For many years our environment has gone through different situations such as, gas pollution that causes climate change, deforestation, littering, smoking etc. These problems have caused severe effects to our environment as said before, pollution leads to climate change in the arctic and because of this the temperatures in the Arctic rise. The temperatures are already twice the global average rate and if the temperatures get higher, most of the wildlife there will die.
Animals are already suffering, because climate change has changed their environment, making it harder for animals to find food and shelter. One of the animals that are suffering the most are polar bears because there is a shoreline erosion, making it harder for polar bears to go on the sea ice (other animals such as the green sea turtle are suffering from plastics in the ocean). The temperature is causing a negative impact on sea ice. This climate change is changing the environment and food supply for most wildlife.
Why should we care about climate change?
We, as humans, are mainly creating these environmental problems. The main reason we have to keep ecosystems healthy is because they help clean our water, purify our air, maintain our soil, regulate the climate, recycle nutrients and provide us with food. Healthy ecosystems help sustain our economies. Without, these healthy ecosystems, doctors and medics wouldn’t have proper resources for medicine and other very important purposes. Vaping and smoking aren’t healthy for the environment, as it can lead to an unstable atmosphere. Smoking can not only change the atmosphere but can also cause pollution which gets confined in our atmosphere.
Another severe effect is deforestation. Deforestation has happened in many countries such as Brazil, Nigeria and even in Ontario, Canada. The main concern for deforestation is the loss of trees, loss of home for birds and other animals, soil erosion and increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The central and also one of the main concerns is burning fossil fuels. The burning of fossil fuels causes harmful nitrogen oxide to be released into the atmosphere which damages the environment and pollutes the atmosphere.
Impact on our health
Pollution is very dangerous to our pets, wild animals, and especially us. This world wide problem can cause dangers to our health. Since pollution gets released in our atmosphere, we tend to breathe the same polluted air. We humans get exposed to air pollution and health effects can last for an entire lifetime. Long-term health effects from air pollution include heart disease, lung cancer, and respiratory diseases such as emphysema. Short-term effects are temporary, they include illnesses such as pneumonia or bronchitis. Pollution is always in our air and it gets confined into our atmosphere as said above.
What we need to do?
As to this environmental problem, our daily commitment should be to try and reduce pollution, decrease plastic use, stop littering, conserve water and stop deforestation. The best way to help is to plant a tree. At home we can recycle to terminate the lack of plastics in the oceans. Using cars also makes a big change in our atmosphere which leads to climate change, so the foremost way to help would be to use vehicles such as bicycles, electric cars or just walking to places. During this pandemic, it is very necessary for us to stop littering and get the chance to help our environment.
Technology being used for climate change
Currently, we face many problems such as, endangered wildlife, inefficient usage and management of energy and burning of fossil fuels. Technology can be a big help to our environment in a few ways. Endangered wildlife can be saved by the use of smart collars, this is used to reduce hunting of these specific species. The inefficient usage and management of energy can be solved by systematic energy storage and smart grids. Burning fossil fuels is a major problem as said before. One solution to help solve this problem is to use electric cars which can be the most structured way to help in a sustainable way. Using electric cars reduce the use of gases and pollution as well.
Environmental technology for carbon capture
As a slightly more ambitious technology, the idea of pulling carbon dioxide directly from the air has been proposed for mitigating climate change. However, this technology is in early development and so far the process involves removal of CO2 by pushing air through filters using large industrial fans after capturing the carbon dioxide from the air. It is proposed that annual emissions from 250,000 cars could be absorbed by full-scale operations for carbon capture. To avoid the worst effects of climate change, it is estimated that we may need to remove as much as 6 gigatons of CO2 per year by the year 2030 and 10 gigatons per year by 2050.
This is the main reason why Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, has announced XPRIZE Carbon Removal, a four-year global competition that offers $100M to any innovators and teams from anywhere on the planet. The aim of the XPRIZE Carbon Removal competition is to create and demonstrate solutions that can pull carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere or oceans ultimately scaling massively to gigaton levels, locking away CO2 permanently.
There is a clear need for scale up of bold and radical tech that removes CO2 already in the air and oceans. Carbon capture technology definitely holds the potential for meeting the target set by Paris Agreements for limiting the Earth’s temperature rise to no more than 1.5˚(C).
