The Single Most Important Topic of Today and Tomorrow: Our Climate Crisis by Olivia Przydzial

The Single Most Important Topic of Today and Tomorrow: Our Climate Crisis

by Olivia Przydzial

As a child, I spent hours and hours in the woods. I collected rocks, I pressed flowers, I caught frogs with my bare hands. I would splash through streams and climb trees. I would draw caterpillars with cool patterns that I found in the wild. I chased after dragonflies, I waded into lakes, I brought wildflower bouquets home for my mom. This was my childhood. I spent more time in nature than I spent anywhere else. The environment, the earth, was, and very much still is, my true home.

On broader terms, this is true for all of us. We all live on this earth, we all depend on this planet for the life it sustains. We are all dependent on her for our survival, simply by the fact that we are all human.

On the 24-hour evolutionary clock of earth, humans have been around for less than three seconds. Imagine, that in less than three seconds, the most evolutionarily advanced species with the highest cognitive level of any organism on earth ever has calmly, knowingly nearly destroyed their only habitable home.

Climate change, or rather, the climate crisis, is no secret. We've been destroying our planet for decades. Check out this graph. The Industrial Revolution caused that huge spike at the end. Our atmosphere is flooded with CO2, which, in combination with the Greenhouse Effect, is like a nice warm, insulating blanket for a planet that is quite literally on fire.

     Now check this out (below). These pictures are from 1900 and 2014, so today, the red area is just wider. The last five years have been the warmest years on record, ever. Earth’s temperature has risen by 2 degrees Fahrenheit since the 1880s. That is insane! Our planet is boiling! Look at 1900 - our planet is more or less normal, nothing too concerning. Now it’s 2014, and our planet is on fire! Do you see this red? Red means HOT. Our poles are on fire, and, in fact, our entire planet is on fire. Our planet is on fire!

And guess what? Our oceans are boiling too! Oceans naturally absorb atmospheric heat, but now that the atmosphere is getting hotter, so are our oceans! Look at this! Look at this! As our oceans are becoming hot tubs, with their temperatures predicted to rise 1-4 degrees Celsius by 2100, entire ecosystems are being disrupted as marine species fail to bear the extreme temperatures. Furthermore, our poor ice caps are melting like ice cubes in a pot of boiling water. People! We need to stop this! We’re only making matters worse for us in the long run!

Furthermore, our sea ice sheets are melting at unprecedented rates. Antarctica's rate of ice loss has tripled over the past decade. Antarctica loses almost 130 billion tons of ice every year, while Greenland loses almost 300 billion tons of ice every year. So many ecosystems and organisms depend on this ice for their survival. This sea ice is an also major reflector of light back into the atmosphere. Without it, not only will earth lose one of its major heat-reflective shields, but she will also lose all the life that depends on this ice.

One of the scariest and perhaps the most costly indicators of the earth’s climate crisis are extreme temperatures and weather. The last five years have been the hottest on record, and there has been a steady increase in extreme rainfall events across the globe. The earth has been seeing more and more natural disasters fueled by the rapidly changing climate such as heat waves, droughts, floods, hurricanes, and stronger, more frequent storms.

Another huge indicator of our planet’s climate crisis is rapid ocean acidification. Our oceans have become 30%, 30%, more acidic since the Industrial Revolution, namely due to the oceans’ absorption of our increased CO2 emissions. Our oceans are growing more acidic year by year, by about 2 billion tons per year. This acidification is making is rapidly killing off reefs, one of the planet’s biodiversity treasure troves, and all the species that depend on such reefs.

Greenhouse gases and rapidly rising temperatures have been causing massive glacial retreats around the world. Just look at these pictures. Look at where the glacier was, and where it is now. This is what we did.

Whether we are in a state of climate crisis is not a question. It is not up for debate. Hard, scientific evidence clearly illustrates the severity of our planet’s, and ultimately our, situation. The climate crisis is not an ‘opinion,’ political view, or 'hot topic.' It is our future.

So, I must ask, why is this not the only thing we talk about? This is our future, your future. What could possibly be so much more important that we don’t drop everything and fight to save our planet before it’s too late? What future are you studying for, if there won’t be a future for you at all? It is at this point where I am troubled. How could the most cognitively advanced, most intelligent species on the planet sit complacently, blindly amidst the fire? Our home is on fire! Why aren’t we acting like our home is on fire?!

The effects of our ignorance are and will be increasingly costly. The earth is getting hotter and hotter. The rising temperatures and intensifying weather events, such as heavy downpours, droughts, heat waves, etc., will make (and have been making) farming considerably harder. The harder it is to grow food, the more expensive your food will be. Natural disasters such as hurricanes will become stronger and more intense, reaping worse damage on areas that they pass through. The sea levels are projected to rise by 1-4 feet by 2100 as arctic ice quickly becomes ice-free. All Arctic sea ice will be gone in the summer before 2050. In combination with storms and high tides, many coastal areas will flood, destroying homes and taking lives. Our air quality is becoming so bad that asthma and respiratory diseases are on the rise. Diseases are running rampant through our food, water, and insects. Our water supplies are being contaminated, applying further stress on agriculture and putting our drinking water at risk. Wildfires have been occurring more often due to the higher temperatures and droughts caused by the climate crisis. Infrastructure is at an increased risk of flooding, natural disasters, and erosion. Ecosystems, particularly marine ones, are being overwhelmed by pollution and overfishing, putting one of our major sources of food at risk. Allergy season will be lengthened and intensified with increased pollen production caused by a longer growing season and higher CO2 levels and temperatures. The monetary losses of all the effects of the climate crisis even thus far are paramount. Climate change-triggered disasters have cost $320 billion in 2017 alone. There is no way that the earth’s climate crisis can’t affect you. We are all at risk. This is everybody’s fight.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of the United Nations has reported that we have only 11 years to prevent an irreversible chain reaction that will inevitably destroy our planet. 11 years. Please allow that to sink in.

Our world is on fire. There is everything to lose. Why aren’t we panicking? Why are we going about our
days as if nothing is wrong? We can’t ignore the elephant in the room any longer! We have wasted way too
much time already. We need to panic.
Personally, I cannot wrap my head around this one aspect of the climate crisis. We know exactly what we need to do to stop the climate crisis for quite some time now. We have solutions! Saving our planet isn’t out of reach, by any means. We are not helpless. So why do we act so damn apathetic?

Refrigerant management to limit atmospheric heat emissions, onshore wind turbines to limit fossil fuel use, reduced food waste to stop wasting a third of all food produced, a dietary shift to vegetarian or veganism to stop consuming meat and dairy products, tropical rainforest restoration (reforestation), education and activism to push for climate reform in government, reducing greenhouse gas emissions by reducing fossil fuel dependence and enhancing “sinks” responsible for storing such gases, and lifestyle adaptation. These are all solutions to the climate crisis. This is the good news - we know what we need to do and how to do it. It is now in our hands to go about making such changes.

The climate crisis has the capacity to destroy Earth. And it will, unless we step up to the plate to fight for her. We only have 11 years, but I have hope in us. If we all come together now, we can save our earth. It isn’t too late just yet. She is a planet, a future, worth fighting for. Let's step up.