Climate
change, as much as people talk about it (or ignore it), is a major threat to
the people who live on Earth. I’m quite sure that would be everyone, maybe
excepting a few astronauts. Still, the planet those astronauts are coming back
to is being harmed every day and growing weaker. To me, this says that everybody should care about what happens
to the earth they live on. Here are two pretty good examples of what climate
change is and what it can do…
It’s
no secret that more urban areas are flooding these days, and not just in the United
States. From Miami, Florida to Guangzhou, China, the streets are backing up
with water, partially due to infrastructure that can’t compensate for the sea
levels rising and partially due to climate change.
In
Miami-Dade County, water rises through storm drains, taking sewage with it and
spreading it over the expanse of the streets.
Sea levels are expected to rise more and more while this type of flooding will
also occur consistently throughout the year. This will not only affect people’s
communities but also the costs of repair for these multitudinous flood damages.
In
the city of Guangzhou, China - May of 2017 - flood records were broken by
torrential rainfall.
Some of the highest numbers were from northern districts like Jiulongzhen and Huangpu which reported
524 millimeters or approximately 21 inches of rain in twenty-four hours. If you
don’t know, that’s a lot of rain in
that amount of time according to average rainfall measurements. Most of this
flooding was blamed on bad infrastructure, but there was also the theory of the
“heat island effect” which supposedly could have intensified the warm air
streams that created the storm. This effect is described by the Environmental
Protection Agency as urban or built up areas that have a higher temperature than
surrounding rural areas due to higher pollution rates and greenhouse gas
emissions.
From these two examples alone, we can verify that climate change is
a viable threat to our world. Even in areas far away from our own, the effects
of climate change are harming entire cities, and not only with sea levels
rising or temperatures raising around urban areas. Not only those who live in
these highly affected places, but also those who live around them have the
responsibility to take action and try to help solve these problems. Small things
always help like turning the lights off or using less water. They might be easily forgettable, but they will make a difference in slowing down climate change - no matter
how small. Then, there are the greater actions we can take such as switching our
energy sources to more sustainable ones, raising awareness about climate change issues, and focusing our efforts on improving
the infrastructure of cities to help prevent flooding in the aforementioned
examples.
No,
things are not going to happen right away, but if we have patience and determination,
I believe that we can begin to heal the planet.
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Thanks for reading! :)
