Climate Change

 We are beginning with what we can do first rather than the history, explanations and technical data, so we can fix your eyeballs first to the page. We mustn't ignore the truth that our planet has changed not naturally but by us and that we owe a contribution. Things below are just a start-like ones.

At an individual level

✔ Plant a tree. Plants like bamboo grow faster & produce 35% more oxygen than trees like oak.

✔ Regular bathing in hot water is not so good for both you and the world.

✔ Eat locally grown food and possibly grow some in your home for small needs.

✔ Turn off the engine during signal stall time. Emissions at idling speeds are high.

✔ Though it has it's own backlashes, use electricity instead of firewood and others.

✔ Bring papers out of your storeroom to recycle and let it take another form.

✔ Do not waste food. Your wastage if collected together will feed a lot more.

✔ Do not burn vegetation (maybe your garden waste) at all even if you won't plant.

✔ Leaving electronics ON when not in use can consume up to 5 watts an hour.

At an organizational level

✔ Digitalize your archives. Make all correspondence electronic.

✔ Encourage employees who come by cycle or buses, possibly by incentives.
Install rainwater harvesting facilities at once.

At governmental level

✔ Boost development in the side of cementless construction technologies.
Bring private investment in city waste managerial things.

✔ Impose carbon tax on firms releasing more than a certain pounds of CO2.

✔ Include more weight to environmental awareness in textbooks.

A technical explanation

Right, climate change is a broader term and wiki would define it as the "statistical change in distribution of weather patterns when that change lasts for an extended period of time." Fluctuations of period shorter than a decade like El Niño do not represent climate change. Earth has always been subjected to change every now and then but never was due to, or at least to say accompanied by activities of a particular species. Although the causes of climate change encompasses both natural reasons and human activities (which is often called 'Global Warming), the latter has become synonymous with the term 'Climate Change' in the context of environmental policy. In short, the change is not going to consume us fully in a particular year in future but the dear planet we have been living through these years will become more and more unlivable with the coming years.

And now the word 'Global Warming' must be defined. It is closely associated with Greenhouse effect which means the trapping of solar radiative energy by gases present in the atmosphere making it sustain heat just like a glass house trapping the heat entering into it as radiation (the analogy is not technically correct). Gases like carbon-di-oxide CO2 , methane CH4 , Nitrous oxide N2O, Ozone O3, Chloro Flouro Carbons CFCs and such does exactly what the glass roof does in trapping radiative energy. It isn't to be taken lightly that some of the above mentioned gases has sources only from human activites. CFCs are now phased out by international agreement (Montreal Protocol-1980 on Ozone Depleting Substances) which is quite an effective step. But these are minimal in front of what we have done already. According to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the concentration of these things in atmosphere is unprecedented in at least 8,00,000 years and the current observable amount of CO2 (400ppm) exceeds the geological record maxima of 300ppm from ice core data.

Some arguments deem the climate change as a part of the natural cycle of ups and downs the earth and the universe is facing and that human activities has got nothing to do with them. But the rate at which the CO2 fluctuates in amount since the industrial revolution is 100 times faster than the increase when the last ice age ended i.e. the interglacial warm periods. The delicate balance of gases in atmosphere that keeps the check between incoming radiation and outgoing reflection into the sink (space) results in the average surface temperature of 59°F or 15°C. These figures are expected to rise by 2.5 to 10°F by 2050. Whatever the effects would be, the first drop in stats would occur in agricultural field, particularly in India. India is a nation where still it is the largest contributor to GDP and 600 million people are directly dependent upon agriculture as livelihood. The top threat is posed directly by the climate change to Indian economy explicitly because of monsoon dependency.

INTERSECTION OF HUNGER AND CLIMATE CHANGE

Warming of earth is, however, not the only implication of climate change. There are other issues which may or may not related to temperature rise at any level whatsoever. These include:

⭐ Fishing catchments depletion by 40-60% by 2050 by risen ocean temperature, acidification (which happens by absorption of atmospheric CO2) , overfishing and overfishing of a particular species.

⭐ As to World Food Programme , food insecurity would be increased to 20% by 2050 and the effects are already being felt in central American nations.

⭐ Add to this, the loss of food wastage: 1 out of 5 edible fruits and vegetables are thrown away in US. 1/3rd of all food produced is lost or wasted during production and consumption.

⭐ Crop production would have to be more than doubled (60%) by 2050 to conciliate both for increased population and decreased productive area.

⭐ According to the Guardian, 122 million more people would be pushed below poverty line by 2030 and complete infertility of southern Spain by 2100.

But these are just facts and not to be considered threatening in nature. Stating all these facts in one place has this one purpose: To take the possible steps in the required direction. And these steps are two-fold: Steps that we can follow as an individual and those a government can take forward.

Steps which are being taken by the countries to fight climate change. Click here.

But the steps would have to be so large in its magnitude that no country can currently compromise in its domestic growth. For example:

◾ From Livemint, 7.7 crore more urban residents may be pushed into poverty by 2030 if significant investments are not made to make cities more resilient to climate change.

◾ From PTI, Asia need 7.7 trillion dollars to fight climate change by a study by Asia Investor Group on climate change for the period of 2014-2035 to meet the stated ambition of limiting global temperature rise.

If you want more information and read more articles about climate change, you can check out this.

Keep visiting...