Climate Change and Human Impact

• Climate change is a global issue driven by mass production and machinery use, leading to increased emissions.
• Earth is the only known habitat for humans and other living beings.
• Earth faces extreme weather changes that threaten the environment.
• The UNFCCC defines climate change as human activities altering the atmosphere, causing long-term shifts in temperature and weather patterns, leading to intense storms and economic instability.
• NASA attributes climate change to fossil fuel combustion, resulting in global warming.

Causes of Climate Change

• Climate change, once known as global warming, is caused by human-induced pollution.
• Rising global temperatures lead to severe and irreversible weather conditions, resulting in catastrophic events.
• The root cause of this global crisis lies in continuous human activities. Human Activities
• Human activities, such as emissions from vehicles and factories, produce greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, which trap heat in the atmosphere and contribute to global warming.
• These gases remain for decades or even centuries, accelerating climate change.
• Rising greenhouse gas emissions, mainly from fossil fuel burning and deforestation, have worsened global warming.
• To mitigate its severe environmental, economic, and social impacts, emissions must be reduced by 80% before 2050.

Gases

• Carbon dioxide is primarily produced through the burning of fossil fuels, solid waste, and wood products.
• Deforestation and soil degradation also contribute to the release of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
• Carbon dioxide becomes heavy in the atmosphere and is absorbed by the oceans, increasing acidification, which damages coral reefs and marine life.
• Methane and similar gases like chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) largely contribute to atmospheric degradation and warming.

Population

• The exponential growth of the human population, driven by high birth rates surpassing mortality, contributes significantly to environmental pollution.
• According to the Global Population and Environment Program, population size and growth amplify global warming and environmental degradation.
• Rapid population expansion leads to resource scarcity, excessive environmental exploitation, and severe water and air pollution, putting immense pressure on Earth's limited resources.

Effects of Climate Change

• Greenhouse Effect
• Ecological Issues
• Rising Water Level and Flooding
• Extreme Weather Conditions
• Desertification
• Changes in Vegetation

The Greenhouse Effect

• Greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane trap heat in the atmosphere, causing global warming.
• Sunlight is absorbed by land, water, and vegetation, but increased greenhouse gas levels intensify infrared radiation, leading to excess heat.
• Trees help absorb carbon gases, but deforestation reduces their ability to regulate.

Ecological Issues

• Increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere leads to absorption by the oceans.
• This leads to acidification of the oceans, which damages coral reefs and marine life.
• Incidents of extreme weather are increasing, resulting in severe flooding, tropical storms, and even tornadoes in places where they never existed before, such as in crowded cities and suburbs.

Rising Water Level and Flooding

• Warmer air from Earth's heating atmosphere is causing arctic ice to melt.
• This leads to increased aridity in Arizona, flooding in the Maldives and the Middle East, and more hurricanes in the U.S. Midwest.
• The same system is behind temperature fluctuations in the UK.
• Extreme weather events stem from a severely warmer atmosphere due to increased carbon dioxide.

Extreme Weather

• Climate change is causing extreme weather conditions worldwide, with rising temperatures disrupting weather patterns.
• Scientific studies predict more frequent and intense heat waves and storms.
• In 2011, Texas and Oklahoma endured over 100 days of 100°F temperatures.
• Britain recorded its highest temperature of 38.5°C in 2003, leading to 2,000 deaths.

Desertification

• Climate change is causing land degradation and drying, leading to famine, food insecurity, and increased poverty in agricultural regions.
• Desertification results in significant income losses, such as the $40 billion lost annually in the U.S. (2001) and Iraq’s farming collapse during the 2006–2010 drought.
• Climate change impacts crop-damaging.

Changes in Vegetation

• Climate change gradually affects the type, distribution, and coverage of vegetation.
• It may result in plant growth, earlier flowering, and a distorted fruiting time.
• Radical changes will result in changes in the timing of life cycles among these plants.
• These radical changes will also result in vegetation stress, rapid plant loss and eventually lead to desertification.
• Climate change can devastate tropical rainforests and turn the habitat as an 'island' with extinct plant and animal species.

Measures to Curb the Effects of Climate Change

• Climate change gradually affects the type, distribution and coverage of vegetation.
• It may result to plant growth, earlier flowering and a distorted fruiting time.
• Radical changes will result to changes in the timing of life cycles among these plants.
• These radical changes will also result in vegetation stress, rapid plant loss and eventually lead to desertification.
• Climate change can devastate tropical rainforests and turn the habitat as an 'island' with extinct plant and animal species.
• The conducive environmental conditions required by some species start to disappear, which may result to a rapid increase in extinction risk of some specific vegetation.

Change in Government Policies

• Government agencies from every nation begin to prioritize the preservation of the environment through the adoption of policies that will push for its promotion over business.
• Environmental values should be the basis for decision-making.
• Economies must maintain and develop strategies to prevent the further stretching of the environment while working to suffice human needs in every region.

Use of Renewable Energy

• Burning is one major cause of climate change.
• The move to use renewable energy resulted to the development of alternative ways to produce energy such as solar power.
• China and India's governments are investing in solar power which is directing the country away from a fossil-fuel based economy.
• The Paris Agreement is emphasizing the significance of renewable energy and greenhouse gas removal (GGR) technologies which are also being supported by the majority nations.
• The into investment renewable technology has made progress towards cleaner production of energy and lowered carbon emissions.

New Agricultural Practices

• The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) revealed that agriculture is responsible for over a quarter of the total global greenhouse gas emissions.
• Innovations adopted in agricultural practices and technologies can play a vital role in mitigating the impact of climate change.
• Creating and harnessing the necessary agricultural technologies will require innovations by utilizing technologies for new agricultural practices and improved global cooperation between countries to work hand in hand to achieve climate goals.