Climate Change: What Is It and Why Should I Care?

 Dhihan Ahmed

Climate Change

        You know those movies where everything looks utopian when in reality everything is falling apart? Those movies where everything is seemingly perfect and yet things couldn’t be more wrong? That’s been the state of our planet ever since the Industrial Revolution and it’s showing no signs of stopping anytime soon. With our planet warming up at a rate never before seen in Earth’s history, it’s only a matter of time before we face the same dystopian fate as those movies.

        First and foremost, what could climate change possibly be that warrants this much concern and severity? Climate change, according to the United Nations, refers to “long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns”. This is not talking about natural shifts in temperatures of course, as the Earth has a vivid history of changing between Ice Ages and warm periods. This is strictly referring to irregular weather patterns caused by the activity of humans. This rapid change in Earth’s climate has been absolutely horrible for the environment, leaving many animals that relied on the natural shifts in Earth’s temperature to sustain and regulate their populations – such as the polar bear – to slowly dwindle out and be on the cusp of endangerment. And yes, this affects far more than just animals, since about 3% of the vast majority of countries can’t seem to care about something unless it’s directly affecting them, according to The Conversation. Climate change is disastrous for humans because if Earth’s temperature continues to increase at this drastic rate, then that means a large percentage of the crops that the world relies on will begin to die out and humans will lose 80% of the world’s food in value terms. This could and very much has been projected by UCSUSA to cause an increase in world hunger and higher food prices. Not to mention, the increase in temperature has led melting glaciers to increase the global sea level with each passing year, resulting in many places of the world to be at risk of flooding. If this doesn’t spark some kind of worry inside of you, I can assure you it goes so much deeper than what I’ve said so far and that the situation itself is far more grim than I’ve played it out to be.

        I mentioned before that this all sparked after the Industrial Revolution, but what is the correlation between these 2 things? To start, the Britannica defines the Industrial Revolution as a period in the 18th century that introduced newer ways of working and living due to technological advances such as the steam locomotive/car, machines in factories, and electric generators just to name a few. What people didn’t know back then was that a lot of these things released an absurd amount of greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gases, for those that don’t know, are gases in the Earth’s atmosphere that trap heat (nationalgrid). So imagine millions of these man made machines releasing these greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, it goes without saying what the effects are. All this abundance of greenhouse gases trapping in more heat is the main cause of climate change and exactly how much it has increased can be seen in the graph1 at the bottom. Ever since the Industrial Revolution, despite humans’ quality of life improving, the quality of our planet has only diminished.

        I briefly brushed upon how climate change has led to an increase in global sea levels and has placed a plethora of countries in danger of being flooded. Well, one of these countries is Bangladesh. I grew up in Bangladesh during my early childhood and had a lot of fond memories there and now my country ranks 7th on the list of most vulnerable to climate devastation despite producing only 0.56% of the global emission of greenhouse gases, according to The Climate Reality Project. I have distinct memories of my relatives in Bangladesh on the phone informing me how the weather has been changing drastically, how there have been catastrophic flash floods this past summer, and how they’re talking about evacuating to somewhere safe. The Crimson even projected that by 2050, 1 in 7 people in Bangladesh will be displaced by climate change and that 7.2 million people have already had their towns wiped away. I brought this specific example up as this is directly related to me, but I can sadly say that this is the case for many countries around the world. There are millions of families that are losing their homes, all as a byproduct of humanity’s constant desire to advance without taking into account the effects on the planet. Earth has no way of keeping up with humans and at this rate, we’ll be lucky to make it through this century without global disaster.



graph1 showing the increase of greenhouse gases since the Industrial Revolution (1760-1840). 

Exponential growth.


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