Environmental terms such as carbon emissions or deforestation and global warming are now common questions on websites, on TV, on the radio and in printed media around the world. Wherever we look, there is an opinion, an article, a documentary that addresses the problems we face on the planet that we wholly depend upon. But this flood of information often raises more questions than they answer. The words, images and videos make assumptions about our knowledge, often washing over basic questions that pop into our heads.
Often it is the fundamental Why What How questions that are pasted over, and flawed assumptions made about our knowledge.
So at the base of it all, what is it all about?
Climate change is probably the biggest challenge the world is facing, but its not too late to fix it. First of all, it is important to clarify that climate change is happening because of human interference. This fact that has been confirmed by the Nobel Peace Price-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Each year our mankind releases almost 30 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, mainly as a result of burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas.
The main sectors responsible for fossil fuel consumption and climate polluting CO2 emissions are:
- energy generation,
- transport,
- industry,
- households.
Climate changes affect people and nature all over the world. Extreme weather events, rainstorms and heat waves are affecting biodiversity and threatening precious ecosystems, thus putting decades of hard work and massive investments in nature conservation and sustainable development at risk.
Another serious problem is deforestation. Deforestation is the action of clearing the forests. In other words, it is a general term that refers to the destruction of many forests. Our planet has already lost nearly 50% of the worlds original forests. Each year our mankind loses 13 million hectares of forests, the equivalent of 36 football fields per minute. The process of deforestation is the source of 15-20% of global carbon emissions. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that at least 1/3 of the worlds remaining forests may be affected by climate change. Taking so many trees out of the forest contributes to climate change. That, in turn, causes extreme weather patterns such as drought and frequent fires that destroy forests. This is a cycle of destruction that is damaging beautiful places where many endangered species live.
Forests are also home to some of the most culturally rich indigenous communities in the world, whose livelihood depends on the sustainability of the environment around them.
There is another problem which we can see nowadays. Our oceans are in a state of global crisis. Humans and our destructive fishing techniques, or more simply put a result of overfishing. Todays industrialized fishing practices exceed natures ability to replenish the oceans fish stocks. As a result, more than 70% of the worlds commercial marine fish stocks are fully exploited and overfished.
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Scientists have recently discovered that 90% of the big predatory fish are already lost species like blue-fin tuna, swordfish and sharks all stripped from our ocean industrialized fishing. This is the single biggest threat to our marine waters. Unless the current situation improves, scientists predict that stocks of all species currently fished for food will collapse soon.
Our planet is in a state of constant change in which species evolve; some disappear. But this process is something that happens over hundreds of thousands and even millions of years. The current speed at which species are disappearing, however, is directly connected to the way we are over-exploiting our planet. The rapid loss of species that we are witnessing today is estimated by some experts to be between 100 and 1,000 times higher than the expected natural extinction rate!
And this is even a conservative estimate. Some studies estimate current extinction rates as 1,000 11,000 times higher than what would happen naturally.
Unlike mass extinction events, which involve major geological events, the current extinction phenomenon is caused by a single species: humans.
And another serious world problem is the lack of fresh water. More than billion people lack access to water and suffer from it. Over 50% of the worlds wetlands have been lost in the last century alone. Only one-third of the worlds large rivers (1,000km and longer) remain free-flowing, unimpeded by dams or other barriers.
There has been more than a 50% decline in freshwater species populations over the last 30 years, making species loss in freshwater ecosystems faster than any other biome. Most developing countries face serious problems. In Africa, almost half of the population suffers from one of the six major water-related diseases which kill millions of children worldwide millions every year. But many developed nations such as Spain and Australia are also having water problems due to pollution, overuse or mismanagement. We have a lot of problems to solve. It depends on us if we live happily on our planet taking care of our nature or our nature becomes our enemy in the nearest future. Nature is our home and we have to remember about it.
COMPREHENSIVE CHECK
