5 Reasons Why Climate Change Matters and What We Can Do About It
Humans are confronting an existential crisis, and immediate attention and action are required. Scientists warn that if we continue our current course, the repercussions of climate change will be disastrous, affecting where we live, how we generate food, and other essential services. For example, a 2°C rise could result in more heatwaves, ten-fold more Arctic summers without ice, and the extinction of the world’s coral reefs, which are home to millions of species.
1. Direct Environmental Impacts
Many extreme weather occurrences, including heatwaves, wildfires, droughts, and floods, are becoming increasingly intense and frequent due to climate change. Examples such as Germany’s 2021 floods and the wildfires spanning from California to Australia are evidence climate change increases the risk of dangerous weather patterns across the globe. These events threaten the way of life of billions of individuals.
2. Ocean Damage
According to researchers, around 190 million people live in locations predicted to be under high tide levels by 2100 due to rising sea levels. This could result in a large-scale population shift. Low-lying atoll nations like Tuvalu and the Maldives are particularly vulnerable to climate change and may perish. Hundreds of millions of people eat fish as their primary protein source. However, warming and acidifying oceans could devastate marine food chains by disrupting their foundations, such as krill and coral reefs. More prolonged droughts could wreak havoc on agriculture, risking food security, while reservoirs drying up and glaciers melting could result in a scarcity of drinking water.
3. Biodiversity protection
The natural world is in a delicate state of equilibrium. No species, including our own, is self-contained. Therefore, the importance of biodiversity cannot be overstated. It is critical to the health of forests, grassland, and marine ecosystems, as well as providing essential adaptation functions such as buffering against climate extremes, regulating hydrological cycles, protecting soils, regulating urban temperatures, reducing food insecurity, and providing options for economic diversification, significantly when climate change impacts reduce agricultural yields. Biodiversity also provides essential goods for humans such as medicines, commodities and most importantly, carbon sequestration. All these functions are critical for life on Earth, not only for the climate.
4. The Poorest are Always Hit Hardest
Natural catastrophes disproportionately affect poor and vulnerable populations, highlighting the repercussions of disregarding social inequities. These populations are at greater risk when extreme weather becomes more common. The urban heat island effect, for example, magnifies the impact of temperature extremes in cities. In addition, those who cannot afford to purchase and operate air conditioning may have their health jeopardised. Wealth, ethnicity, and health disparities are just a few of the inequities that potentially determine a person’s sensitivity to climate change’s effects.
5. Future Generations will Pay the Price
Extreme temperatures have resulted in a lack of food, clean water, lower salaries, and worsening health for many low-income families. In addition, because children’s immune systems are still developing, their bodies are more susceptible to disease and pollutants, while extreme disasters have the potential to destroy houses, schools, childcare centres, and other vital infrastructure for children’s safety. Overall, the climate crisis will be in the next generation’s hands and with increasing climate anxiety, governments and corporations must take action to protect children’s futures.
How can we stop climate change?
The most crucial step in limiting climate change is to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions dramatically and quickly. There are numerous ways to accomplish this, and governments, businesses, organisations, and individuals from all around the world can all help. Cleaner, renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power must swiftly replace fossil fuels.
Governments and businesses must continue to invest in low-carbon transportation alternatives. Humans must stop destroying forests for intensive agriculture like cattle ranching and palm oil plantations and instead allow the trees to recover before planting hundreds of millions more. Additionally, establishing ocean sanctuaries will provide protected places where sea life can thrive away from the hazards of industrial fishing, aiding in the restoration of the oceans’ natural equilibrium. Countries are starting their climate action by pledging net-zero emissions to halt the increase of climate damage.
It will not be a flawlessly coordinated transition to net-zero emissions. Instead, some countries will have to take the lead and demonstrate to the rest of the world that transitioning to this new way of life and functioning is achievable and helpful to other sustainability goals such as public health and food security.
