Introduction
Climate change presents as the world’s greatest threat in modern times. Climate change is a global problem and as such, must be tackled through the effort of every country and every individual. In about two hundred years alone, the earth has reached levels of change that it reached in a span of millions of years in other eras. Today, people have already witnessed some of the drastic effects of climate change, such as extreme weather conditions. In future, it is predicted that the situation will worsen. As humans are the major contributors of climate change, they owe it to the planet earth and every life-form residing on it, to try mitigate the effects of climates. Alternatives such as renewable energy sources can help mitigate the problem significantly. The paper looks at climate change; its current situation, future effects, its causes, and history and some ways people can mitigation the issue.
Current Situation
In the 20 th century alone, the earth’s average temperature increased by two degrees Fahrenheit ( Kellogg, 2019) . On paper, this seems negligible. However, scientific studies suggest that the earth’s temperature has been stable for centuries. Drastic actions may have caused the temperatures to rise in the way they did during the last century. Glaciers are melting up at high rates leading a drastic rise in sea levels. The whole world is already experiencing climate change as people experience extreme weather conditions in various regions across the globe. Prolonged droughts have been experienced in arid and semi-arid areas in recent years like never before. Heatwaves are now more intense and long-lasting. Sadly, the rates of global warming among other causes of climate change are still very high in the new century. In various parts of the world the growing seasons have been seen to be very lengthy. Farmers in some areas have heard to carry out the growing of seeds more than once. Numerous human activities today, in one way or the other, have significant effects on climate change. With the current lifestyle, it is also very difficult for people reduce their carbon footprint or do anything to help with the threat of climate change.
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Future Effects of Climate Change
The future is not promising as far as climate change is concerned. If nothing or very little is done to curb the threat of climate change, everything that is occurring now is expected to get even worse in the coming decades. Temperatures are expected to rise in the decades and over the next century. Climate change, especially when it comes to global temperature, will greatly depend on the amount of greenhouse gasses emitted. The growing seasons in various parts of the world are expected lengthen in the future. In places such as the United States, the frost-free season is also expected to lengthen in the coming times. Precipitation is expected to increase in cold climates or areas while people expect a decrease in warmer regions across the world. Consequently, there are expectations of more droughts in warmer and hot regions such as the arid and semi-arid regions of the world. The droughts will be more intense than they are at the moment. Besides, the world expects more intense heatwaves in the future ( Kellogg, 2019) .
Dangerous hurricanes have already hit various regions around the world in recent times. In the future, however, even more violent and stronger hurricanes are expected to hit various coastlines of the world. While it is unclear if human actions contribute to the occurrence of hurricanes, their occurrences have intensified during the last few decades. By the next century, sea levels will have risen by about one to four feet. Since the late nineteenth century, sea level has only increased by about eight inches. Persona attributes the rise of sea level to the expansion of the seawater due to warming and the melting of glacier. With the current rates of warming and melting, the rise in sea level is about to get drastic. The rate of melting of ice in the Arctic has increased drastically in recent times. Therefore, there are expectations that the Ocean will become free of ice by the year 2050.
Causes of Climate Change
The typical cause of climate change is global warming. Global warming, on the other hand, is caused by the greenhouse effect where the earth’s atmosphere retains some of the sun’s heat. The greenhouse effect is a natural process that ensures the earth remains warm enough to support life of various organisms that live on it. However, various human activities increase the greenhouse effect such that more heat than normal remains in the atmosphere leading to an increase in the planet’s temperatures. This is why humanity is to blame for the current rates and nature of climate change. The human activities in question, mostly lead to the production of harmful gasses such as carbon dioxide which increase the heat retaining ability of the atmosphere thereby increasing surface temperatures. These gasses emanate from factories and industries from all over the world, trains, automobiles, airplane among other sources. The most industrialized countries such as the United States account for the largest amounts of greenhouse gasses emitted ( Kellogg, 2019) .
Humans are currently doing more than just releasing harmful gasses to the atmosphere as far as climate change is concerned. Deforestation accounts as another cause of climate change. Tree attract rain, protect the undergrowth and the ground, are water-catchment areas, and are natural habitats for many life forms. Deforestation leads to lack of rain and drying up of rivers. Also, wood used as fuel causes the production and release of carbon dioxide. Population increase is another factor for the cause of climate change. The rate of population growth has rapidly increased over the last one hundred and fifty years. More people require more land and more resources to survive and thrive. More resources are, in turn, exhausted, and more land acquired. In the process, humans destroy the natural flora and produce more harmful by-products.
History of Climate Change
Scientific studies suggest that the earth has in various eras, warmed up and got colder naturally. However, such events always took place at a much slower pace, taking about millions of years. At the moment, in a period of about two hundred years alone, the earth is reaching levels that brought about extinctions in the past ( Urban, 2015) . People agree that the turning point dates back to around 1750 at the beginning of the industrial revolution. At this time, the overall population is believed to have been less than eight hundred million. Today the global population is almost eight billion. Other factors that increased since 1750 include the increasing energy demand and production and the exploding resource use. Fossil fuel has been the number one source of energy in recent times and is the number contributor to global warming through the enormous release of carbon dioxide. Coal mining and use in industries have also contributed immensely to the release of greenhouse gasses.
The industrial revolution assured the use of machines and brought in factories and automobiles. There were more jobs for people. Work could be carried out faster using machines. A lot of natural resources were available, and no one had any concerns over the consequences. People began to live more freely, thereby encouraging steady and rapid population growth. Smoke, among other pollutants, from industries, factories, mines, trains, and other automobiles, since the mid-eighteenth century, has led to the current levels of global warming. Also the population growth has led to the depletion of natural resources and the destruction of natural flora and fauna through pollution. Various actions of human, direct and indirect, since the beginning of the industrial revolution, have significantly contributed to climate change ( Urban, 2015) .
Mitigating Climate Change and its Effects
At the moment, nothing much can be done to reverse climate change or stop it for occurring at the current rates. There are ways, however, through which people can mitigate some of the climate change effects. These include using renewable sources of energy such as wind and sun in place of non-renewable sources such as fossil fuel. This way, the release of greenhouse gasses will have been greatly reduced. International agreements may also help curb the rates of climate change by making all people aware of its dangers and what needs to be done to avoid it. Adapting to the environment may also count as a way of mitigating the effects of climate change.
Conclusion
Climate change, as described above, is a global issue and one that individuals should tackle if they want to observe any positive results. It requires the input of everyone across the globe. The current situation alone threatens the survival of millions of life forms and the situation is expected to worsen in the near future. With all the ice in the arctic melting in a few years the sea level will increase by a considerable margin. Certain small islands may get submerged while large tracks of land will be consumed along the coastlines. If nothing or very little is done, there is no telling what the earth would look like in half a century.
References
Kellogg, W. W. (2019). Climate change and society: consequences of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide . Routledge.
Urban, M. C. (2015). Accelerating extinction risk from climate change. Science , 348 (6234), 571-573.
