The effect of Climate change

By Savvas Savvas

Our world is always changing. The current changes in the climate have come to the attention of the scientists and is one of the main concerns. The term for the climate changes is global warming which causes increase of temperature in different spots on Earth. This climate change is caused by peoples’ activities as for example the burning of fossil fuels, farming and deforestation. In the documentary ‘’Before the Flood’’ released in 2016 there was a massage about climate change and the effects this has on our planet and in human’s life. So, this leads as to the question what is there to be done about it? This article will investigate if it is possible to deal with the phenomenon of global warming by reducing emissions and energy consumption without any threats to economy development. Based on origins of Green Architecture by Phillip Tabb, as years passes the population on Earth is increasing, so more places and jobs need to be available for people in a more modern way in order to meet their needs. This modernism enabled global society to expand the usage of fossil fuels in energy production. According to Tim Donaghy a senior research specialist of Greenpeace international, people have discovered more fossil fuels compare to what we can actually burn. To explain what fossil fuels are, in fact are coal, oil and natural gas oil as it was stated in the documentary ‘’Before the Flood’’ and can be burned to produce energy. The issue here is that in order to gain this fossil fuels, massive forests must be taken away and as a result water and rivers are poisoned and also the ice is melting. In 2010 the U.S National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration published a report mentioning 10 main indicators of climate change which included sea surface, which means increase of sea level as ice is melting, quantity of sea, the change to ocean heat, overland temperature, air temperature, snow cover, humidity and the size and movement of glacier.

According on what is prementioned, Artic is like the air-conditioning for the northern hemisphere of the Earth and if the ice melt that’s going to change what we know until today and the land witch stays uncovered as the ice is melting returns to be a self-heater as the heat from the sun is not reflected back. The change of the weather patterns is going to make floods and droughts more catastrophic. This has an impact on the Earth itself to be warmer and thus seeks to affect the environmental climate and have a damaging impact as it harms animals and in the long-term humans’ life as Rachel Carson stated in Silent Spring (1962). It will be the most dramatic transformation of the environment ever. The arising question here is can we be independent from fossil fuels? According to A. Senem Deviren, on an urban scale because of the issues caused from the conservation of fossil fuels and energy resources lead to the need for more environmentally friendly energy sources to be found. Indeed, when you are in a weird situation you are trying to find solutions in order to stop being digging into the problem. However, this is not the situation with our planet. At the moment, governments are funding the fossil fuel industry with billions of dollars coming out from people’s tax. In order to deal with the problem, these subsidies need to be stop as quick as possible. Politicians can be called the elected leaders but in reality, they are the elected followers that they do what people what them to do and to care only for the good of humanity. A good suggestion to face the problem of global warming came from, Gregory Mankiw in the documentary ‘’Before the flood’’, ‘’tax something to raise the price (oil) and people are going to tend to consume less of it, cut other taxes and increase carbon tax. Can we imagine how the future will look like? By looking at all the arising impacts due to the global warming, it seems like humans are writing their script of a disaster movie, as those movies Hollywood loves to make. The good news is that despite the climate change that Earth suffers, it can be solved with numerous measures with the available sustainable measures.

However, if people are not able to push government to take actions this will cause a catastrophic impact on the planet and will threat the life as we know it today. So, the environmental problems cannot be ignored. Resend researches showed that by using the available technologies, all the needs for heating, transportation and electricity can be meet by using only renewable sources. This means that we can achieve the goal of the Paris Agreement which is to reduce pollution via prizing carbon and by protecting our ecosystems. The measures that should be taken must be based on ‘’real needs with a diversity of effective solutions’’ as Phillip Tabb mentions in the Greening of Architecture. One of the solutions is to achieved by 2050 is to use only renewable sources as Professor Mark Jacobson of Stanford University suggest. After an advanced computing research that he did with his students, they found out that by using sources such as water, wind and solar the air pollution will be reduced so annual deaths will be reduced too. Additionally, this method will stabilize the price on energy and this will lead the economies of the countries to be more energy independent. For this reason, is clear to understand that governments have crucial role to the efforts for the reduce of global warming and at the same time to the promotion of green societies. Until today more than 75% of the global population is leaving in cities which causes climate change. It is noticeable, that the majority of the cities around the world are not prepared for this climate changes, and this need to be changed. So, the urban structure of the cities is necessary to be climate responsive as Phillip Tabb supports. Natural characteristic can be engaged both effectively and beautifully in urban environments in order to contribute for greater awareness in order to make cities safer. At the TreePeople organization they have a motto ‘’Trees need people and people need trees’’. This help as to understand that by invest in green societies humanity will have many benefits such as improving physical and mental health and empowered communities and most important to save lives. Thus, in order to achieve this goal people, need to demand by governments to make this goal a priority. A resent realised data seeks to demonstrate the efforts of sub-national governments and the mitigation for global climate changes. The R-20 Yale report which was released in 2015 assesses this data and concludes that these efforts and mitigations can reduce the emissions of 2020 by 1 (one) gigaton. The United Nations environment programs (UNEP) supports that the cities are responsible of global Co2 emissions. If modern cities can be considered as one of the major existing environmental problems, then, the cities are responsible for the solutions to be found. On the other hand, various cities and the local governments have not enough budget for renewable and efficient energy to support green measures therefore they turn to the private sector for finance. Regarding the Carbon Climate Registry in 2015 over 92 percent of the implemented of green actions of local governments were financed by subnational, national and local sources, but with additional funding by both private and public sectors which is important to build sustainable building and to reduces to the mission’s gap.

As it was prementioned governments need companies on board in order to succeed the fight against the existing climate changes. Latest researches show that the economy of the world is an essential to reach ‘net zero’ gas emissions before the end of the century. Several fundamental changes need to be taken so to achieve this goal along with reducing poverty, inequality and insecurity locally and internationally. These changes include the use of land, the urban design of building and cities. In addition is very important that companies need to go 100% ‘’ clean energy’’. A good example for this statement is Elon Musk who has a goal to reduce this climate changes via production as well as consumption of sustainable energy and as a result to reduce the ‘’risk of human extinction’’ by ‘’making life multi-planetary’’. In regards, to Jim Walker, executive director of Climate Mobilization Fund, there are several campaigns by leading companies in order to support stronger the government’s policies applied to fight back global warming. In Before the Flood documentary, Leonardo DiCaprio discussed with NASA scientists about the twenty satellites which are looking at the Earth every day. The scope of this discussion was about the sea surface temperature, clouds and OCO looks at carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. By the available tools of NASA, scientists can see the surface temperature as measured from space and the poles melting, the Earth to warming and the sea level rising. Astronaut Piers Sellers, said that if humans stop right now burning fossil fuels, planet would still keep warming for a little while before cooling off again and Artic start increase and cool back. This can help public to accept that global warming indeed occurs and by applying effective measures there is a possibility to repair the existing problem of climate changes.

All in all, climate change is a main concern for the scientists, as people need a livable and healthy environment. Indeed, the world needs solutions which deal with the effects of climate change, such as food security, species extinction and several other crises. To achieve this, significant investments and effective measures need to be taken by business and governments. It is important to bear in mind that even if we succeed in meeting the goal, the climate change impacts will continue to exist for the next decades, and this will be the result of past emissions due to global warming. Thus, people need to alter the emission and consumption paths and to cooperate with the measures applied by governments, to sustain life as we know it.