Isabela State University

Cauayan Campus
Midyear 2023
Sed Sci 328 Meteorology
THE
ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS

“2020: The Year of Climate Extremes”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6H9Q8wB4h8
High temperatures, rising sea levels, Intense hurricanes, wide range wildfires, super storms, those
events were shocking but aren’t surprising. Alongside those words are Extinction,
destruction, loss of habitat and home. Changes are underway, it’s either we take an action or we
choose our extinction.

At the begging of watching the presented video, I came to ask myself, is it real? does climate
change is real? I’ve seen how people in the clip measures how long does the Earth will hold on if
climate change will grow for the next 10 years. Hence, with my own experience on the past
years, I came to realize that it’s true, that climate change is not an opinion, but a fact and stands
true no matter what we choose to believe. Climate Change is our reality and to deny it would be
an action of absolute ignorance and utter cruelty towards our environment and ourselves.
Earlier,
I came to ask if climate change is real, by the end of watching the clip I come to ask myself now,
what might be my contribution as person or as human in this planet to help lessen the factor of
climate change?
According to NCEI monitoring reports peers of the U.S National weather service, the year 2020
was characterized by warmer-than-average temperature across much of the Earth. 2020 is a year
for enormous disasters and it may end up the hottest year on record. When super storm
“sandy” hits New York City, people there came to realize that disaster are open doors. Floods
can drown the whole city and destroy infrastructure. When record-setting wildfires through
vast areas of California happen, people again realize that fire don’t discriminate. When back-
toback most active Hurricanes hit Louisiania, people are leaving the place and scared for the
reason that it might happen again. If ice continues to melt in Arctic ocean, sooner people will
realize its enormous impact. Cyclones, hurricanes, wildfires, Ice melting, drought, with climate
change these disasters will be more powerful and devastating that it will open our eyes to the
truth that climate change is here.

In 2020, both coronavirus and climate change wreaked havoc in our country and all across the
world. The unprecedented wildfires happen in California which burn 4.2 million acres brought
nightmare for all the people there. If I’m one of those people who witness how sky turns blood
red color, how sun disappear from thick clouds, how ash fall from the sky and how hard it is to
breath in that environment, I definitely won’t handle those. It also saddens my feelings on how
smoke inhalation affect the wildlife and how they are burned along those trees which they call as
“home”. The whole areas look like a warzone after the wildfire. In my own opinion, hot
temperatures combined with less or no rain at all are turning forest into prime tinder, the reason
why it burns. This only explain that fire can happen anywhere, fire is fueled mostly by climate
change and I think if fire is already worst for now, what does it look like for the next 10 to 20
years? If there is one truth about fire is that it will grows back after, and there is always
something to come after that.
Furthermore, If there is one thing I know about the changes to our climate is that, it is mostly
driven by humans continuing to emit unsustainable amount of greenhouse gases that have pomp
in our atmosphere at enormous rate since the industrial revolution. I am glad to see that a year
later people are surviving and animals are thriving. Just like what the people said who witness
the wildfire “Hope will always sprout from the ashes.”

We don’t need to wait for the strong hurricanes to hit the Earth again. We
don’t need to lose Greenland in arctic ocean.
We don’t need to wait for flood to drown our cities, and we don’t need to wait for larger acres of
wildfire to happen again. Climate change is moving fast, so we need to move faster. If there is a
silver lining in 2020 is the outbreak of pandemic. At those times we realize that when people are
gone, natures come back. It may be the saddest phrase but it is the reality. We can see how quick
nature recovers when people stop messing with it. I believe every country should focus more on
funding for environmental cost, for all of us to recover and turn this tragedy into opportunity and
leave a safer and cleaner Earth for future generations.

Climate crisis will not end with 2020, it’ll be continuing next year and year after that. These
records of climate events could be more extremes. Our planet alarms our surrounding and they
will only grow louder but the windows of opportunity is still open. I hope sooner, the story of
extreme disaster will come to an end, and the story of how human solve it will begin.