Children and teenagers should need to know about climate change
Children, teenagers, and everyone else need to know about climate change. Everyone needs to understand climate change, why, how much our future is threatened by it, and what Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has seen in the news almost yearly.
The country’s temperature is breaking the previous year’s record. You saw on TV; there is a fire in the forest. Animals like deer and rabbits are running in fear! You see, some years it didn’t rain at all.
Another year there has been so much rain and flooding the whole country. Your roads are knee-deep in water. The storm destroyed the coastal area’s trees, washing away the crop fields and fish cages. These are the effects of climate change. It ultimately connects with our life.
The climate will change a lot throughout the rest of your life. The situation could be worse. According to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, “The world is moving very quickly towards climate catastrophe. But if we start working now, the situation will change slightly. People can save if they take the initiative. Let’s see how the picture of climate change can change.”
Before that, let’s see how we got into such a dire situation
Look around you. Home lights, TVs, refrigerators everything runs on electricity. As long as humans have been on Earth, they have spent most of their time without electricity. Scientists discovered electricity.
Then this electricity is wholly connected to our lives. For example, people in the United States use 13 times more electricity than in 1950. Twenty-eight million lights on the streets of London every day!
Your home’s power lines come from utility poles across the street. If you follow the wire of this pole (don’t go for it), you will see that the line comes from a power plant.
Numerous power plants send electricity to our houses, factories, and schools everywhere. This electricity is produced using fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are coal, oil, and gas stored underground. Fossil fuels are used in almost all activities that require energy.
Today, fossil fuels are big business. Humans use 7 billion tons of coal every year. About 10 million barrels of oil and liquid fuels are used every day. Everything comes from fossil fuels.
In ancient times, animals and plants were buried underground and transformed into oil, gas, and coal over thousands of years. When we dig them up from the ground and use them, we release carbon dioxide and methane gases into the air from ancient carbon deposits. These are called greenhouse gases.
This gas is like a blanket for the atmosphere. Solar energy warms the Earth during the day. At night, the Earth cools down by releasing heat. But greenhouse gases trap some heat. As much heat as the Earth is supposed to remove, it cannot release due to greenhouse gases.
Using fossil fuels has made the world warmer than it has been in the last 1,000 years. Still, people are increasing the use of fossil fuels day by day.
The first blow of this pollution is on the poor people of low-income countries like Bangladesh. Low-income people live in urban slums with pollution and waste near their houses.
Around the world, more people are dying from environmental pollution than those who have died due to the coronavirus. About 59 lakh people have been killed in the world so far due to the corona epidemic. And every year, almost 9 million people die prematurely due.
There are some sources of pollution beyond greenhouse gases. Think of the new buildings going up next to you or the sidewalls in your city. The cement that holds them together make by heating powdered limestone. As a result, 20 percent of environmental pollution comes from cement, steel, and other factories.
What we eat also contributes to environmental pollution—cows, goats, and other domesticated animals defecate, defecate, defecate. In addition to livestock, crop fields release harmful greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. People are cutting down trees in the Amazon jungle, our Sundarbans, and other forests to create cropland.
Cutting trees releases carbon stored in trees and soil into the air. One-quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions come from growing crops and cutting trees.
If this continues, the situation of climate change will worsen. Let’s see how bad it will be! What would the lousy future look like? Life will become difficult for many people and animals.
Many parts of the world will get hotter in the future. But there will be winter. Schools and sports will be canceled in the heat wave (hear of the school closures in New Delhi, India due to pollution). Older adults and people who work outside the house will be at risk of extreme heat. Crop production will be complex in many places due to climate change.
Water can dry up in numerous ponds and streams. Dry weather will cause more frequent forest fires. Several regions are susceptible to fire damage. If so, we will force to ingest unhealthy smoke and air. Many animals will not have the environment or food to survive.
Many animals will become extinct because of humans. The melting of the polar ice caps will submerge many coastal areas. Millions of people, whom we call climate refugees, will be homeless before the end of this century.
Adding more carbon dioxide to the air will make seawater more acidic. The temperature of the ocean will rise. Of course, some animals will benefit from it. As humans, we rely on food to survive. However, the impact of our consumption on marine creatures cannot ignore, as they experience significant suffering. Coral reefs will be gone.
It must be sad to hear. If we don’t act, this will happen. Scientists say so. But according to the latest IPCC report, scientists also say climate catastrophe can avoid if we start acting now.
It must be sad to hear. If we don’t act, this will happen. Scientists say so. But according to the latest IPCC report, scientists also say climate catastrophe can avoid if we start acting now.
Let’s see now, what can be a promising future?
In a better future, the effects of climate change may be slower and less severe. If so, the environment and nature can adapt to the changes.
For example, the government can evacuate coastal residents to higher ground before the area sinks. Industrialized countries are responsible for most of the world’s pollution. Industrialized countries can help developing countries survive a changing climate.
Even in the excellent future, a fire in the forest will make it difficult to grow crops. But not so much as a lousy future. We can save forests by planting more trees, absorbing more carbon from the air as they grow.
Minorities and foresters can guide us in this process. We can change our eating habits. One can quickly reduce meat consumption to lead a more sustainable and healthier lifestyle. We can follow green methods in farming and animal husbandry without harming nature. The green process is the production of crops without harming the environment.
Change must spread throughout society, especially in industries. Research can do on producing less carbon dioxide in concrete production. We can work in buildings that are not harmful to nature. Buildings made of wood and local stone are good infrastructure for the environment.
In a better future, we can use electric cars. We can use clean fuel cars instead of cars that run on diesel and petrol. Much of the air in such areas will become cleaner. Cities can make it easier for people to use public transportation.
By creating cycle lanes, only bicycles can use to encourage cycling. Unfortunately, aircraft are a significant contributor to air pollution. Air travel can reduce. Sunlight, wind, and other renewable energy should use to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Renewable energy can store for use.
When the sky is cloudy, or the wind flow is slow. We will know how to make these changes. Even in many places, this change has started. But the pace of change could be faster. This is because our obstacle is not science but people.
World leaders and business people must pay attention to climate change. And the rest of us will help with that. This is how a better future becomes a real future. Do we do them? The decision is ours.
