Is Climate Change Real?
Yes, climate change is real. It is as real as the seasons, the wind, the water, and the land. It is as real as the feelings of heat and cold during intense summers and winters. Climate change is real, and it is happening right now, even as we exist on planet Earth.
Climate change is a natural, gradual, and large-scale phenomenon that occurs all over the planet. Earth, in its long history of growth, development, and evolution, has gone through various changes, making the growth of life possible in the way we experience it in the present moment. The systems, materials, and elements responsible for life on Earth are not stable, due to which they keep moving, evolving, and changing with respect to time and other conditions.
This means that things like the overall global temperature of the planet also keep shifting and changing based on various factors like distance from the Sun, the amount of sunlight received, solar radiation, and the movement of the carbon cycle on the planet. In generic terms, this overall shift in global temperature is called climate change, and it affects everything on the planet, like seasons, weather, temperature, environment, ecosystems, and living conditions.
In a way, the birth, growth, and evolution of life are directly connected with the climate and the environment that support it. If the living conditions are too harsh, then life cannot grow, and without life, the universe will be inert and dumb. Presently, planet Earth is the only known place in the universe that supports the right environment for the growth and evolution of life, but the living conditions that have made it possible are under threat due to the rapid acceleration of climate change.
Also Read: Planet Earth As A Living Organism: The Gaia Theory
Why Is Climate Change a Global Concern?
Disruption of Ecosystems
Climate change has become a sudden threat to human existence, other life forms, the environment, and ecosystems because it is occurring at an extremely unnatural and rapid rate, thanks to various human actions. Scientists like climatologists, geologists, meteorologists, and others have discovered and explained the fact that climate change is natural and has been happening on Earth for billions of years, but the rate at which it happens is so slow that life on Earth and other dependent ecosystems have enough time to adapt, change, and evolve to the transformations. Thus, even though climate change has happened in the past during the Pleistocene, Holocene, and other periods, it has not interfered with life in a severe manner.
However, the same does not hold true for the present moment because the contemporary crisis of climate change is induced by human activities like agriculture, deforestation, industrialization, animal domestication, pollution, the burning of fossil fuels, and others, resulting in an intense and sudden disruption of natural processes like the carbon cycle. Thus, the change in climate, which should have taken place over a period of millennia, is now occurring in centuries and even decades.
Human activities like the burning of fossil fuels result in the emission of carbon, which stays in the atmosphere for a long period of time, where it traps the heat coming from the Sun and results in the formation of the greenhouse effect. This increases the overall temperature of the planet, making it hotter, thereby kicking off a chain of events that starts a feedback loop, making the planet even hotter.
Environmental Disasters & Threat To Human Safety
As a result of this human-induced climate change, glaciers have begun to melt, seawater has started to rise, flooding and storms are growing more intense, and temperatures are rising, making summers hotter, winters colder, and prompting erratic weather behavior, which further disrupts human activities like agriculture, transportation, and commerce. The effects of climate change can be observed in the rate of increasing climate disasters in the past few years, and even a common individual can observe the changes by keeping track of temperature for a period of a few years and noticing the abnormalities.
Also Read: 10 Ways Climate Change Impacts Your Health & Daily Life
Climate Change Is Transboundary
Climate change has become the defining problem of our time, forcing humanity to reevaluate its dominant systems, beliefs, political, legal, technological, and cultural practices in order to comprehend and encounter the magnitude of the problem. It is a global crisis because, unlike other human-induced challenges like inequality, injustice, or violence, climate change is a transboundary phenomenon, meaning that it affects everywhere. Natural resources like air and water are not limited by national borders, thereby carrying pollution and toxicants everywhere. Furthermore, the carbon emissions generated by individual nations and specific industries manifest in the atmosphere, which is also a non-political region, making it a problem for every organism on Earth.
If not addressed or resolved in time, climate change has the power, scope, and potential to disrupt major ecosystems, human-based systems, and life as we have come to know it. It can and will affect human health, productivity, the economy, safety, and life. Thus, it is one of those problems that demand involvement from everyone, providing the opportunity to rise above petty differences and collaborate to tackle the problem on a collective level.
What Is the Evidence Behind Climate Change?
Human beings have always intuitively understood and respected the relationship between life, the environment, and the climate. During the ancient era, various cultural and religious practices like rituals recognized and honored the mutual relationship between the health of the environment and the cultivation of critical life-supporting elements like crops and plants. These ancient practices can be observed even today in forms of harvesting festivals and other celebrations. Furthermore, the recognition and impact of human action on climate change have featured in various philosophies from all over the world, such as the Vrikshayurveda (Environmental Philosophy) or the works of Henry David Thoreau, who explored the relationship between nature and human behavior.
Read: Check out a creative interpretation of the poem ‘Nature’ by Henry Thoreau
However, a strict and concrete manifestation of evidence behind climate change can be traced back to the 19th century in the works of Joseph Fourier, John Tyndall, and others, who laid the theoretical foundation for understanding the effects of human action on climate change. Their theories about the role and contribution of carbon in trapping heat and increasing global temperature paved the way for future scientists to explore this relationship further.
This theoretical framework culminated in a full-blown practical understanding of human-induced climate change through the works of various prominent 20th-century scientists, one of whom was Charles Keeling, who recorded the data in an observatory in Hawaii, which is known as the Keeling Curve.
Furthermore, the intense study of ice cores, coral reefs, tree rings, sediment cores, and data from satellites has enabled scientists to put their heads together in figuring out the intricate relations between human action and climate change. All these efforts have resulted in a global consensus among the scientific community about the reality of climate change, and the annual IPCC reports track and project the current status of climate change and the response from all countries regarding its reversal and removal.
So, the theories, data, and real-time monitoring of major systems on planet Earth have revealed the fact that climate change is real, and it is induced by human actions.
Can Climate Change Be Reversed?
Climate change is a manifestation of various complex, interrelated phenomena, and their full extent has not been grasped or completely understood. Regardless, climate change has not reached the point where it cannot be slowed down or even stopped because the chief agent igniting the phenomenon is human activities like development, industrialization, deforestation, etc. This major perpetrator behind climate change is carbon, whose emission due to the burning of fossil fuels has resulted in the gathering of the element in the atmosphere, which traps heat and increases temperature. Thus, actively removing the carbon from the air, preventing the release of more carbon, and neutralizing the negative effects of remaining carbon can dramatically impact the rate of climate change.
However, the solution is not so simple, as the whole world relies on basic resources like fossil fuels, which are used to generate energy that powers the entire world and improves human life. Underdeveloped and rural areas devoid of basic amenities like housing, electricity, sanitized water, healthcare, and education are deprived due to a lack of energy and demand urgent developmental progress, but meeting these developmental challenges becomes increasingly difficult due to the emission of carbon in the air, which causes climate change.
Thus, the path forward looks at the twin challenges of development and climate change, which on a global level are addressed through ideas like sustainable development goals, the circular economy, environmental governance, etc. These idealistic goals set the objectives for the present and future world by aiming to tackle climate change without giving up on human development.
Needless to say, achieving these future goals depends on a lot of fluctuating factors like global cooperation, technological advancements, channeling of finance, cultural reevaluations, and a radical transformation of everyday individual practice. However, with a mindset focused on an optimistic future, despite all the setbacks of the past, human beings, through their unique power of intelligence, innovation, and creativity, possess the mettle to not only tackle and reverse climate change but also create a peaceful and beautiful environment for all organisms to thrive and flourish. So, yes, climate change can be reversed, but not without individual and global cooperation.
