That’s the one million dollar question: is there a way to stop climate change?
Global warming is no longer an alternative theory to occupy the front pages of newspapers every day we see the effects of climate change in Europe, America, Asia and Africa. Fighting for the environment has become a matter of survival.
Maybe you’re a layman on the subject, so we’d better give you a little context on the climate change situation.
The IPCC (Intertional Panel on Climate Change) is an institute focused on studies, monitoring and affirmative action on global warming. According to them, the temperature should rise by at least 1.5°C by the end of the century.
This may seem like little if you think of it in a climate context.
After all, the difference between a day when the temperature is at 27 degrees and another when the temperature is at 28 and a half degrees is not very big.
However, we are talking about the temperature in a certain place, the temperature of the planet as a whole.
This simple increase in temperature already causes catastrophic damage to our environment. The temperature difference is already causing the ice caps to melt. These caps are very important to guarantee our room temperature.
The low temperatures of the ice guarantee some balance in our atmosphere and that’s not all: as the caps are white, they reflect sunlight, sending radiation out and preventing the atmosphere from absorbing all that heat.
Without the polar ice caps, the sphere tends to get increasingly hot and unbearable for life.
Let’s look at some effects of climate change:
Sea level rising
As we say the ice caps are melting, poems caused by the lack of these ice caps there is a secondary problem that is just as serious. Have you ever wondered where the ice from detained caps goes?
All this ice turns into water and ends up in the sea. This also has negative effects, you’ve heard about sea level rise.
With more water in the oceans, the sea is rising at surprisingly fast speeds. This increases the risk of floods and tsunamis, as it is already happening in the East and Gulf coasts.
In the long term, rising sea levels will cause some cities on the planet to disappear. Coastal cities must suffer from constant flooding to the point where it is possible to inhabit these places.
This is not the only cause of sea level rise. As you may already know, water has a certain boiling temperature. The hotter it gets, the more the water molecules expand.
With the rise in global temperature, seawater is literally expanding and taking up more space. This factor also contributes to the mmar increasing its level by up to 1 meter in the coming years.
Lack of oxygen
This is also a problem linked to rising sea levels.
Few people know, but more than half of the oxygen present in our atmosphere is produced in the sea. As an organism that functions similarly to that of trees, oceanic plankton and algae produce oxygen in the process of photosynthesis.
With the high temperatures these extremely sensitive organisms are suffering the effects and are dying . To understand more about this problem, we recommend the bleaching of corals in the oceans, which is nothing more than a sign of this loss of oxygen in these species and, as a consequence, the lack of oxygen in the rest of the atmosphere for all of us.
Lethal heat waves
The rise in temperature is causing the phenomenon known as lethal heat waves. In several parts of the world we see news that the historical high temperature was traced several times.
In 2022, several lakes and rivers dried up and people died due to a historic high in temperature. In Europe, 700 people died in a week of lethal heatwaves.
And if rising temperatures also affect many forests, with higher temperatures drier forests tend to spontaneously catch fire, this is because there is no moisture in the air to ensure that the trees have a way to fight the heat.
With more fires, the temperature tends to rise even more and the burning of this organic matter releases more CO2 into the atmosphere, which exacerbates the problem of climate change.
How to fight climate change before the world ends
The problem is worsened not only by the momentary release of carbon, because trees have the ability to absorb carbon from the atmosphere and as there are no more trees in that place, we lose part of our capacity to absorb CO2.
Permafrost
Permafrost is a thick layer of permanent ice that never melts. It is present in very cold places on our planet with global warming this layer is melting.
Maybe you’re wondering: But isn’t this the same problem as the ice caps? Is not.
Permafrost has been accumulating over the centuries on top of a land as old. The ice sheet has created a protective layer over this soil that is full of organic matter.
Just imagine, for a moment, all the plants and remains of humans and other animals that have been under this soil for centuries.
Not only that: also imagine all the bacteria and parasites that have become trapped in this layer of ice, which is melting. Diseases that were extinct in the Middle Ages can suddenly come back without us having time to prepare to fight them.
Furthermore, the process of digesting all this organic matter over all these years has, of course, released tons of carbon. That CO2 is trapped beneath the ice sheet, but now that it’s melting, all of that carbon will be dumped into our atmosphere at once, compounding the problem.
How to stop climate change?
If the major problem is CO2 emissions, you don’t need to ask how to stop climate change.
It’s super clear what needs to be done: stop throwing more CO2 in the atmosphere. Also, recapture all the carbon that we produced.
We can shut this down. If we stop carbon emissions, we will keep feeling some effects, but we will never get to the worst predicted scenario – which will defintely destroy humanity.
The solution is simple, but not easy. To stop climate change we need to rebuild humankind lifestyle, a real revolution that will end the toxic behavior we built since the 19th century.
We need to stop, adapt everything to the green economy: power, transport, food, factoring, garbage, everything. Most of all, to stop the effects of climate change, we need to unite ourselves – a challenge humankind has been failing consistently.
You need to leave behind tips like taking shorter showers or not eating meat one day a week. It will not work.
While you spend 5 minutes less in the shower, agribusiness spends billions of liters of water every day. While you turn off the light bulbs in your house, there are millions of factories consuming energy without interruption, 24 hours a day.
Individual actions do not have the power to solve the problem. We are talking about a global problem and therefore we need to take global actions.
You may not know it, but there are millions of people and NGOs working to rebuild and defend our planet.
The main ways to help are:
- With work: you can join NGOs and institutions in specific actions as a volunteer. There’s a lot to be done. From reforestation actions, cleaning the oceans, beaches, recycling cooperatives and much more!
- With money: we cannot be romantic. There are people dedicating time and resources to rebuilding the planet. You might not have dropped everything to try and save the planet, but there are a lot of people who are living for it. These people need resources, technology, they need to have their expenses paid to continue dedicating themselves full time. It’s up to you to help!
Help stop climate change now
The Hourglass project has a planet healing membership, in partnership with serious and prestigious organizations committed to real and global change.
If you want to be a part of this movement and defend our planet in the best way you can, become a member of our community of defenders.
We don’t have much time to fight the problems of climate change and all help is valid. Discover the Hourglass program to rebuild the environment
