Written by Flynn Haydon-Beal
Everyone has heard of “carbon emissions” or “global warming”, but unless you’ve really taken the time to do some research, most people don’t know exactly how climate change is detrimental to our planet. When you look around, it isn’t right there, so why worry about it? But before that, what is climate change? Climate change is defined as a “long-lasting change in the earth’s climate and weather patterns”. Putting into perspective, this means that once we impact the environment, whether positively or negatively, we won’t be able to completely clean up the world in any of our lifetimes. Looking at the current rate at which we are affecting the world, if we were to suddenly stop emitting all greenhouse gases and start replanting all the forests, it could take up to a thousand years to see any change in the temperature of the earth. But that’s if we stop now. Carbon emissions, which are caused by the burning of fossil fuels, have risen by 4.35 ppm since 2019 (Parts per million is the concentration of something in a solution), making a total 414.04 ppm in the atmosphere. The “safe” amount is 350 ppm. The influx in carbon dioxide means that, due to the greenhouse effect, the earth is gradually heating up. The carbon dioxide in the atmosphere traps the heat, causing water to evaporate. The water vapour in the air absorbs the heat and then reflects it back to the earth, which multiplies the greenhouse effect. If you have any background knowledge of carbon emissions, then you might know that the ocean absorbs most of it. Although this may seem like a good thing, it leaves the question of where it all goes after it gets absorbed. Creating a more acidic solution, the carbon dioxide causes the water’s PH level to drop. This means that as more carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere, the ocean slowly becomes more and more harmful to the creatures living in it. It eats away at the coral, destroys the shells of the crabs and lobsters and softens the shells of the turtles. We’re poisoning the oceans, we’re heating up the earth and we’re destroying the only thing that’s keeping us from the deadly laser of the sun. It all seems hopeless, doesn’t it? Well, not quite. Although we won’t be able to revert to how the earth once was, we can still try to stop the rise of emissions. Take the bus or the train whenever possible, donate to charities, reduce your beef consumption, rally for renewable energy sources and biofuels and attend strikes. I know that it all seems like a lot, but if everyone does two of those, then we will see a very big change in the output of carbon dioxide. With the pandemic occurring, it might seem that worrying about climate change is trivial, but with many people coming out of quarantine the emissions are on the rise again, and the only way to slow it is to act now.
Sources:
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/CarbonCycle/page5.php
https://climate.nasa.gov/faq/16/is-it-too-late-to-prevent-climate-change/
https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/reverse-global-warming.htm