 – 30 9 inches of sea levels and we could see more coastal provinces be at risk of this extreme phenomenon. Even now we are seeing the firsthand effects of global warming in Bangladesh as their city is slowly engulfed by the sea and floods, we can see how the effects of climate change and the subsequent rise of sea levels have forced people to flee their homes in search of amnesty from the sea and its Iron grip. Not to mention the destruction of the important glaciers and the Antarctic region could pose a long-term threat to ecosystems globally and could affect the spread of temperatures across the globe and also lower some species and force others to go extinct. The impact of climate change overall towards the arctic may also mean a loss to 70% of the world's drinking water and may have drastic impacts on the concentrations of salt which may endanger countless species and wildlife.
In addition to the rise of sea levels, the effects of climate change will also reach global temperatures. Currently, we have seen an increase of over 2.7 degrees since the end of the century marking a drastic change for our environment. These higher temperatures have marked the likelihood of it affecting kore species and as such a study found by the department of environment heritage in NSW finds that species living closer to their tipping point are more likely to be affected by climate change in addition to species which lack the ability to adapt and migrate. The study also finds that by having areas which are entirely controlled by an invasive species also increases the likelihood of endangerment to a species.
Climate change can be stopped if we implement measures to protect ourselves against this threat. One of the first most notable examples is Carbon Scrubbers which will allow us to keep our current emissions but lower the overall amount of carbon in the atmosphere. The carbon scrubber works by processing carbon and converting it by using sorbent material which sucks up all the carbon and converts it into a useful form. This form of environmentally friendly technology has been proposed but is currently in its infancy. Another way to stop climate change could be to reduce the number of emissions coming from cars, this can be done by converting cars into hybrids that burn less fuel and use electricity to power themselves. Even though this form of environmentally friendly studies has found that the technology may not be as efficient and may pollute more than normal vehicles in their initial production. As scene in the diagram below the rate of efficiency of an electric car is 156 grams per mile compared to the 381 grams that are produced by gasoline vehicles this shows that there is some merit to distinguishing both cars and that the previous assumption made by researchers is false proving that electric cars are an efficient alternative to current vehicles and could help reduce climate change.
Another way to reduce our impacts on the climate could be through renewables, this could work by converting previous plants such as coal plants into wind farms which produce more electricity and have a higher rate of conversion, overall there are many ways that affect climate change from the start of climate change from the late 70s to the murky effects of climate change onto animals and species and how it intertwines with these species and the ecosystem all of these add to create the negatives of climate change.
