LET’S TALK ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING,

by Anastasia Minkovska

Scientists predict that by the mid 21st century, sea levels will rise several metres and we will lose forever Venice, Seychelles and Maldives. Waves of extreme heat, drought and forest fires will become regular events and ancient viruses, that will make Coronavirus seem like a cold, will thaw.

When scientists talk about global change in temperature, they do not mean change in weather, but rather climate, which is a relatively stable system. Climate change not only encompasses rising temperatures but also extreme weather events, shifting wildlife populations and habitats, rising seas, and a range of other impacts. As we know from school, The Greenhouse Effect traps heat through increased atmospheric gases, including CO2, causing an effect similar to the insulating glass walls of a greenhouse. As a result of human activity, the insulating walls have grown significantly denser. Continuing the garden analogy, the earth is simply overheating.

At the emergence of the Industrial Revolution, the concentration of CO2 rose to 280 ppm. In the last 35 years, it has reached an alarming 450 ppm. Consequently, global temperatures have risen to points not recorded in hundreds of thousands of years! More than 90 % of the received heat is being dissolved in the oceans. For decades scientists thought that the heat was equally dissipated in all four oceans. However, recent studies show that the upper layers of the oceans heat up simultaneously - increasing the amount of energy on Earth and causing global warming.

Animals are the first to suffer. For example, the Saiga Antelope have lived for millions of years with a harmless bacteria in the intestine. During the hot summer of 2015, that beneficial bacteria became poisonous. As a result, 70 % of the species’ population died. All of this due one unusually hot summer!

There are trillions of bacteria in the human body. The possibility that climate change will poison our normal behaviour sounds like a plot for a dystopian movie in which we, deliberately, create. The World Bank issued a prediction that without intervention, there will be 140 million climate refugees from Africa, South Asia and Latin America in just 30 years. We are also likely to witness the dramatic fall in agricultural yields which will lead to famine. In just 50 years, the planet will change drastically due to human activities: burning fossil fuels, deforesting, extensive farming, and the use of aerosol cans and refrigeration. In the meantime, an estimated 115 million people will likely perish from air pollution by 2040-50.

There are hundreds of different methods on how each of us can bend the arc of history and save lives. You do not have to be a politician or influential figure. You just have to apply the simple rule: repair, recycle, reuse. By buying fewer consumer goods can reduce your carbon footprint and also cut down on waste. And if one day, the truths scientists are warning us about suddenly turn out to be a lie? A global conspiracy? Well, that means that we might have accidentally turned our planet into a better and cleaner place to live in. Is that so bad?