Climate Change

writers

PHILIP MENG , ERIC WU

photographers JULIAN LAU , SHANTING HOU

layout SHANTING HOU CRISIS. CRISIS.

Our generation’s largest upcoming challenge is that of Climate Change, an issue that has virtually no borders and requires the cooperation of all countries to combat. Unfortunately, misinformation on this topic, has led many to believe false facts and theories about climate change. is article aims to give readers an unbiased, scienti c explanation of the main causes and consequences of climate change, and shine light on the actions we all can and should do to save our planet.

First of all, climate change and global warming are two di erent concepts that are o en mistaken for the same thing, which they are not. e important di erence is that global warming only refers to the Earth’s rising temperature, whilst climate change refers to the shi s in Earth’s climate and weather patterns. In a simple explanation, global warming is only a piece of the much larger problem of human-caused Climate Change.

roughout its 4.54 billion year history, Earth’s temperature has uctuated dramatically many times and these extreme changes in temperature and climate happen around every 100,000 years.. Earth has had colder periods, for example, the major ice age from 2.6 million years ago until around 11,700 As the earth’s temperature becomes increasingly hotter, we are seeing worse and more extreme impacts on our climate and weather. Some of the expected and observed environmental e ects include extreme changes in weather and climate, changes in ecosystems, deserti cation, acidi cation of the oceans, extinction of species, rising sea levels, melting glaciers, etc. ese drastic changes in the environment can cause and have already caused extremely detrimental e ects to the human population, including deadly heat waves that have caused 36 deaths and counting, wild res that have destroyed hundreds of homes in California, a severe food crisis caused from the 2011 East Africa drought and more. ese consequences are irreparable, and immediate change is needed to prevent such detrimental e ects.

As governments and companies have deemed largely unresponsive to this pressing issue, young individuals decided to take this issue into their own hands, most signi cantly, a 16-year-old Swedish environmental activist, Greta unberg. unberg’s famous words are, “ e eyes of all future generations are upon you.” Representing that the future generations need the United Nations to work together. As the leading gure in the modern ght against climate change, Greta unberg

years ago, and warmer periods, including the Holocene interglacial period that we are currently in.

Most recently the Earth’s temperature has increased at a rate that is unprecedented in the past 1,300 years. e main causes for the sudden increase of Earth’s temperature include the extensive destruction of marine ecosystems, deforestation, overpopulation, but most importantly the burning of fossil fuels. Fossil fuels contain a huge amounts of carbon, and therefore when they are burnt, they release excessive amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. is contributes largely to the greenhouse e ect, a natural process that warms the Earth’s surface. is process works similarly to a greenhouse in which the glass walls of a greenhouse trap the sun’s heat, increasing the temperature inside the greenhouse. In the earth’s case, an array of greenhouse gases in the including methane and carbon dioxide, trap heat in the earth’s atmosphere, increasing the temperature of the earth.

has started many school strikes globally and was recently invited to the United Nations to give a speech about climate change. She has gained the attention of millions of children and adults, many of whom have joined in on these environmental strikes. Recently, the prestigious Harvard-Yale football game was delayed a er students and alumni stormed the football eld to protest climate change. A banner held by the students read, “Nobody wins. Yale & Harvard are complicit in climate injustice,”.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a democratic New York Representative has also been pushing for social change in the U.S, she aims to mitigate the e ects of climate change by sponsoring the Green New Deal. e Green New Deal is a proposed legislation that pushes for transitioning the United States to use 100% renewable, zero-emission energy sources and tackling poverty and mitigating the e ects of this massive transition. ough theoretically sound, the Green New Deal failed to advance in the U.S. Senate.

As established, climate change is a world-threatening issue, but still, world leaders and large companies in the status quo are barely doing anything. ough small advancements that aim to promote sustainability like the Carbon Tax in several European countries such as Sweden, the Netherlands and Norway are underway, many politicians and power gures are still ignoring the pressing issue that is climate change.

An example would be the United States, who under the Trump administration has grown less environmentally friendly. Since President Trump took o ce in 2017, the government has rescinded dozens of environmental rules, saying the regulations were burdensome to the fossil fuel industry and other businesses. An example of the Trump administration’s dismissal towards climate change is their withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, an agreement within the United Nations on Climate Change, dealing with greenhouse-gas-emissions mitigation, adaptation, and nance signed in 2016. is action sent a strong signal to the world that President Trump, who has sco ed at climate science, is willing to reverse climate policies created during the Obama administration, and that he does not deem climate change an important or pressing issue.

Mitigating Climate change isn’t an issue that just lies in the hand of the rich and powerful, all citizens of this earth can strive to make a change. For example, substituting of beef and lamb with chicken in your diet could reduce your carbon emission of each meal by 10 times. Just checking that your lights and any unused electronic device are switched o each time you step out the door can increase energy e ciency. Or try ying on airplanes less - an airplane round-trip usually results in 1.6 tonnes of C02. Another change could be utilizing renewable energy in your everyday life, including electric cars, solar panels, etc. It is important that we all make changes to become environmentally friendly, studies have shown that when someone becomes more eco-friendly, others follow suit. ese acts may seem small, but the change it will create will be immeasurable and crucial to saving our environment.