The state of the world is in the red. From the never-ending wars in the Middle East, the creeping crawling spread of the corona virus to the near and present dangers of climate change – the world is in a state of danger. We are incessantly bombarded with news of earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, wildfires, and heat waves – unlike anything we had previously known. The skies are changing, the ice is melting, the zone is depleting, and the earth is fading away. It is the menace of climate change and everyone is responsible to own the blame as well as responsible to charge the cause for change.
Climate changes over the years have seen increasing and unfavourable consequences in weather changes all over the world as well as global warming on the rise. However, the largest driver of warming is the emission of gases that create a greenhouse effect, of which more than 90% are carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane. Interestingly, fossil fuel burning (coal, oil, and natural gas) for energy consumption is the main source of these emissions, with additional contributions from agriculture, deforestation, and manufacturing.
The human cause of climate change is not in dispute, seeing human and industrial activity engineered by us is at the heart of our changing climate. Temperature rise is accelerated or tempered by climate feedbacks, such as loss of sunlight-reflecting snow and ice cover, increased water vapour (a greenhouse gas itself), and changes to land and ocean carbon sinks. Alarmingly, temperature rise on land is about twice the global average increase, leading to desert expansion and more common heat waves and wildfires, which we have had a lot of in this year 2021.
The climate change crisis the world currently faces is not a deliberation for the United Nations, World Leaders, Captains of industry and Civil Society alone. Climate Change affects us all – from the rich in Washington DC to the impoverished in Myanmar; we are all under the same sky so a cautionary awareness of the climate change situation is the preserve of each and everyone in the world.
Climate change affects many of the social and environmental determinants of health – clean air, safe drinking water, sufficient food and secure shelter. This means climate change is a danger for us all. A colossal damage and destruction await the entire world if nothing is done to stop the impending dangers of climate change brought on by our daily choices, preferences, and ways of living.
Things have to change – while there are policy changes required to jumpstart some processes, there are also daily choices individuals would have to make and sacrifices we would have to forgo in order to drastically reduce the rate at which we emit dangerous gases into the air and the way we disrupt the natural order of our environment