Climate Change: towards destruction

 Climate Change is one of the most alarming problems in the world. Yet, it is one of the most overlooked of all. Every single day, the blue planet is going towards a worse condition and the effects are also evident. Despite harming the environment the least of all, low-developed countries are the ones facing consequences the most. Even when the pollution of all low-developed countries are summed up, it would not be as high as the pollution of developed countries such as the United States of America or China. One of the biggest factors contributing to climate change is air pollution. Air pollution can be of many types. But the major air pollution is from electricity generating power stations run by burning fossil fuels: another resource that is at great risk of being used up. When the fossil fuels are burned, many types of gases are released. Carbon dioxide, often called CO2, is one of them. While CO2 is a type of gas necessary to keep the blue planet warm by a process called Global Warming, it is well if kept within the limit. But with increasing amounts of fossil fuels being burned, the CO2 amount is well beyond the limit. The excessive amount of CO2 released in the atmosphere is causing global warming on a larger scale. That is causing the temperature to increase abnormally. The increment in temperature has many effects: melting of ice caps and glaciers in the polar regions, change in weather patterns, desertification in many areas around the world etc.. The melting of ice bodies around the world has many effects. Firstly, it is causing the mean sea level to rise which in turn is causing places with low elevation from mean sea level to submerge underwater which alone can have endless effects: many houses and lands are lost to the sea, in times of tornadoes or hurricanes, the storm surge is hitting onshore with a greater height etc.. Secondly, the animals or living things that inhabit in the colder regions are losing their homes and some of those even float away with the separated ice sheets to distant locations. To sum up, the effects the increment in temperature has is endless. Moreover, the effects are not limited to increased temperature. The patterns in the ecosystems around the world are also changing. This has a direct effect on the animals, people and aquatic animals inhabiting there. Is there a solution to all this? Well, just like how the problems are endless, the solutions are also endless but what is not endless is the time to take the action. Despite having many solutions, too little action has been taken so far. So far, among all the actions, one of the significant progress made by all countries' joint effort together is the complete ban of CFCs(Chlorofluorocarbons) which is a very poisonous gas and it caused a big hole to open on the Earth's ozone layer, the layer that protects the Earth from harmful ultraviolet rays from the sun, within a long span of time. It has now been observed that the ozone layer has recovered partially since the ban of CFCs. While use of CFCs has been banned, one poisonous gas that still remains to be banned is Carbon-Monoxide(abbreviated as CO). CO is produced from incomplete combustions of fossil fuels and from certain types of factories. Although the emission of CO can be reduced by installing a catalytic converter(which filters out the CO by a chemical process and converts it into CO2), very few people do it because of the expenses. Besides, air pollution is not the only type of pollution, there are many more including but not limited to water pollution. The prime reason for water pollution is the dumping of waste into water bodies. The wastages often include sewages, plastic wastes, harmful chemicals etc.. When these are released in water without being treated or filtered, these affect the lives below water greatly. For instance, when fishes get entangled with plastic wraps or such, their likelihood of living is low because their intake of oxygen through their gills gets stopped. When this happens at the sea, the dead fishes float to the shore: a tragic view.

The plants underneath the sea also face a similar fate which decreases the oxygen supply underwater. Sometimes, there are oil spills which affect both underwater lives and also living things that rely on food from the water such as heron birds that catch fish from the water get stuffed with oil. The oil makes their body and their wings heavy and thus makes them unable to fly which eventually causes their death. Moreover, due to increase in seawater temperature, it became unsuitable for certain types of fish to live in some places which causes them to either migrate to other places or die! One other type of activity that is killing the environment is deforestation. As the demand for urbanization increases, deforestation is being done on a bigger scale. The side effects of deforestation are numerous: loss of habitat for animals living there, decrease in production of oxygen(which in turn increases CO2 because CO2 is used by trees during photosynthesis, a chemical process by which plants make their food using sunlight and CO2) etc.. To conclude, the human activities that are harming the environment and thus causing climate change are numerous and all of them would need much more writing to be noted. It would not decrease or end unless every individual realizes the threat posed to the earth due to their activities. Time is limited. Resources are limited. The actions needed to be taken should be taken as soon as possible. And it starts with me, you(the reader) and everyone around us to take the necessary steps to save our beautiful planet before it is too late.

reference: image source: https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2018/09/24/plastic-pollution-affects-sea-life-throughout-the-ocean