Climate change is an issue that is not a recent development, but is something that has been happening for hundreds of thousands of years. Humans, currently, are causing a climate change epidemic larger and more significant than anything in previous history. Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions have increased since the pre-industrial era, driven largely by economic and population growth, and are now higher than ever. This has led to atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide that are unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years. Their effects have been detected throughout the climate system and are extremely likely to have been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century. The atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished, and sea level has risen (IPCC 2014). Economic growth caused the mass production of climate change-causing products including cars, single-use plastics, and more. Population growth led to things like beef needing to be mass-produced, which causes an immense amount of CO2 emissions. Humans have been eating meat for hundreds of thousands of years, and plastics have become so detrimental to the human lifestyle that it has led to an epidemic that will be hard to fix. These are problems that were never fixed in the past and most likely won't be fixed today due to ignorance, which will lead to extreme consequences on the earth and humans. The effects of this climate change include sea levels rising, ginormous icebergs melting, and incompetent leaders having to come up with solutions to save the world. These problems getting ignored in the past and solutions not being made today are what make climate change an important and pressing issue.
Sea levels rising is a pressing climate change issue as it affects people living close to large bodies of water. Water levels raised slowly over the years, but there is scientific proof that levels have been raising at an unstable level. The records show that sea level rose over the 20th century, between one and two millimeters per year, but in the last two, two-and-a-half decades, sea level has been rising at more than double that. It’s now in excess of three millimeters per year. This acceleration is expected to continue, translating into seas changing at rates not observed in millennia (McClearn 2018). This threatens many Canadian cities. Places including Vancouver and Halifax have built their whole community around water. Water access in these cities leads to jobs and economic growth due to the fact they have large trade ports, have large fishing industries, and more. The positive coastal effects on these cities also lead to the consequences of being in a danger zone. The problem with climate change is that it is almost certain to go on for the remainder of one's lifetime, and for generations to come (McClearn 2018). The coastal Canadian cities are some of the largest, meaning that if they were to submerge from the water, Canada would quickly fall apart economically. Not to forget, millions of people would be affected and lose their homes completely. This is a reality as the statistics can show and makes climate change an important and pressing issue.
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Icebergs melting is something that causes another problem, sea levels rising, but is also a problem of its own. Places like Antarctica, Iceland, Greenland are filled with glaciers and ice that are slowly melting. Some humans living in these places are threatened, but animals, most of all, are in great danger because of climate change. Tons of animals use ice for shelter, hunting, and more. These animals include caribou, harp seals, zooplankton, polar bears, and narwhals. All of these animals are directly affected by the ice melting. For caribou, as the Arctic warms up, rain more frequently falls instead of snow and then freezes over the ground preventing them (and reindeer) from finding food. Harp seals use the ice to give birth. If the ice is weakened or thinned, it can break apart, causing pups to drown. Zooplankton are also a critical part of the food chain. They live off algae that form on the underside of sea ice and, in turn, they are eaten by fish such as Arctic cod. Polar bears use sea ice as platforms to hunt and also to mate. Last of all, slow-swimming whales like the narwhal use sea ice to hide from predators. If they were to not have this ice, they were to be out in the open and extremely vulnerable to predators (McKie 2017). With the ice melting, animals overall don’t have access to food, don’t have places to hide, and don’t have places to mate, ending in populations of tons of animals decreasing significantly. Not all species living in arctic places are mentioned either, there are lots more. There are so many animals that are and will continue to be affected by climate change until solutions are put into place. Human ignorance of climate change is leading to many animals dying and losing their homes, making it an extremely important issue.
Agreements and policies have been made over the years to try and slow down climate change, but a solution is far from close. One of the problems with climate change agreements is that it is an international issue, as everyone living on this earth affects it and is affected by it, but not everyone wants to follow the rules. In the past, agreements have been made by a few countries but not all would want to join. Now, there is the Paris Climate Agreement which includes 200 countries. The Paris Agreement central aim is to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change by keeping a global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The agreement also aims to strengthen the ability of countries to deal with the impacts of climate change (UNFCCC 2018). The problem with the agreement, though, is that not all countries have signed. The agreement should be mandatory as everyone contributes to climate change. What is infuriating to many people is that the countries that did not sign, including the United States, Russia, and Iran, are some of the largest contributors to climate change. Iran, for example, is a major producer of oil and their energy sector accounts for around 77% of their total emissions. Russia is the largest emitter that has not yet ratified the Paris Agreement, with approximately 5% of global emissions in 2015. Its pledge to the deal, only proposed to reduce emissions 25% to 30% below 1990 levels by 2030 (Apparicio 2018).
References
- Apparicio, Soila. “Which Countries Have Not Ratified the Paris Climate Agreement?” Climate Home News, Climate Change News, 16 July 2018, www.climatechangenews.com/2018/07/12/countries-yet-ratify-paris-agreement/.
- IPCC. (2014). Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Core Writing Team, R.K. Pachauri and L.A. Meyer (eds.)]. IPCC, Geneva, Switzerland, 151 pp.
- McClearn, M. (2018, March 14). Rising seas and climate change: Everything you need to know. The Globe and Mail. Retrieved December 16, 2018, from https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-sea-change-primer/.
- McKie, Robin. “How Disappearing Sea Ice Has Put Arctic Ecosystem under Threat.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 4 Mar. 2017, www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/04/arctic-ecosystem-ice-disappear-ecosystem-polar-bears-fish.
- Sutter, J. (2018, December 16). 'Planetary emergency:' After 30 years, leaders are still fighting about basic truths of climate science. CNN. Retrieved December 16, 2018, from https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/16/health/sutter-cop24-climate-talks/index.html.
- Tenenbaum, L. F. (2017, April 19). A vast, melting desert-NASA flies northward to monitor Greenland’s glaciers [Web log post]. Retrieved December 16, 2018, from http://www.climatechangenews.com/2018/07/12/countries-yet-ratify-paris-agreement/.
- UNFCCC. (2018, October 22). The Paris Agreement. Retrieved December 16, 2018, from https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement.
- Voiland, A. (2018, February 20). What climate change means for glaciers, storms, fires, clouds and more [Web log post]. Retrieved December 16, 2018, from https://climate.nasa.gov/blog/2684/what-climate-change-means-for-glaciers-storms-fires-clouds-and-more/.
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