Lane 1

Molly Lane

Professor Casey Flores

English 1201

29 November 2020

How Does Climate Change Negatively Impact Us?

Climate change is an increasing problem in today’s world. For too long humans have

taken this earth for granted, and the results of that are showing. As a result of pollution and

gasses emitted into our air, we’re experiencing rising sea levels, rising temperatures, weather

changes, financial burdens and much more. If changes are not made soon, the damages will pass

the point of no return.

Currently, the Earth’s average surface temperature is rising at rates that scientists can not

deem normal, “The five warmest years in the 1880–2019 record have all occurred since 2015,

while nine of the 10 warmest years have occurred since 2005.” (Lindsey 1) These stats are not

just freaky coincidences, it’s very alarming news. While an increasing average Earth surface

temperature might not sound like a big deal, this is a main issue that scientists continue to worry

about, and is the “root” of many other problems coming from climate change.
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(NASA 1) . This chart clearly shows the rapid spike in temperatures. By looking at the graph,

one can tell that the trend of the graph is clearly going up and seems to be continuing to go up.

This gives a visual idea at how rapidly the temperatures are increasing.

Humans are emitting extraordinary amounts of greenhouse gases (burning fossil fuels)

into the atmosphere, causing more heat and pollution in our climate. The air pollution not only

affects our quality of air, but damages the layers of our atmosphere, causing holes in the ozone

layer. These holes also affect many things with our human health. “Air pollution affects all

things. It is harmful to our health, and it impacts the environment - reducing visibility and

blocking sunlight, causing acid rain, and harming forests, wildlife, and agriculture.” “Greenhouse

gas pollution, the cause of climate change, affects the entire planet” (Center For Science

Education 1). Due to air pollution, many people experience respiratory issues along with plants

as well. What some people just deem as “allergies” may just be the excessive pollution in the air.

The world as a whole also produces a very large amount of CO2, too much for plants to take in,

the excess pollution is responsible for the holes in our atmospheric layers. Using alternative

methods opposed to fossil fuels can become costly, and not affordable for everyone. Due to the
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holes, there are dangerous rays of light let in that can damage our skin, and the increase of

pollution has made the sun visibility more hazy. With the pollution getting in the way of

sunlight, there is less light for photosynthesis and our crops/forests grow at slower rates. (Center

For Science Education 2) Our damage on the atmosphere has now gotten to a point where it’s not

only affecting the plants and air, it’s taking a toll on personal health too.

Our oceans are also taking hard hits, according to the NASA team in the article The

Effects Of Climate Change, “In the next several decades, storm surges and high tides could

combine with sea level rise and land subsidence to further increase flooding in many regions.”

With the threat of rising sea levels, this puts many states and countries at risk, especially

California. California is at a high risk for flooding, beach erosion and the development of cliffs

are the potential outcomes of the situation. While flooding is already a growing problem, this can

only make it worse. These things destroy homes and businesses, even having the potential to

hurt/injure the people who live in a high risk area. With the increase of flooding and erosion

damage, comes paying for the repairs of it. Natural disasters like this are costly to pay for,

especially when unexpected. Annually the United States spends millions if not billions of dollars

to repair various things that were destroyed, caused by natural disasters. The rate and

extremeness of natural disasters are expected to keep going up, only building more damage.

On the other extreme, droughts are becoming more and more evident. Droughts are

already a huge problem with farmers and have been a problem for years. On average the U.S.

loses about 9 billion dollars a year due to them. With droughts expected to continue to become

more and more occurring, the costs of agriculture duties and resources will increase, causing a

chain of various products to increase in price. Past agricultural terms, droughts really affect us

too. This can threaten our drinking water, ecosystems, and even raise the price of food because
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of the difficulty of growing crops with no water. There is a high belief that because of the

temperatures rising, there will be more rain, rather than snow, which means faster evaporation.

This causes less moisture in the soil and decreased reservoirs. With the snow turning into rain,

this causes problems with crops. The rain causes frosts that can be devastating for crops, killing

the whole batch. Specifically in the U.S. the southwest, which is considered to be at the most

risk, which we’ve seen this develop over the years. In the past years, the big two droughts have

been from 1995-2005 and 2012-2015. Scientists suggest that we prepare for more droughts in the

future. Some things we can do to help ourselves for the long term are: reduce the amount of

water used indoors, recycle water (such as capturing rain water to use for multiple purposes) and

more. Droughts have the potential to be very costly if not taken seriously. (Union of Concerned

Scientists 3)

Due to climate change, our weather patterns are changing too. Since the 1980’s the

frequency and strengths of tropical storms and hurricanes have increased. The hurricanes

continue to get stronger and stronger (up to stages 4 and 5). With hurricanes getting stronger,

this puts states and countries that border the ocean in danger. With the already rising sea levels,

this increases the likelihood of severe damage and chances of the storms hitting the land.

Tropical storms and hurricane intensity are expected to increase as temperatures continue to rise.

Natural disasters like this are absolutely devastating, the damages can be past the point of

repair, sometimes entire counties and cities get demolished because of disasters like this. As

we’ve seen in prior years, the effects of these natural disasters are shattering. They leave people

stranded and homeless for days on end and even months. Disasters like this not only physically

but mentally damage people, and leave people financially unstable for years.
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Our polar ice caps are progressively shrinking and shrinking. From NASA, “The Arctic

Ocean is expected to become essentially ice free in summer before mid-century.” (5) Our ice

caps are an essential part of our ecosystems, it keeps balance, and is also home to plenty of

species that live in the ocean. With the disappearance of ice caps comes the extinction of polar

bears, sea animals, penguins and more. Without our ice caps our global temperatures would

dramatically rise, only making the already existing effects that much more heightened.

Humans have the ability to adapt and adjust, while that's not the case for all animals. As

we continue to demolish forests and pollute the air we put many animal species on the brink of

extinction. “One-third of all animal and plant species on the planet could face extinction by 2070

due to climate change” (Rice 1). Humans do not take into consideration how much we need these

animals to survive for our benefits too. We need animals just as much as they need us. Every

species has a role that makes our environment and ecosystems the way they are, without them we

could start seeing failed areas because they couldn’t function properly. Animals all over the

globe are in danger, those who live in the arctic, forrests, and all inbetween. The same thing

applies for plants too, as they’re expected to intake carbon from the air and output oxygen, but

currently there is too much carbon for them to take in, causing the excess carbon polluting our

air. The excess carbon is damaging to the plants, causing the rate of growth to slow. There needs

to be a balance, and humans are failing to make that happen.

In an attempt to help the Earth out, the United States had previously joined the “Paris

Climate Agreement”. The purpose of this agreement was to keep the United States and other

countries accountable for their greenhouse gas and carbon emissions into the atmosphere. As of

2016, there were 195 countries in the agreement, the US and China accounting for 40 percent of

all carbon emissions. China, who is the leader in greenhouse gas emissions has dramatically
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reduced their “carbon footprint”. When Donald Trump was elected president, he withdrew from

the agreement because of financial reasons, claiming it puts our country at a predisposition

disadvantage. Donald Trump claimed the U.S. would re-enter the agreement when it was

financially reasonable for everyone to be in it, because ultimately the taxes from the citizens is

what was supporting the financial needs of the agreement. Since leaving the Paris Climate

Agreement, the US continues to still practice lessening the country’s greenhouse and carbon

emissions, just not connected with the agreement. (Denchak 3) In an effort to reduce greenhouse

gas emissions, the United States has majorly reduced the amount of coal used. Instead of using

coal, natural gas is now mostly used. Coal fired power has fallen 18 percent in the last year! The

use of coal is now at its lowest since 1975.

Warburton 2)

While the U.S. may be reducing the usage of coal, the pollution from other products is

still increasing or not improving. “Agricultural emissions were up 4 percent … Energy

generation from renewables, such as wind, solar, and hydro, was up 6 percent in 2019. That’s

higher than the 3 percent gain in 2018, but lower than the 13 percent gains posted in 2016 and

2017.” (Warburton 4) As seen in the chart, one can see that the only dramatic decrease is the

coal, while others are staying steady or still increasing. Scientists have made it a goal to focus

more on the gas emissions that clearly are the leading cause of emissions. The U.S. is at a real

risk of not meeting its target goals for pollution decrease.

On the opposing side of things, some people claim that the Earth’s climate is always

changing, making this “normal” or “natural”. While yes, the Earth’s climate is forever changing

and evolving, what is happening now is not natural nor normal. The climate should change very,

very slowly instead of at a record breaking pace. “... the rapid warming we’re seeing now can't

be explained by natural cycles of warming and cooling. The kind of changes that would normally

happen over hundreds of thousands of years are happening in decades.” (Liodden 1) Scientists
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believe the rapid heating is due to rising carbon emissions, which has been going on since the

industrial revolution time period. Many people like to use the ice ages as an example of climate

change, yet the ice ages formed and ended with a time period of several years. “The Pleistocene

Epoch is typically defined as the time period that began about 2.6 million years ago and lasted

until about 11,700 years ago.” (Zimmermann 1) That time period is not even comparable to the

decades of climate change that’re in observation.

Another theory is that our Earth is NOT in danger, and our resources are able to sustain

us for many years to come. While scientists may find a way to sustain our resources that’re

running out, the air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions damages are irreversible. The

atmosphere is deteriorating at an alarming pace. The world continues to industrialize, and grow,

meaning more forests and beneficial plants are being demolished. Soon our ecosystems and

plants will not be able to account for the amount of people on Earth. While countries are working

on dramatically reducing the greenhouse emissions/pollution (which is the plan right now) there

is no way they can reduce the necessary amount of greenhouse gas emissions to fully save the

atmosphere in time. While especially elders are not concerned about the state our climate is in

because they’ve seen it withhold many global changes, it’s durability is running out. Since the

industrial revolution period, the whole world has continually increased the amount of pollution

emitted into the air, and soon the Earth won’t be able to take it anymore.

In conclusion, climate change is real, and impacts humans negatively. If not taken care of

soon, the outcome will be devastating. Rising sea levels, increasing droughts, and more natural

disaster occurrences continue to worsen as a result of climate change. This puts all of humanity

and animals at risk. If the world's global greenhouse and carbon emissions don’t rapidly
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decrease, the damages will be irreversible and will make the Earth as we know it ultimately

inhabitable.

Works Cited

Causes of Drought: What's the Climate Connection? www.ucsusa.org/resources/drought-and-

climate-change.

Climate Change: Global Temperature: NOAA Climate.gov. 14 Aug. 2020,

www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-

temperature.

December 12, 2018 Melissa Denchak. Paris Climate Agreement: Everything You Need to Know.

29 Apr. 2020, www.nrdc.org/stories/paris-climate-agreement-everything-you-need-know.

Detz, Jo. “No Progress Made to Reduce U.S. Greenhouse-Gas Emissions.” EcoRI News, EcoRI

News, 22 Jan. 2020, www.ecori.org/climate-change/2020/1/22/no-progress-made-to-

reduce-us-greenhouse-gas-emissions.

Effects of Air Pollution. scied.ucar.edu/learning-zone/air-quality/effects-air-pollution.

“Global Warming.” NASA, NASA,

earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/GlobalWarming/page2.php.

How Is China Managing Its Greenhouse Gas Emissions? 25 Aug. 2020,

chinapower.csis.org/china-greenhouse-gas-emissions/.

Rice, Doyle. “One-Third of All Plant and Animal Species Could Be Extinct in 50 Years, Study

Warns.” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 14 Feb. 2020,

www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/02/14/climate-change-study-plant-animal-

extinction/4760646002/.

The Effects of Climate Change. 21 Aug. 2020, climate.nasa.gov/effects/.