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As America seems to be drifting away from many of its green initiatives, other countries are picking up the slack. For example, China's general secretary Xi Jinping has announced the creation of a new environmental body in China to regulate the country's natural resources. This action will be crucial in the global fight against climate change, as it will prompt many smaller nations to follow suit as well as push bigger countries like the U.S. to reinforce their EPA programs.
This action by the Chinese government is significant in that it is slightly ironic that the nation that Trump accused of creating climate change as a "hoax" is now leading the charge against it while the U.S. clings greedily to its piles upon piles of coal. America should increase funding for the EPA just like China.
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In supermarkets, there are aisles upon aisles fully stocked with thousands of products, all neatly packaged in plastic. From loaves of bread in plastic bags to gallons of milk in plastic jugs, plastic is ubiquitous in the environment that is the supermarket. Despite billion dollar investment efforts to encourage recycling and integrating recycled plastic into products, supermarkets have been unable to halt plastic production. In fact, the amount of plastic produced in a year is roughly equivalent to the weight of all humanity. Plastic is also found in a third of all UK caught fish, demonstrating how this obsession with plastic is contaminating our oceans and our food.
To help alleviate some of the plastic-related stresses, some supermarkets are considering moving towards plastic-free aisles. Replacing plastic with products such as grass-paper, such a move towards environmental sustainability could drastically reduce plastic production and contamination. This move would benefit all of humanity, for a plastic-free world contains less contaminants in food. Unknown to most, the type of feed industries use to nourish animals has a significant impact on deforestation and water and energy waste. Current feeds used, soy, maize, and fish, are largely inefficient in terms of using resources. In England, the wasteful feeds are currently "the number one cause of biodiversity loss". Using insects and algae for animal feed would require far less land and resources. The company Entocycle makes feed of black soldier flies fed on waste food, while algae can be grown in far smaller areas to a comparative amount of soy and is nutritionally superior.
Consumers are usually unaware of the type of feed industries use which is why few companies actually make an attempt to have a sustainable use of resources in terms of feed. If as consumers we pressure companies more to comply with feeds that encourage greater biodiversity, especially in such a region like the Central Valley where agriculture is key to the economy, we can reduce our impact on waste and deforestation. There is some hope in the global fight against climate change, as it has been found that all of the world's biggest emitting nations, except India, experienced static or even falling carbon emissions in 2016 as a result of shifts to renewable forms of energy. Scientists hope that we have reached our peak levels of emissions and the world will experience a sharp decline in emissions of carbon. Despite this good news, levels of other greenhouse gases, like methane, actually rose. Scientists have warned that the growing global appetite for meat, especially beef, cannot continue if climate change is to be kept under 2C.
This temporary good news is not to signify that the fight against climate change has ended. The agreements in the Paris Climate Accord must continue to be followed such that global emissions of all greenhouse gases can be drastically reduced. Moreover, we need to begin to decrease our consumption of meat. I am just as guilty in this regard, as I have a heavy meat-based diet, so I need to take initiative to try to have more vegetarian meals. The assumption by regulators around the world that it is safe to use pesticides at a widespread, industrial scales across landscapes has been proven false. Many argued that the use of these pesticides demonstrated no immediate effect upon the crops and their safety, but they failed to take into account that it can take years for the chemical buildup to become apparent and make an impact upon safety. The same extreme precautions that are used to assess safety of pharmaceuticals should be performed upon pesticides. Passing some simple tests in a laboratory are not adequate forms of checking for safety. More regulation is needed within the domain of pesticides.
Living in a region like the Central Valley, we are constantly exposed to agriculture. Whether it is through our businesses, peers, or simply driving past a corn field, agriculture is everywhere. Thus, the use of pesticides is of supreme concern, for these dangerous chemicals can end up in our lungs and the water we drink. Regulation should be of the utmost importance to ensure safety and prosperity of all. The image on the left represents droughts in the U.S. in 2015 and the image on the right represents droughts in the U.S. in 2017, with orange and red being more severe levels of drought. What is fascinating about this two year difference is how the state of California went from extreme levels of drought to little-to-no drought in the short period of time. This data represents global sea surface temperatures. The hottest regions are the oceans on the equator east of Asia and in the Caribbean region. Asia's hotter temperatures is likely due to the high amounts of pollution from China. The Caribbean's higher surface temperatures is likely a factor in the higher frequency of hurricanes recently. This image shows the probability of severe weather in late May in the U.S.. The regions that are most likely to experience severe weather, based on storms from 1982 to 2011, is northern Texas, Oklahoma, and southern Kansas. The east coast is far more likely to experience storms than the west coast during the time of year. Atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide have greatly increased in the last forty years, as it has nearly increased by 80 parts per million since 1970. These skyrocketing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is directly linked to factories emitting great amounts of carbon and focusing on profits rather than the environmental costs. This image shows average global surface temperatures for the last two centuries. Clearly, since the mid 20th Century, temperatures have begun to increase and have not stopped. These increases are attributed to increasing amounts of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere causing temperature increases.
Plastic straws have a greater impact on the environment than one would expect from these bendy, colorful cylinders. In the U.S. alone, every day we use 500 million straws, adding to the total of 300 million tons of plastic created each year. The main issue with straws is that they are too lightweight to travel through mechanical recycling sorters, so the straws fall through sorting screens and are eventually disposed as garbage. Moreover, such small plastics continue to pollute our oceans and enter the digestive systems of fish, eventually ending in our own bodies after we consume such-contaminated fish. By 2050, scientists estimate there to be more plastic in our oceans than fish. There is clearly a plastic issue in our environment, so any and all steps should be taken to reduce the production of plastic and recycle plastics that already exist.
Reducing the consumption of plastic products is a responsibility all must bear, especially Americans with their wastefulness. Americans eat at fast-food restaurants more than anyone else, and at these restaurants, beverages are always accompanied with these plastic straws. I, myself, will begin to take it upon myself to refuse straws at restaurants and urge friends to follow suit. It is a simple action that, if a ripple effect takes place, can be baby steps in reducing our plastic footprint. The fight against pollution will come down to Asia. Between 1990 and 2012, the region's carbon dioxide emissions doubled and its use of resources tripled. In addition, the World Health Organization has found that 25 of the 30 most polluted cities are located in Asia, resulting directly from the extreme use of fossil fuels. The primary fossil fuel from which most electricity is generated is coal, severely polluting the air of Asia as well as raising global temperatures and polluting world's oceans. Thus, Asia's destructive manner is not only affecting its own citizens but also people around the world: 7 million people die prematurely each year as a result of air pollution. The shift to renewable energy will be paramount in reducing that number of deaths and slowing the effects of climate change world-wide.
Asia's source of fuel is of the utmost importance to countries like the U.S. as it is to Asian countries. The excessive use of carbon will pollute oceans, the commons of the world, and raise Earth's temperatures through increased amounts of greenhouse gases. Moreover, we can use Asia as a counter-example to supporters of carbon in the U.S., such as our own President. Unless we would like to increase the total number of deaths that result from pollution and further heat the Earth, we must continue to make the shift to renewable energy for the sake of not only Americans but citizens of the world. Europe's energy consumption seems to become more polarized in the future, with greater consumption in the south and less in the north. The study found that the total rate of consumption, from projected numbers based on expected climate change mitigation per the Paris Agreement, will remain constant throughout Europe, as the differences in consumption in the north and south will balance each other out. This overall constancy coupled with the polarization is urging many to increase the electrical grid to integrate electricity supplies across Europe. The chief reason why electricity use is increased use of air conditioning due to rising temperatures of climate change: it's too hot! Researchers home to divert our out-dated air conditioning systems toward photo-voltaic systems to combat this extreme heat. These solar-powered systems would absorb the most sunlight and create the most electricity on the days that we need it most, hot sunny days.
The issue is that as climate change becomes more complicated and advanced, our air conditioners have remained technologically stagnant - for people to be able to survive this heat, we must invest in more energy efficient air conditioners and homes. This energy crisis occurring in Europe is similar to our situation here in California, especially recently with the heat waves of this summer scorching the Central Valley with over 100 degrees weather. Simply being outside these days has been dreadfully unsafe with the risk of dehydration. However, unless we begin to make serious advances in combating climate change, these temperatures are likely to become the norm, so high-quality, energy-efficient air conditioners should begin to become the norm throughout the world. New studies have found that Climate Change is impacting the timing of floods in Europe, but not in a particularly predictable fashion. Each region is impacted differently. For example, in Northeastern Europe, flooding is happening one month earlier due to snow melting earlier in the year as a result of the rising temperatures of climate change. Yet, in countries along the North Sea like Scotland, flooding is happening two weeks later than normally. It is still unclear if Climate Change will greatly impact Atlantic pressure patterns, so predictions regarding future flooding are tentative. Understanding that issues related to Climate Change is a reality that must be faced for the foreseeable future, countries are no longer looking at such disasters as one-time events and rather as perennial issues that must be planned for. Such plans in the Netherlands include setting aside land to absorb water during floods.
More than simply planning for future Climate Change-related disasters, what we must learn from such events is that the topic of Climate Change is more complicated than what we think. Moreover, recognizing the mistiming of floods in Europe as an example to learn from, we in the U.S. must begin to prepare to reduce the impact of Climate-Change related events. For example, the recent drought in California was largely tied to Climate Change and it affected all people, from farmers needing to reduce watering for crops to urbanites having to sacrifice their precious lawns. Thus, we must remain conscious on our environmental impact as well as cautious for future natural disasters in the U.S.. |
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