It’s finally Christmas and you’re hyped to surprise your friends and family at home after so many years. You can’t stop imagining all the fun that’s in store for you this week and the looks on their faces when you show up on their doorstep ready for a billion hugs and kisses. As you board the plane with two hundred other people and get prepared for a nice long nap and take off, with so much free time to think and daydream, it hits you that plane rides may not be as inconsequential as many people think. You realize that almost immediately after you get off the plane, jetlag, tiredness, back pain, headaches, cramps, and/or nausea hit you all at once, but you decide that this is a small sacrifice you are willing to make even if it lasts for a few days. However, one thing that you, along with many others have probably never taken into account would be the fact that these issues are nothing compared to a major issue plane, as well as many other factors are huge contributors. Global warming, also referred to as climate change, describes the sudden and rapid increase in the average global temperature that has been taking place over the course of at least the past 50 years due to the extreme overproduction of carbon dioxide, air pollutants, and other greenhouse gases building up in the atmosphere, absorbing the sun’s radiation, and preventing that heat from getting released back into space, eventually enforcing the planet to get hotter which poses a multitude of risks to our health, animals, environment, and most importantly the well-being of our future. This is why this issue must be taken more seriously than it’s being taken now, and should be dealt with immediately, which for starters, can be accomplished by reducing our carbon footprint by using public transportation and standing up as well as taking more steps for the well-being of our planet and future by planting more trees before it’s too late.
Global warming will have horrible effects on humans overall, substantially jeopardizing many people’s health both directly and indirectly, resulting in many further deaths as well because of the rise in temperature. According to a study published in the scientific journal, Nature Climate Change, led by Stanford economist Marshall Burke, climate change will be responsible for about 21,000 additional suicides by 2050 within the United States and Mexico and an increase in suicide rates by 1.4 percent in the United States and 2.3 percent in Mexico by 2050 if it continues to warm the Earth the same rate it is now. ’’ This is because hotter temperatures have been found to escalate the production of stress hormones, diminish sleep quality, and distort people’s physical activity routines which all combined can increase psychological distress upon another, and over time, be the exact cause for the multitude of these predicted suicides. Similarly, global warming is also culpable for directly affecting human health negatively too. According to Mercedes Pascual of the University of Michigan, a senior author of the study, “We saw an upward expansion of malaria cases to higher altitudes in warmer years...This is indisputable evidence of a climate effect. The main implication is that with warmer temperatures, we expect to see a higher number of people exposed to the risk of malaria in tropical highland areas like these.” This phenomenon is caused by a single-celled microbe called Plasmodium which gets disseminated to humans and animals via the bite of a mosquito. Both mosquitoes and Plasmodium parasites tend to thrive in warmer temperatures and so with growing temperature, can adapt and survive at higher altitudes that have customarily been malaria-free, which means that not only will this deadly disease increase in tropical, malaria-prone regions because of the rise in temperature, it will also gain access to places which were once not known to have mosquitoes in the first place like mountains and other relatively colder places and flourish since the rises in temperature will increase humidity in those locations, forming the perfect breeding grounds for these disease-carrying vectors. These problems allow only a few glances to see how climate change can truly tarnish people’s health. It is clear from all the research shown overhead that global warming can greatly impact one’s health and lead to many life-threatening diseases that can cause a lot of deaths in the future because warm temperatures, due to their properties, seem to be one of the main sources to contribute to the development of many illnesses whether it increases hormone levels resulting in depression and suicide, provides the perfect conditions for vectors and deadly microbes so they can thrive and spread diseases like malaria, and etc. Positive correlations between the rises in temperature due to global warming along with the rise in sicknesses like the number of casualties from suicides and malaria cases are key details that help prove that climate change will have horrendous effects on humans and their health which, unless done something about quick, will be unpreventable. Yet, as much as humans may suffer due to climate change, they won’t be the only ones.
Global warming is also posing a major threat to animals. According to an article published on March 1st, 2019, the planet’s oceans are the hardest workers of all compared to anything/anyone on Earth when it comes to preventing global warming, for they are liable for absorbing about 93 percent of the greenhouse gases and heat that gets released into the atmosphere, keeping the planet from turning into a Brobdingnagian oven, but now the time has come that even the seas have become saturated with heat/gas and due to these warm temperatures, many fish and their food sources are dying off because of the huge increases in carbon dioxide in the water, leading to the acidification of the oceans, depletion of coral reefs, resulting in habitat loss, and of course abnormal rises in temperature which enforce fish to migrate and thus get eaten/fished since “Fish are like Goldilocks: They don’t like their water too hot or too cold,” said Malin L. Pinsky, an associate professor in the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences at Rutgers University and a co-author of the new study.’ In addition to fish and marine life, land life is also being damaged, especially where ice makes up almost the whole biome. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, polar bears are on the “Red List” which means that they are most likely going to be one of the first animals to go extinct once the temperature rises for a multitude of reasons because research says that warming will cause contamination, fewer cubs, food-stress, more exposure to diseases, and will also cause dens to collapse which the mother bears initially build to protect her cubs, and without these, polar bears will be vulnerable to predators, further declining their populations, and worst of all, whether the rest of these effects take place or not, the ground from beneath them is literally melting away and “Without sea ice, there is no sea ice ecosystem and losing that ecosystem includes losing polar bears.” says professor Andrew Derocher, an expert in polar bear ecology and conservation at the University of Alberta. It is clear from the facts above that climate change will exacerbate the survival rates and situations of many of these land and marine life on the planet and pull them closer to extinction by depleting their habitats, causing abnormalities to their birth rates, expanding contamination/spread of diseases around them, and by further exposing them to predators, hunters, and any other dangers that will put their lives at risk. All the additional risks being incremented into the life cycle or territory of these other animals as mentioned above and more due to global warming are all key signs that it can have extremely disastrous effects upon animals and that those effects have already started to appear, leading to the fact that global warming is closer and much more hazardous than people expected. Yet, even after these facts have been put on the table, many people still beg to differ that global warming isn’t real, and even if it is, it’s completely harmless.
Some claim that animals and plants can just adapt to climate change and that it’s not such a big deal. According to Hudson Institute senior fellow Dennis Avery and climate physicist S. Fred Singer, the co-authors of the new book “Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years,” wildlife can just change and adapt itself to the warm conditions associated with global warming like they’re currently doing so great right now. The issue with this line of reasoning is that not all species can adapt in the time since for some, evolution may take a long time to occur, and this happens because for significant evolution to occur, many years of mutations within wildlife are required, but these mutations happen randomly, which is why the question of when exactly animals will be able to adapt is unpredictable and thus unknown as supported by Anne Charmantier, an evolutionary ecologist at the Center of National Scientific Research at France in this National Geographic article, published on August 19, 2019, here: “Evolution can happen very fast—over a few years—or it can be a slower process...But [evolution is] never going to be fast enough if we match this with the climate prediction.” In fact, in this informative article published on December 5th, 2019, a new study in the journal Ecology Letters found an abnormally large amount of bird deaths last year in Chicago, and when researchers went to take samples, it was discovered that most of the birds had perished from colliding with structures during their seasonal migrations which scientists hypothesized that ever since birds got smaller due to rising temperatures, it became harder for them to migrate and is why they increased their wing-span to help them fly better, but this resulted in odd body proportions in little time, eventually disrupting their flight routines to which Wesley Hochachka, an ecologist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, New York, said that “these changes could indicate that birds are trying — and in some cases failing — to adapt and keep up with changes to their environment.” It is clear from these pieces of evidence that it takes a long time for organisms such as birds to develop, and be able to adapt to their environment to survive when compared to the rate at which global warming seems to currently be growing too, which means that when global warming reaches its peak, all these organisms will have been too late to evolve and eventually go extinct. Ultimately, with the account of information derived from researchers and experts on this topic and evidence of odd body transformations from expired birds which crashed into buildings in Chicago, it can be inferred that although it’s possible for wildlife to evolve and adapt to warming temperatures resulting from climate change, this process takes a long time which asserts that no, organisms can’t just adapt to climate change along with its effects, and this actually is a big deal. As the days go by, the climate worsens, gradually forcing almost everything in existence towards an irrevocable end, and unless steps are taken to fight it at once before it’s too late, the consequences will be inevitable.
Global warming is a dangerous man-made disaster approaching at a rapid pace, one which in the long run will be responsible for causing many negative consequences to people’s health, the environment, animals, etc. and thus should be ceased immediately by increasing the use of public transportation and planting more trees. According to a report by ICF International and the American Public Transportation Association, one of the best ways to reduce carbon emissions and attempt to rescue our planet would be to use public transportation instead of private because using public transportation saves thousands of pounds of carbon dioxide per person per year, which means less carbon dioxide gets released into the air as supported by them here: “Public transportation is the single greatest way to reduce one’s personal carbon footprint — and one of the most immediate. Other options, such as replacing light bulbs with energy-efficient versions, hardly compare...commuting by public transportation saves 4,800 pounds of CO2 per person per year...” Another way to help slow the rate of climate change is by planting more trees. According to the U.S. Forest Service Center for Urban Forest Resource, planting more trees, in addition to absorbing carbon dioxide, can also help cool the planet down as stated here: “Pine forests...emit a smell...that...actually consists of volatile organic compounds...that react with oxygen to form aerosol particles. These particles reflect sunlight back into the atmosphere and help cooling clouds to form.” This can be very beneficial when it comes to battling global warming because the more pine trees that get planted, the more cooling clouds can form. It is clear from these details that there are many ways to combat global warming, but two of the best ways are to plant trees, because it creates a source that will absorb greenhouse gasses, and to use public transportation instead of private because doing this will also reduce levels of CO2 in the air, and the lesser the greenhouse gasses in the air, the slower the rate of global warming will be. Planting pine trees is also critical since it will also help reduce the Earth’s temperature by contradicting the rises in temperatures from climate change, eventually canceling their effects by producing cooling clouds that can help lower the planet’s temperature. Evidence of how planting trees and using public transportation help reduce carbon emissions, cool down Earth’s temperature, and help reduce greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere are all significant facts that help point out that planting trees and using public transportation is one of the best ways to try/slow down global warming. So next time when you decide to travel, take into consideration the animals, others’ health, as well as the safety of your future and take public transportation instead, and when you have free time, take that measure to plant a few extra trees here and there because maybe then, if all of us take a step and work together, can we prevent the catastrophic consequences of global warming from nearing us, and gift ourselves, as well as the generations to come, a fulfilling life.