How is Climate Change Affecting the World?

Our group is researching the way climate change affects the world in different ways. Things such as the different solutions there are, the many things it’s affecting, how it looks, and many more. Scientists have clarified that human-caused climate change starts way back in the 1800s. A NASA article about climate change mentions, human activities are changing natural greenhouse gases. They do this by burning coal and fossil fuels. This combines carbon and oxygen in the air to make CO2. Changing the natural atmospheric gases can ruin the greenhouse gases, the things that protect us. Greenhouse gases absorb infrared radiation, carbon dioxide, and chlorofluorocarbons.

Without greenhouse gases and the greenhouse effect, the earth would become warmer, maybe even a little too warm. With the temperature rising, more natural disasters will happen, glaciers will melt causing the sea level to rise and coastal flooding, even ocean acidification can happen. Ocean acidification will bleach the coral reefs and marine life will start to die. With high temperatures, crops won’t grow so there will be no food, killing animals and eventually, human kind. It could ruin other things and if it gets bad enough our future won’t be looking so good. And the cost to fix things could be too high, if they don’t get ruined by climate change first.

The cultural and social view of climate change is a very interesting debate. As of the cultural side of climate change, there are tribes with different beliefs and practices of things that climate change has a large impact on. Such as things with glaciers. Due to temperatures rising, the glaciers are melting, and it affects those who religions around things such as that. Or maybe even mountains. Different tribes who live or have beliefs about the mountains have been affected to do agriculture or wild life dying off. Peoples religions being affected by human caused climate change disasters can be very devastating. Not only is it affecting people with religious beliefs, but other everyday people such as farmers. Extreme temperature will change precipitation patters and threatens crops. This will affect the farmers food source and everyone else who they supply to.

Another major thing climate change effects is developing countries. They will be at an even bigger disadvantage dealing with the effects of climate change they are already. An article by Rosaly Byrd and Laurèn DeMates talks about how they already struggle with lack of infrastructure and have less technological and financial resources to begin with. They will be struggle hard because the tiny amount of resources they are dependent on (food, public funds) will end up going towards other things to help control or fix problems made by climate change. So, for example, their public funds they received will go towards other things like building a sea wall. Another way it can affect developing countries is by affecting the people individually. People like the women, children, and elders. It can have an impact on their health and their everyday work life. Women and children in developing countries often get the job have having to collect things such as water and firewood. Their resources would be decreased causing them to have to work even harder, wearing them out, and leaving little to no time working on other tasks. Not only that, children and the elderly are more vulnerable to the health concerns associated with climate change. This will make things harder for people in developing countries, and if things get bad enough, soon everyone would be vulnerable to high risk health concerns.

Think of how many different communities there are in the world and how much space they cover. Now think of the little amount of free space there is left in the world, livable free space. Most of the world is water and oceans. Soon, with things like rising sea levels, extreme drought, extreme rainfall or others, communities are going to be forced to relocate. Each time leaving smaller amounts of land habitable for us to take, leaving nowhere for us to live. With glaciers melting, water will keep rising, covering land and leaving nowhere to live. The sea levels rising and flooding can pollute drinking water. An article by Jennifer Scroggins about climate change states, “Flooding can cause contamination of drinking water supplies with untreated sewage or chemicals and can also increase waterborne diseases as warmer air and water temperatures cause higher levels of microbial contamination.

Storms and flooding can also wipe out crop production, leading to higher food insecurity and costing low-income farm workers their livelihood.” Going back to how this affects the social side of climate change, its making it harder for communities to find places to live. Climate change can even be making it harder for communities to protect themselves during natural disasters. With the heat rising, there will be more natural disasters and they will be stronger. The natural disasters can have a major impact on out health. They can bring over diseases or many other horrible things. Things such as wild fires, floods, or hurricanes can become unbelievably stronger as the temperatures slowly begin to rise higher than were used to them being. They would start to destroy homes, crops, businesses, and they could kill off animals.

The same article by Jennifer Scroggins also states, “Beyond the deaths and injuries they bring in the short term, more frequent and intense weather events have lingering impacts that threaten the basic life support systems upon which we rely—clean air, water, food, shelter, and security. Smoke from wildfires, which can travel thousands of miles, is associated with increased premature deaths, hospitalizations for respiratory diseases and worsening heart disease. Ash and debris from burned homes and buildings expose people to toxic chemicals like asbestos and heavy metals.” Overall, climate change can have numerous amounts of affects of the social and cultural parts of the world. And not just that part of it. Climate change affects so many others, things like our future, the environment, economic problems, ethical, political and historical, and many others. It has a worldwide dangerous affect and is barely being fixed. People don’t see it as a very dangerous problem.

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