Thinking of Earth as a Person When it Comes to Climate Change by City Tech Blogger Tiara Cash

Tiara Cash

Climate You Blog

Climate change is something that we as humans don’t take as seriously as we should. Whether that be because  we believe it personally doesn’t affect us, or because we don’t believe it’s real, the net result is a collective apathy in most people. Regardless of our feelings, it’s been scientifically proven that climate change is real, and thus we need to act now to make a change.

Climate change has been a real problem in recent years as the amount of carbon dioxide  in our atmosphere has increased. Increased  carbon dioxide levels have caused more heat from the sun to be trapped in our atmosphere resulting in a number of problems around the world. Many glaciers and ice biomes around the world have started to melt, while others have already melted completely; the sea level has risen; ocean acidification has increased; and ocean waters have warmed as  has the global temperature. These things may seem minimal, but they have a greater effect for the population of the world in the end. In addition, The Great Barrier Reef is dying out, the ice in Antarctica has melted  a great deal, causing problems for penguins, as has melting ice in the Arctic for polar bears. We have had much more extreme summers and winters as well.

Personally, I’ve been affected by climate change a lot. Here in New York, we have seen extreme weather patterns such as really hot summers and much colder winters. We’ve also had heat waves, hurricanes, and occasional flooding. , In the United States as a whole, there is even more evidence that climate change is  worsening as well. California has had a very long drought; the Southern states have had many more hurricanes and storms than in the past; and the Midwest has had increased numbers of tornados and heat..

To combat these problems, I feel that the government should create some laws to help enforce good climate change. That way, nationwide change can happen across the United States. Because the United Sates is such a  powerful, influential country, our actions will help other countries be pushed into the right direction with changing the way we as humans treat the environment collectively. One significant reform could be to reduce the amount of fossil fuel that is emitted to the atmosphere. This could be accomplished by more carpooling, taking public transportation, or riding bikes to work, school, etc. However, the government would also have to improve certain conditions for people to  be able to do these things such as lowering public transportation prices or finding a way to better direct traffic. Another idea I have is that we can revamp our emissions from factories and industrial buildings. Factories emit a lot of harmful gases that also pollute the air; what I think should be done is to find a way to either turn those gases into healthier, more breathable gas, or to find a way to keep the gas from coming out of the factories. If accomplished, these both could really lower the amount of pollutants in the air.

Climate change is a very big deal to our planet. People should think about Earth as a person– a person  from whom we constantly take and take, who is only trying to protect those on it. I think we can really change the outcome of how the world ends up by just caring some more and by being more environmentally conscious about how we do things. We only have one planet Earth, and if we kill it by being selfish, ignorant, and wasteful, then the consequences will be on our consciences. Because I know that a lot of us care what happens, and because reforms will be enacted to better the planet, I believe that climate change will get better in the next few years.

Sources:

https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/30/opinion/climate-change.html?searchResultPosition=1