In one of the stories by Pope Francis in Laudato Si’, “human suffering and the ever increasing poverty levels in the contemporary world are caused by climate change, environmental degradation and irresponsible development” ( Hear global voices, 2019 ). It is apparently clear that climate change is majorly an attribute of human actions knowingly or unknowingly which can only be solved by human interventions and responsible deliberations. The story by Pope Francis establishes that most of the poor people across the globe live in areas that are affected by global warming which is an attribute of climate change despite their lives being anchored on subsistence activities such as farming, fishing and forestry that depends on natural systems and ecological components to thrive. Due to climate change and its attributes, human beings who depend on the environment for subsistence agriculture have been impoverished. In the story, Pope Francis acknowledges that climate change has calamitous impacts on human fraternity and recommends ecological and sociological interventions that will probably address the cry of the Earth as an entity and the cry of the poor as subjects of the parent planet Earth ( Hear global voices, 2019 ). From the Pope’s short story, it is apparently clear that climate change is the biggest threat to human beings and the environment in general as it increases poverty among people besides destroying the natural processes of wealth creation. The extreme attributes of climate change lead to the destruction of the sources of the basic requirements for human survival which include; food, shelter, water and clothing thus increasing poverty levels while at the same time threatening human survival.
Climate change impoverishes the poor by destroying their main sources of living through global warming. Currently, different parts of the world are experiencing extreme temperatures that have significantly affected faming. For instance, high temperatures have led to reduced coffee harvest in Kiribati ( Hallegatte et al., 2015) . Traditionally, Kiribati Coffee farmers have been known for providing high quality coffee in a global spectrum leading to reduced agricultural output. However, the ever increasing temperatures have affected their exploration in their endeavors leading affecting the financial capability as well as altering their way of living. Away from the Kiribati example, it is apparently clear that global warming which is the greatest attribute of climate change has affected the production of maize in the United States of America, Africa and in other parts of the world ( Hallegatte & Rozenberg, 2017) . Maize is the leading crop that is produced and traded across the world. However, due to the increasing temperatures caused by global warming, the volumes produced are significantly decreasing. It is estimated that if human beings will not intervene and curb global warming and climate change, the ability of the future generations to cater for their needs will be compromised. Just as Pope’s story highlighted above establishes, climate change is a threat to human existence as it limits their ability to source for optimum food reserves through the severe impacts of global warming. The other attribute of climate change that threatens to increase poverty levels is the increase in sea levels and melting of ice caps and glaciers.
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Climate change has contributed towards the melting of icecaps and glaciers leading to increased sea levels factors that have been attributed to the increased cases of flooding, tornadoes, hurricanes, storm surges and strong winds. Examples of calamities associated with the increased sea levels in the recent past include; Kerala floods whereby more than 300 people died and property destroyed, the South Asian Floods in 2018, the Hurricane Harvey in 2017 which displaced thousands of people and Cyclone Idai in Madagascar which killed people and destroyed property ( Hallegatte & Rozenberg, 2017) . Due to climate change, the increased sea levels and high temperatures lead to high precipitation rates in particular areas across the globe. This endangers the low-lying areas near the sea and oceans because as the sea levels increase flooding natural calamities highlighted above become imminent. Hurricane Irma is one of the most recent climatic catastrophes that affected the Dominican Republic, Haiti and other Caribbean Nations destroying property while at the same time causing death. The damage is directly connected to aspects of climate change hence worth acknowledging that climate change influences poverty. The other attribute is climate change causes fresh water shortage and extended droughts.
Climate change has a direct influence on the extreme droughts and fresh water shortages in most parts of the world. Some of the areas affected by fresh water shortage and drought include; the Western Sahara region, Libya, Yemen, and Jordan among other regions. Studies on effects of climate change especially in the sub-Saharan Africa establish that climate change has over the years reduced the amount of precipitation received in the region with extreme temperatures ( Hallegatte et al., 2015) . Due to the less precipitation and extreme temperatures, long droughts have affected farming endeavors and animal rearing activities which are the major sources of food and finances in the regions. As a result of the reduced harvests and lack of enough fresh water, the lives of people in such regions are rendered miserable with high mortality rates. Moreover, the people are impoverished to such an extent that the provision of support services such as educational and health facilities is compromised hence low standards of living ( Van der Geest & Warner, 2015) . For instance, the yearly droughts experienced in East African region have led to the death of livestock and wild animals affecting tourism endeavors and livelihood activities that are undertaken by pastoralist’s communities. It is precisely evident that the challenges are directly related to climate change hence imperative for human beings to institute mechanisms of curbing climate change.
In conclusion, climate change is an institution of human activities that can only be reduced or eradicated for good through human interventions. The discussion establishes that climate change has a direct impact in increasing poverty levels in different regions of the world. Although poverty levels can also be attributed to climate change, it is the impacts of climate change that have significantly influenced wealth creation in a broad spectrum. Inherently, climate change has a direct influence in the destruction of the sources of livelihood through its extreme calamities that are destructive. As highlighted effects of climate changes such as global warming, flooding, Hurricanes, cyclones, droughts and, fresh water shortages directly contribute towards increasing poverty levels. Just as the story of Pope Francis concludes, it the role of human beings to implement ecological and sociological intervention approaches to help curb the dire effects of climate change and consequently enrich human fraternity.
References
Hallegatte, S., & Rozenberg, J. (2017). Climate change through a poverty lens. Nature Climate Change , 7 (4), 250.
Hallegatte, S., Bangalore, M., Bonzanigo, L., Fay, M., Kane, T., Narloch, U., ... & Vogt- Schilb, A. (2015). Shock waves: managing the impacts of climate change on poverty . The World Bank.
Hear global voices - The Global Catholic Climate Movement. (2019). Retrieved from https://catholicclimatemovement.global/stories/
Van der Geest, K., & Warner, K. (2015). Vulnerability, coping and loss and damage from climate events. In Hazards, risks and disasters in society (pp. 121-144). Academic Press.
