Climate change has begun since the rise of the industrial era. Ever since mankind began investing in the industrial business and evolving machines which accelerated production we have unconsciously built up on the climate change growth. Climate change is of major concern and not many of us are aware of the seriousness of this. Through the past years there has been many horrific natural disasters such as Tsunamis, Earthquakes, Hurricanes, and many more that have brought destructions to many communities. What makes these natural disasters worse than anything else is how unpredictable they can be, and how unprepared we are for these disasters.
The New York area hasn’t experienced big impacts such as tsunamis or tornados, but one of the climate impacts we have experienced are hurricanes. Many New Yorkers can remember the massive impact Hurricane Sandy had on the homes and lives of many. Sandy struck on the 22nd of October 2012 and lasted until the 2nd of November, which resulted in the total loss of $65 billion in damages. Although the United States was a part of the Paris Climate Change Agreement, since the election of its new president Donald Trump, he took it upon himself to withdraw from this agreement on June 1st. This agreement assembles different countries to work on reducing their CO2 emission, and until a certain time they will each report the changes in their CO2 emission in each region.
Politics and money have quite a bit to do with climate change, and because of this there are a lot of controversies going on with this topic. There are two sides to the argument of climate change, also known as global warming. On one side we have the people who are concerned and interested in ending or improving the climate change situation, and on the other hand we have those who don’t believe in global warming, with no concern on how this can affect us in the long run. Those who disagree on the effects of climate change tend to be those who profit of what is causing it in the first place and because of this they are the ones opposed to the acts upon improving the climate. There are also those such as Rex Tillerson who was a former secretary of state that didn’t find these climate changes of major concern because “our ability to predict that effect is very limited”.
There are many things that can be done in order to contribute in saving the planet we live on. We might not notice it but our day to day activities has an effect on the increasing change of the climate, therefore we must make changes in our daily routines for there to be any progress. Of course, this process would progress more rapidly if all humankind would agree and work together in unison towards this change, but as mentioned earlier the divide on this topic is what’s placing a halt on any change. Food, transportation, and wastage are contributors to the climate change, why is this? Well, have you thought about the process it takes for those who eat meat to get their food ready on your table? For instance, cows, many of us meat lovers like to eat beef and for that it requires a cow, but the real question is how many meat lovers are out there and how many cows are required to satisfy our needs? Cows don’t seem to be harmful to this planet but aside from CO2 there is another greenhouse gas that is produced naturally which is methane and an example of this would be farts or burps. Cows emit more methane that we humans would and therefore with the need of more cows for meat would mean there would be more cows that would be burping and farting emitting methane into the atmosphere. This isn’t all of it but then when these cows are sent to the butcher they are going to be delivered and in order to keep up with the high demand a faster delivery transportation would be required. Transportation is also a huge cause for climate change and this is due to the combustibles required to run these automobiles. In order to improve the amount of CO2, or methane or any other greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere, the sacrifices lie in reducing the amount of meat eaten on a regular basis, as well with limiting the amount of time using automobiles. Furthermore, climate change continues to affect many regions of the world unpredictably and many of us are not as concerned to act on it because of personal benefits or beliefs. But regardless changes are still possible, and although it’s small with the gathering of others, hopefully these would help sustain our planet for longer.
