THE FORSAKEN VICTIMS OF CLIMATE CHANGE Megan Mou Megan Mou was selected as the winner of the 2019-2020 Broad Street Scientific Essay Contest. Her award included the opportunity to interview Mr. Erik Troan '91, founder and CTO of Pendio.io. This interview can be found in the Featured Article section of the journal.
Mother Earth is dying. Nowadays, it seems like there is always a headline that bears news of yet another environmental tragedy, and 2019 was a record year: 20% of the Amazon ravaged by forest fires, almost 900 deaths in the hottest England heat wave in history, and 1 billion animals killed by Australia’s wildfires added up to the one of the most environmentally devastating years in history. The worst part of it all? Humans are directly linked to causing these catastrophes—yet we are still not doing enough to prevent them. Research has shown that humans are by far the greatest contributor of CO2, with two thirds of human emissions due to the burning of fossil fuels (Johnson, 2019). And when carbon dioxide and other gases enter our atmosphere, they remain for centuries, inflicting terrible damage on our planet. Why do our activities have such a great effect on Earth’s climate? To answer this, we must fully understand the science behind global warming. The cause can be summed up in one phrase: the enhanced greenhouse effect. When solar radiation reaches Earth’s atmosphere, some is reflected back into space, and the rest is absorbed by the land and ocean, causing Earth to radiate heat towards space. The greenhouse gases that naturally exist in our atmosphere are responsible for absorbing some of this heat, keeping Earth warm enough to sustain life ("The Causes of Climate Change," 2019). The problem now is that too much of these greenhouse gases (CO2, methane, nitrous oxide, water vapor, and chlorofluorocarbons, to name a few) is being released due to human activity, driving up average annual temperatures. The recent U.S. Fourth National Climate Assessment found that between 93% to 123% of observed 1951-2010 warming was due to human activities (it is possible to be greater than 100% because natural factors in isolation, such as volcanoes and solar activity, would most likely have resulted in a slight cooling over the last few decades, offsetting part of the human-associated warming) (Hausfather, 2017). Most people who are aware of climate change are also aware of its general environmental impacts, such as melting glaciers and rising sea levels, as well as disruption of habitats and loss of biodiversity. However, what many are not aware of is the disproportionately large impact that climate change has on those living in extreme poverty.
There are several ways that climate change perpetuates a cycle of poverty among the most vulnerable members of our population. Poorer communities are not only more susceptible to the detrimental effects of global warming, they are also less able to cope with the aftermath of these effects. If we continue to be bystanders, climate change could force an additional 100 million people into extreme poverty by 2030 (Giovetti, 2019). The most significant threat that climate change poses to the poor is the destruction of resources. 3 out of 4 people living in poverty rely on agriculture and natural resources to survive—for them, climate change is literally a matter of life and death. So when increasingly unpredictable weather and natural disasters such as sustained droughts or severe storms hit farmers living in Haiti, Timor-Leste, or Zimbabwe, their families face starvation and dehydration as their crops and water sources are wiped out. Climate change threatens the world’s food and water supply—research shows that climate and natural disasters alone have triggered food crises for 29 million people. The undermining of food production and loss of resources cause extreme instability in different communities, leading to a rise in conflicts over arable land, freshwater, and livestock. In fact, thousands have been killed in Nigeria, where diminishing land and water resources have recently been exacerbated by the effects of climate change, prompting long-standing tension to spark into full-fledged violence (Schwartz, 2019). Clearly, existing social and economic problems are only intensified by the consequences of climate change, and millions of people are losing their lives as a result. Those who have not been killed are being forced to flee. Rising sea levels, prolonged droughts, and natural disasters drive millions to move away from their homes in search of better livelihoods. Almost all of these displacements occur in developing countries, where residents have insufficient resources to cope with change and destruction. This cycle of poverty continues for refugees, many of whom do not have access to education and must depend on humanitarian aid. Furthermore, many first-world countries outsource CO2 in the form of factories to developing countries, whose labor force is eager for new jobs (Plumer, 2017). In short, climate change makes rich countries richer and poorer countries poorer. Broad Street Scientific | 2019-2020 | 7
