Christian Szablewski-Paz

HST 401

Professor Horgan

1 November 2022

Unsettling Truths of Climate Change

I am unsure if it is just me that has this sentiment, but whenever I hear about climate change on the news or during conversation, I just become depressed.  It almost appears that there is nothing a small person like me can do to fight climate change, but rather, it is in the hands of governments to put regulations into place that will actually make some impact against climate change.  It also appears that many of the policies put into place by the government to fight climate change are to receive votes, rather than to actually fight the problem at hand, which is even more depressing.  What specifically comes to mind is the banning of plastic straws in multiple blue states around the country.  According to National Geographic, of all of the pollution filled in our ocean, plastic straws make up a mere 0.025%, but leaders in favor of this have hyped it up to be some amazing achievement in respect to fighting climate change.  There exists a multitude of reasons why the global effort to fight climate change seems to be relatively shortcoming, despite how imminent it is to fix this problem, and a major part that plays into this is how uninformed the general population is in respect to what the major contributors to climate change actually are.  

Greenhouse gas emission is the major contributor to why our climate has been changing so rapidly.  There are a multitude of different sectors that emit enormous amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.  Globally, these include but are not limited to electricity, livestock industry, and transportation in order of contribution (Foley). These are all obviously essential for a decent quality of life, but they are indeed the main contributors to climate change.  The reason why politicians and scientists haven’t been able to find a way to regulate them in such a way that we wouldn’t be harming the planet is because the problem is extremely complex and would be astronomically expensive to fix.  Another issue that plays into this is that not all countries are on the same page when it comes to climate agendas.  For example, just because the U.S. is seeing a major push in green technology to reduce carbon emissions, it doesn’t mean places like China, which nearly doubles the U.S. in carbon emissions per year, are reducing theirs at the same rate.

I imagine at some point in your life you have been told to turn the faucet off while brushing your teeth or to recycle plastics to “do your part” in saving the planet.  The fact of the matter is that these actions are so insignificant compared to the negative contributions from industrial technologies that they may as well be negligible.  In order to see real results, change needs to come from a global legislature, and stricter regulations need to be put on major corporations.  Banning straws is a lot more feasible and cost effective compared to lowering our global industrial carbon emissions, and it ultimately makes people feel that the politicians they are voting for are actually doing something to save the world, which is sad in my opinion.

Overfishing seems to be something that is neglected to be talked about when talking about climate change.  The two are directly correlated.  The National Ocean Service reports that “Scientists estimate that 50-80% of the oxygen production on Earth comes from the ocean” and over 93% of carbon dioxide is stored in our oceans.  Ecosystems such as mangroves, tidal marshes, and coral reefs all sequester and store more carbon per unit area than forests.  Harmful fishing practices such as bottom trawling and bycatch not only weaken fish populations, but also quite literally destroy the aquatic vegetation as well.  These ecosystems are incredibly vital for the future of our planet.  The extinction of these ecosystems is paired with the dwindling populations of the fish that live in them.  Food chains are so intricate and intertwined amongst the individual species that are part of them.  Just a slight decrease in one species’s population can significantly harm the entire ecosystem.  But yet again, I haven’t heard of any of this in respect to fighting climate change talked about in politics or rather in the news.  Rather, I am told I am helping save the world by going to the store with reusable shopping bags, or by paying the 33 cents to buy the cheap biodegradable ones when I forget them.

While I am optimistic that humanity will find a way to reduce our carbon emissions and fight climate change, it is a shame to see how politicized the issue has become.  There are certain issues that contribute to climate change that are widely acknowledged, while it feels some of the big contributors are strategically just not talked about in the media.  I wish politicians would first address the main issues at hand, rather than making symbolic movements like banning plastic straws.

Works Cited

“How Much Oxygen Comes from the Ocean?” NOAA's National Ocean Service, 26 Feb. 2021, https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/ocean-oxygen.html#:~:text=Scientists%20estimate%20that%2050%2D80,smallest%20photosynthetic%20organism%20on%20Earth.

Issifu, Ibrahim, et al. “Impact of Ocean Warming, Overfishing and Mercury on European Fisheries: A Risk Assessment and Policy Solution Framework.” Frontiers, Frontiers in Marine Science, 1 Jan. 1AD, https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2021.770805/full#:~:text=Overfishing%20makes%20marine%20fisheries%20production,levels%20in%20some%20fish%20species.

Knox, Written by Pam, et al. “The Three Most Important Graphs in Climate Change.” Climate and Agriculture in the Southeast, 16 June 2019, https://site.extension.uga.edu/climate/2019/06/the-three-most-important-graphs-in-climate-change/.

March 02, 2022 Zak Smith. “IPCC to World: Protect More Nature to Maintain Life on Earth.” NRDC, NRDC, 3 Mar. 2022, https://www.nrdc.org/experts/zak-smith/ipcc-world-protect-more-nature-maintain-life-earth#:~:text=Answering%20the%20question%20of%20how,and%20ecosystem%20services.%E2%80%9D%20(IPCC.

World Bank Group. “Climate Explainer: Oceans and Climate Change.” World Bank, World Bank Group, 4 Feb. 2022, https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2022/02/08/what-you-need-to-know-about-oceans-and-climate-change#:~:text=What%20role%20do%20oceans%20play,of%20human%2Dcaused%20CO2%20emissions. 

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