YOU SHOULD BE WORRIED; CLIMATE CHANGE IS A BIG THREAT!

Climate change is becoming a big inevitable concern to not only our lives as human beings but also to the ecosystem reason being, you and me have assumed the early warning that the environment is sending us every day. We end up blaming the government for not doing so many things that we can do as individuals. One of Mahatma Gandhi’s quotes says “Be the change you want to see in the world”, and clearly this is where it all begins, with oneself.

But what exactly causes climate change? Climate change is caused by among other things Global Warming. Global warming being the drastic increase in the emission of CO2 (carbon dioxide) caused by burning fossil fuels thus resulting to change of temperature in the atmosphere.

Global warming has been caused by various environmental concerns such as:

•  Greenhouse gases -human activity has increased the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere .This has lead to more heat being retained in the atmosphere and thus increasing global average surface temperatures.
•  Deforestation- Trees help to regulate the climate by taking up CO2 from the atmosphere, and immense amounts of carbon are stored in the world's forests. When forests are cut down, the carbon stored in the trees is released into the atmosphere as CO2, adding to the greenhouse effect. 
•   Changes in reflectivity affect - When sunlight reaches Earth, it can be reflected or absorbed. The amount that is reflected or absorbed depends on Earth’s surface and atmosphere. Human changes in land use and land cover have changed Earth’s reflectivity

Climate scientists are actually certain that the outcome of global warming is going to be very bad. The greater the uncertainty, the worse things are going to be. 

How in a daily life you contribute to this change in the climate:

•  Electricity as a main source of power in urban areas generates this power mainly from thermal power plants. These thermal power plants are run on fossil fuels (mostly coal) and are responsible for the emission of huge amounts of greenhouse gases and other pollutants.
• Cars, buses, and trucks are the principal ways by which goods and people are transported in most of our cities. These are run mainly on petrol or diesel, both fossil fuels.
• We generate large quantities of waste in the form of plastics that remain in the environment for many years and cause damage.
•  We use a huge quantity of paper in our work at schools and in offices. Have we ever thought about the number of trees that we use in a day? Yet, how many trees are planted to replace the cut down trees.
• Timber is used in large quantities for construction of houses, which means that large areas of forest have to be cut down.
• A growing population has meant more and more mouths to feed. And the land area available for agriculture is limited and shrinking as a result of ecological degradation!, high-yielding varieties of crop are being grown to increase the agricultural output from a given area of land. However, such high-yielding varieties of crops require large quantities of fertilizers; and more fertilizer means more emissions of nitrous oxide. Pollution also results from the run-off of fertilizer into water bodies. 

Bottom line - whatever happens, we need to act. It’s more likely that we'll see a large amount of global warming and a small amount in response to rising carbon emissions