Human-influenced Climate Changes

Oscillation as part of the northern hemisphere. There are factors that bring warm weather to North America and some of Europe, taking it away from the Arctic. This cycle is reversed in other years. It will influence the temperatures in a certain area but won't affect global weather greatly.

HUMAN-INFLUENCED CLIMATE CHANGES

The effect humans have on the climate is called our anthropogenic influences on climate. We have a significant impact on ecosystems, the biophysical environment, natural resources, and biodiversity throughout the world. Our impact has led to global warming, loss of environmental resources, mass extinction of some species, crises in our ecological systems, acidification of our oceans, and loss of biodiversity overall.

There is much talk about how we have impacted or will continue to impact the environment and our climate. Let's look at the different factors related to anthropogenic influences on the earth and its inhabitants:

• Overconsumption – this involves our use of resources beyond the capacity of the earth to provide them. There are things we over-consume that cannot be easily replaced, such as petroleum products. Lifestyle issues and the overpopulation of parts of the earth both impact the problem of overconsumption. This is why we talk about reducing the carbon footprint. Carbon is the basis of petroleum products. We also overuse metals at too high a rate.

• Overpopulation – human population growth has been significant in the past three hundred years compared to the millennia prior to this. So many people need to be fed and taken care of; this takes a toll on the world's resources. When we add the use of synthetic materials and items to be thrown away and not recycled to the problem, there is a big strain on the ecosystem. Resources are strained already and are expected to get more strained over time.

• Farming and fishing issues – these involve poor agricultural practices that worsen the amount of emissions into the environment. Fishing will worsen the sustainable resources by overfishing or by damaging or destroying other species in the quest for getting the desired fish species. It is estimated that we will run

out of wild-caught fish in 2048 if nothing changes. The entire marine ecosystem is affected by these practices.

• Irrigation – this affects the ecosystem overall in direct and indirect ways. It can affect the water going through streams and rivers because it takes this water for irrigation instead. It will also affect the soil in ways that can be disruptive to the ecosystems of the world.

• Loss of land for agriculture – land has been lost due to degradation of the soil for many reasons. Soil can become too salty to be usable and erosion can damage cropland. Nutrients are lost, while other areas become too waterlogged or dry to use for crops. It is estimated that we’ve lost about 9 percent of our arable land since 1961 because of these issues. Others say that human activity has resulted in a 40 percent loss of usable land for crops.

• Meat production – you wouldn't think this is a big problem for the environment or our earth climate, but it can be. We get 18 percent of our calories from meat but use up 83 percent of our agricultural land to raise them; they also cause 58 percent of our greenhouse gas problem. Livestock involve 60 percent of the mammalian biomass on earth. Livestock raising causes use of fossil fuels, usage of land and water resources, greenhouse gas emission, and excessive use of our forests and rainforests. Ruminants themselves give off 27 percent of the methane released into the atmosphere. In reality, however, methane gas doesn't contribute to global warming as much as other factors. On the other hand, meat production uses up a great deal of water and feed, while polluting the water with manure in the water runoff.

• Mass extinction of species – could humans be the cause of major species extinction? This seems to be true; it has been given a name – the Holocene extinction. This involves the extinction of species directly or indirectly as a result of human activities. We have hunted some species to extinction and have destroyed habitats or exhibited other activities that have caused the extinction rates to be 100 to 1000 times what would otherwise be normal. Many things we have done since the rise of mankind have contributed to such loss of biodiversity.