Awareness of Climate Change in India ,Anandam Blog

 

 AWARENESS OF CLIMATE CHANGE

 Overview

                             In this blog, we will discuss the impacts, causes, and effects of climate change so that you can introspect and better your daily choices to build the way for a greener and more Sustainable Planet. Now, let us begin by addressing the most fundamental question—what is climate change? In simple terms, climate change refers to the global phenomenon of rapid transformation in natural climate patterns like rain, wind, heat, and more.

    While discussing climate change and climate change impacts, it is essential to keep in mind that these changes are primarily caused by human activities. As we sprint towards technological growth and advancements, we completely overlook the deteriorating impact it has been having on the climate.

Causes of Climate Change

The emission of carbon and greenhouse gases from power plants, transportation, industries, etc. Below we have listed three main causes of climate change:

• Increased Use of Fossil Fuels

                               fig .1 The industrial gases mixed into the Atmosphere

 As mentioned above, in order to develop efficient and highly productive technical industrial equipment, experts often overlook the energy needs of the instrument. Since most manufacturing industries use gas, oil, and coal for electricity generation, it releases hazardous greenhouse and carbon gases that lead to global warming, ozone layer depletion, pollution, and more. On the other hand, to combat the impacts of climate change, experts have also been designing solutions like electric vehicles, solar panels, windmills, hydropower, and more.

• Deforestation

                                     fig 2.  Deforestation (cutting of trees)

                Deforestation is another major contributor that leads to rigorous climate change impacts. In order to expand the industrial sector, the owner requires some basic resources like electricity, water, and land. Until a few years ago, forests were untouched spaces that stood for abundance. However, as there has been a significant rise in consumer demands, the need for production sites has also increased. In order to do this, private companies, sometimes in collaboration with the government, cut down dense forests to clear out spaces for their factories and industries. As most of us know, trees and plants are crucial to maintaining the balance between oxygen and carbon dioxide. Cutting down forests disrupts this sense of balance, contributing to many impacts of climate change.

• Intensive Agricultural Practices

                     

fig 3. Agricultural lands due to climate change

                      The agricultural sector shares a unique relationship with the impacts of climate change. Amongst all the sectors of society, be it industrial, healthcare, or education, people often tend to underestimate the amount of energy, resources, and raw materials that go into cultivating agricultural spaces and fields. Agricultural practices emit three different types of greenhouse gases, namely, methane, carbon dioxide, and nitrous oxide. To put it more precisely, carbon emissions are released during planting, tilling, and the application of fertilizer and pesticides. Nitrous oxide is emitted via soil that is not sowed with plants and, lastly, the digestive tracts of animals, resulting in the emission of nitrous oxide.

Impacts of Climate Change

                                      Before delving into the effects and impacts of climate change, one needs to comprehend that climate change is a vast and abstract term that includes several minute effects and changes. Hence, the impact of climate change is a result of multiple practices that, with time, have proven to be detrimental for the entire ecosystem. Below we have mentioned some of the many direct consequences of climate change:

• Rapid depletion of the ozone layer

• Deterioration of human health and shorter life expectancy.

• Increase in water and hunger crisis, especially in countries that are underdeveloped.

• Fluctuating weather patterns that have led to melting glaciers, increasing temperature of oceans, heavy precipitation, and more.

• On the ground level, climate change can impact the daily life of a common person as it will eventually lead to higher electricity bills, heavy taxes, compromised water quality, expensive insurance plans, and more.

Green House Gases that Effect Climate change

                         Human activities—especially Fossil fuels combustion since the industrial areas are responsible for steady increases in atmospheric concentrations of various greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, methane, ozone, and Cloro-floro- Carbons (CFCs).

                                       

                                                  Fig 4. Green House Effect 

 

                                   Greenhouse gases are gas molecules that have the property of absorbing infrared radiation (net heat energy) emitted from Earth’s surface and reradiating it back to Earth’s surface, thus contributing to the phenomenon known as the Greenhouse effect. Carbon dioxide , methane and water vapour are the most important greenhouse gases, and they have a profound effect on the energy budget of the Earth system despite making up only a fraction of all atmospheric gases. Concentrations of greenhouse gases have varied substantially during Earth’s history, and these variations have driven substantial climate changes at a wide range of timescales. These come from using gasoline for driving a car or coal for heating a building, for example. Clearing land and forests can also release carbon dioxide. Landfills for garbage are a major source of methane emissions. Energy, industry, transport, buildings, agriculture and land use are among the main emitters.

Climate change and floods—how they are connected

                        Flooding has quickly become a major issue due to the frequency of such volatile weather events. In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that intense rain events have become even more frequent in the last 50 years. This, combined with increased run-off from changes in land use, means many dire flash flood events will likely continue to occur.

          Floods are made more likely by the more extreme weather patterns caused by long-term global climate change. Change in land cover—such as removal of vegetation—and climate change increase flood risk. Extreme weather floods can be triggered by intense precipitation, longer duration, close repetition of precipitations or a combination of these. In the case of intense precipitations, such as was experienced in the United Kingdom, the intergovernmental panel and climate change in its comprehensive climate change of the physical science basis of climate change found that there is high confidence that this is an increasing trend in Europe, especially for winter flooding.

                                

                                         Fig 5. Floods and climate change in the UK

Conclusion:

                           People believe climate change is real, man-made, and actively participate in making environmental-friendly decisions in their daily lives. It’s important to raise awareness of this issue beyond the university population, but knowing Bellingham has a solid understanding of climate change suggests the community cares about taking care of the town. If we were to expand this experiment to other areas, we’d be interested in giving the same survey to students in rural conservative areas just to see how much the results change. In order to improve the earth’s climate, students can’t do much to change the world individually other than think about how their decisions are affecting the climate. If everyone did this, just imagine how much it would slow the rate of climate change! More than anything, we need to raise awareness of how quickly humans are destroying the planet and elect a president who acknowledges this as a legitimate problem that needs to be slowed now rather than later when it’s too late. Even if, somehow, climate change isn’t affected by humans, what’s the worst that could happen by making better decisions for the benefit of our planet?

Thanks and Best Regards,

Bukke Rajeshnaik ,Content Creator