The Earth’s Climate is Changing Faster Than Any Point In Modern History

As much as some people might like to deny it, the Earth’s climate is changing faster than at any point in modern history. The culprit: humans, or at the very least our activities. Despite what some politicians and powerful lobbyists might say, there’s widespread scientific consensus that global climate change is real and that it is caused by human activity. In fact around 97 percent of scientific articles find that global warming is indeed real.

So what exactly is climate change? Before we jump into what it is, it’s first important to understand what climate means. Essentially, it refers to the general weather conditions for an area over many years. For example, Florida is considered a tropical climate while places like Alaska has an arctic climate with long, cold winters and short, cool summers. As you might have deduced, climate change means that there’s a significant variation in the average weather conditions over several decades. You might have heard climate change and global warming being used interchangeably, but global warming focuses on the rise in global average temperature, which is just one aspect of overall climate change.

Measuring the change in climate requires recording both modern and historic data. Scientists measure contemporary data via satellites, meteorological stations, and ocean buoys. Historical information is measured from natural sources like ice cores, tree rings, corals, and ocean and lake sediments. When combined, the information gathered can give scientists an overview of future climate trends.

What’s happening and why

Scientists from around the world have documented increased temperatures at the Earth’s surface, as well as in the atmosphere and oceans. If you’ve lived in one area for a long time, you might have noticed changes as well such as milder winters, longer growing seasons, more severe storms, or larger wildfires. All of this can be traced back to a warming global temperature.

So why and how did this happen? First, you’ll need to understand the earth’s climate system. You probably learned about this back in school, but essentially when energy from the sun is reflected back into space, the earth cools. When the earth absorbs the sun’s energy, or when the atmospheric gases prevent heat from going back to space, the earth warms. These atmospheric gases, known as greenhouse gases, include carbon dioxide, methane, water vapors, ozone, nitrous oxide, and chlorofluorocarbons. Of these five gases, the ones you probably hear the most about are carbon dioxide and methane. When the concentration of these gases increases, it traps the heat on earth, leading to the greenhouse effect.

There are natural causes of climate change including the sun’s intensity, volcanic eruptions, and changes in greenhouse gas concentrations. However, when scientists compare current climate patterns with the past the rapid increase in overall climate does not match with natural causes. Instead, it correlates directly to increased human activity and the burning of fossil fuels. The amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has skyrocketed by 40 percent when compared to preindustrial times. The burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and gas for electricity, heat, and transportation is the primary source of human-generated greenhouse gas emissions.

A second source is deforestation, which releases sequestered carbon into the atmosphere. As the global population grows, more forests get cut down to make way for farmlands to grow crops and feed for livestock. Speaking of livestock, cattle are the number one source of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. Every year, one cow releases 220 pounds of methane into the atmosphere. While it doesn’t stay in the atmosphere as long as carbon dioxide, it’s 28 times more potent in warming the earth.

While the planet’s forests and oceans can absorb some greenhouse gases, they unfortunately can’t keep up with the rising emissions. In fact, the oceans have reached a point where the water is turning more acidic because of the amount of greenhouse gas emissions they are absorbing. While most marine creatures can handle gradual change, the sudden drop in pH has led to huge swathes of corals dying out around the world.

Impacts on Society

At first, global warming might sound great to those who live in cooler climates. It means milder winters and an extended growing season so you can grow flowers and crops for longer. While it might seem beneficial in your area, global climate change can have disastrous effects for people in other regions. Eventually, you’ll start to feel the effects of global warming soon enough in your neighborhood if we don’t reduce our carbon footprint.

Climate change in general affects human health and wellbeing due to more extreme weather events such as hurricanes, snowstorms, tornadoes, wildfires and more. These events can lead to both direct and indirect loss of human life. Hotter, drier summers can affect the water supply of areas, which in turn can negatively affect agriculture in that region. It can also lead to more fatalities and illnesses from heat stress and heat stroke.

How Global Climate Change Has Impacted Society

On the opposite end of the spectrum, increased rainfall can lead to water contamination due to agricultural runoff into the water supply. Heavy downpours can lead to flooding which can affect infrastructure like roads, rail lines, energy, and more. A warmer, wetter climate can also lead to an increase in insect-borne diseases such as dengue fever, West Nile virus, and Lyme disease.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t just stop at the weather. Air pollution and climate change are linked with each affecting the other. As the earth’s temperature rises, the air gets ‘dirtier’ with smog and soot levels rising. Thanks to damp conditions from extreme weather and floods and longer growing seasons, there will also be an increase in allergenic air pollution such as mold and pollen. Sure, the ones who will feel the negative effects immediately will be those who already suffer from allergies or respiratory disease.

Response Options

The impact of global warming is already being felt around the world and projected to intensify in the future especially if no action is taken. Luckily, there are still some mitigation options available that can help reduce the amount and speed of future climate change. These efforts need to be done on an individual as well as country-wide level in order to make the most impact. With that said, the fundamental issue everyone needs to tackle is reducing their overall carbon footprint by reducing the dependence on fossil fuels.

On a global level, almost every nation on earth committed to taking appropriate actions to shift away from fossil fuels and move towards renewable energy options such as solar, wind, and geothermal. The goal is to limit global temperature rise this century to 2 degrees Celsius if possible. Since its ratification in 2015, several European countries have been able to reduce their overall emissions by a whopping 23 percent below 1990 levels. For its part, China - the largest contributor of greenhouse emissions - has stated that they will become carbon neutral by 2060. Other countries, unfortunately, are short of their goal or simply ignored them altogether such as Russia and Brazil. However, without large-scale projects to reduce overall emissions, it will be very difficult to actually prevent the global temperatures from rising.

With that said, there are a few things you can do on an individual level to lower your carbon footprint. Some of the easiest ways you can start to shrink your number includes:

Change up your food. Start eating more fruits, vegetables, grains, and beans. If possible, try to eat as local as you can to reduce travel time of your produce. While you don’t need to completely remove meat from your diet, you should try to limit your intake as livestock is responsible for 14.5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Stop buying so much clothes. It’s tempting to change up your wardrobe every season. Thanks to fast fashion companies like H&M and others it’s also become a lot cheaper. However, these clothes often break down quickly and, more importantly, the fashion goes out of style. Sadly, these clothes end up in landfills. In addition, most fast fashion comes from China or Bangladesh, so shipping it requires the use of fossil fuels. If you need new clothes, buy quality clothes that will last you years. Alternatively, buy used clothing. It’s cheaper and more environmentally friendly.
Check your energy meter and do an audit to see how much your appliances are actually using. Simple things like switching to LED lights, turning your heat down when you’re outside of the house or in the middle of the night, and turning off lights in rooms that aren’t occupied can all add up. If you have the money, switch your major appliances to newer ones as they tend to use less energy.
Change your mode of transportation if possible. Depending on where you live, that might mean biking to work instead of driving a car or carpooling with friends who work in the same area as you. If public transportation is available take that instead. If you must drive, make sure to properly maintain your car with regularly tune ups to ensure you’re getting the most mileage from your tank.
Make your voice heard by voting and writing to your local politicians. There’s only so much you can do on your own. Tackling global climate change depends on the efforts of communities, companies, and governments alike. Pick up the phone and call your Senators and Congressmen to make sure they know that their constituents care about supporting environmental policies.

Carbon Neutral Shipping

Chances are you’ve done some online shopping whether through many major online retailers or another online store. In some ways, online shopping is better for the environment as you don’t have to drive to a store and deliveries are more efficient since it only requires one driver to deliver multiple packages to a neighborhood. Still, there are many steps in the shipping process, which can ultimately increase your overall carbon footprint.

Luckily, many companies are now implementing carbon neutral shipping. This term refers to practices that put a net zero amount of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. While there’s no way to completely eliminate carbon emissions from shipping, as most of the transportation industry relies on fossils, there are steps some companies have taken to reduce their overall footprint. This includes:

Purchasing carbon offsets from supplies. A carbon offset is a contribution to sustainable development and climate cooling projects that act as a form of ‘credits’ that businesses can use to offset their carbon footprint. This is one of the primary ways many shipping companies can reduce their net output.
Evaluate and analyze shipping routes to reduce fuel consumption, idle time, and other wasteful practices. This comes with added benefit of also decreasing related expenses thus increasing profits.
Adjust packaging to ensure that it only includes necessary materials and update to newer, more green options.

Reforestation and Forest Preservation

As mentioned previously, in addition to oceans, forests also act as natural carbon sinks so, in theory, more trees should mean more carbon sequestration. A recent study found that the Earth could support another 2.2 billion acres of forests, which is about 25 percent more than is on the planet at this moment. While that doesn’t seem like much, that requires planting more than half a trillion trees. These would capture around 205 gigatons of carbon, which can reduce atmospheric carbon by around 25 percent.

Of course, these forests won’t start sequestering carbon right away. It takes centuries for trees to reach their full size, although even in their sapling form they can still absorb some carbon dioxide. To plant the amount of trees needed in the study could take between one to two thousand years With that said, reforestation might be more complicated than just planting trees willy-nilly. There are many factors to consider and planting trees will never be a complete substitute for simply decreasing fossil fuel emissions. Still, there’s a possibility that many areas of land that were once forests could be brought back to their original state. There’s still risks involved with planting trees, at least in the beginning. Setting aside feeding the global population, planting new trees may temporarily increase global temperatures as the forest cover could absorb more heat in the Northern Hemispheres while the evapotranspiration could cause a cooling effect in the tropics.

Scientists still aren’t 100 percent sure what might happen if they start planting more trees, though they’re hopeful that at least with reforestation it could help bring back some biodiversity in the area so long as the soil’s health remains intact. Of course, there are still many questions that need to be answered before scientists start to embark on this journey seriously.

Work Together To Reduce Your Carbon Footprint

It’s hard to dispute that man-made global climate change is happening based on the evidence available. Since the turn of the century, the greenhouse emissions and global temperature have increased in tandem. Should the global temperature continue to increase, it could lead to serious consequences for people around the world. Many who live along the coastlines are already noticing the sea levels rising and encroaching upon their homes.

Reducing your carbon footprint on an individual level requires you to create new habits that focus on reducing your overall energy consumption. Even small changes can help you reduce your footprint by 10-15 percent. Interested in seeing how much carbon you’re emitting, you can check out the carbon footprint calculator. In order to reduce the global emission, scientists suggest that everyone around the world needs to reduce their carbon emissions down to 1.87 tons by 2050. To put this into perspective, the average US per capita carbon footprint is 18.3 tons. Still, it’s not impossible and the more we as individuals do, the better the chances that large corporations will start to make a switch as consumers start to demand more eco-friendly options.

Rebekah Pierce is a professional social blogger and has worked on several online publications including Citrus Sleep. Rebekah is an experienced content writer and copyeditor. You will find many of her works throughout CitrusSleep.com that cover a wide array of subjects including sleep education, natural, sleep products, electronics, fashion and many more. She is passionate about her work and family.

Follow Lisa at Rebekah Pierce