Human Activities and Climate Change Thesis 2022

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HUMAN ACTIVITIES AND CLIMATE CHANGE
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INTRODUCTION
Climate change refers to long-term substantial changes in wind patterns, precipitations, global
temperature and other measures that occur after many years. This thesis seeks to asses if human
activities responsible for the change in the climate. It is completely true beyond any reasonable
doubt that human activities are the major cause of climate change. Some of the human activities
that result in climate change include increased emissions of greenhouse gases by the use of fossil
fuel, cutting down of trees responsible for absorption atmospheric CO2, and increased waste.
Emission of Greenhouse Gases
Greenhouse gases such as ozone, nitrous oxide, methane, carbon dioxide are responsible for the
emission and absorption of radiation heat hence trapping the heat in the atmosphere increasing
the internal temperature of the earth commonly known as global warming. The increased internal
earth temperature results in climate change currently witnessed across the world namely, a rise in
sea levels, increased temperatures, cryosphere, heatwaves, and tropical cyclones (Seung-Jae, et
al., 2017). Human activities are responsible for the emission of greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere for the last 15 decades. The largest source of greenhouse gas emissions is the
burning of fossil fuel for transportation, heat, and electricity. The major human activities causing
greenhouse gas emission globally include agriculture at 12.5%, commercial and residential at
10.3%, Industries at 16.8%, electricity production at 21.3%, transportation at 14.0%.

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Figure 1: Human activities causing Greenhouse gas emission (Zevenhoven, 2015)
Transportation is the largest contributor to greenhouse gases and emissions come from fossil fuel
burning from planes, trains, ships, trucks, and cars (Anomohanran, 2012). 90% of the fuel used
in the transport sector is based on petroleum which includes diesel and gasoline. From the
various sources of greenhouse gas emission listed above, it is clear that the major cause of
climate change which is greenhouse gas effects and global warming are both caused by the
emission of greenhouse gases from various activities done by a human (Schwartz, 2018).
Therefore, it is true beyond any reasonable doubt that human activities are responsible for
climate change.
Deforestation
Plants generally make their food through the process of photosynthesis and the major resources
required during the process are carbon dioxide gas that naturally exists in the atmosphere of
emitted through the burning of fossil fuels. Therefore the availability of trees increases the
potential of trees using available CO2 to generate food. However, this is not the case globally, the
number of trees is being reduced daily in every corner of the world hence the available streets
cannot effectively absorb CO2 in the environment resulting into an increased CO2 in the

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atmosphere which causes greenhouse gas effect and global warming (Bahuguna, 2018). 2.3
million Km2 of forests were cut down globally between 2012 and 2000. Cutting of trees is more
extreme in the subtropical and tropic forest in emerging economies. More than half of land
animals and plant species live in tropical forests globally. Only 6.2 million km2 remain of the
initial 16 million km2 of the tropical rainforest that initially covered the Earth (Salih, et al.,
2012). An area of the same dimension of the football field is lost every minute from the Amazon
rainforest with 55 million hectares of rainforest lost for agriculture. In 2018, approximately 3.6
million hectares of virgin tropical forests were cleared.
Figure 2: Tree cover lost yearly (Archana, 2013)
From the discussion, human activities are responsible for climate change by continual cutting of
trees for agricultural and industrial purposes which reduce the chance of these trees assisting if
CO2 absorption from the atmosphere.
Increased Wastes
The increased waste materials are also responsible for climate change since during the
decomposition of these wastes, methane and carbon dioxide are produced and emitted into the

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atmosphere. From the discussion above, it is clear that carbon dioxide is responsible for
greenhouse effects and global warming. Consequently, human activities increase waste materials
into the environment and these wastes are responsible for climate change (Polettini, 2012). The
increased industrialization and manufacturing have promoted the production of a variety of
products that require energy to produce. These products are later used and disposed into the
environment after they have served their intended purposes. Disposal of some of these products
causes soil and water pollution hence affecting aquatic and land organisms and also increase the
level of CO2 in the atmosphere.
Figure 3: Increasing waste production as from 1960 (Onyanta, 2016)
From the discussion above, human activities indeed result in increased production of wastes that
decompose and produce CO2 into the environment and also cause soil and water pollution hence
affecting the climatic condition.
CONCLUSION
As illustrated in the supporting statements above, it is clear that human activities such as
manufacturing, agriculture, industrialization, transport, and energy generation cause climate

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change. The various human activities responsible for climate change can be categorized broadly
as emissions of greenhouse gases by the use of fossil fuel, cutting down of trees responsible for
absorption atmospheric CO2, and increased waste production. Future research should focus on
the development of technologies that are capable of converting atmospheric CO2 into harmless
products that can be used for other purposes since the absorption of these gases by trees.

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REFERENCES
Anomohanran, O., 2012. Determination of greenhouse gas emission resulting from gas flaring activities
in Nigeria. Energy Policy, Volume 45, pp. 666-670.
Archana, K., 2013. Impact of Deforestation on Climate Change. IOSR Journal of Environmental Science,
Toxicology and Food Technology, Volume 4, pp. 24-28.
Bahuguna, V., 2018. Changing dimensions of forests in India: impact of climate change and
deforestation. MOJ Ecology & Environmental Sciences, Volume 3.
Onyanta, A., 2016. Cities, municipal solid waste management, and climate change: Perspectives from
the South. Geography Compass, Volume 10, pp. 499-513.
Polettini, A., 2012. Waste and climate change: Can appropriate management strategies contribute to
mitigation?. Waste Management, Volume 32, pp. 1501-1502.
Salih, A., Körnich, H. and Tjernström, M., 2012. Climate impact of deforestation over South Sudan in a
regional climate model. International Journal of Climatology, Volume 33, pp. 2362-2375.
Schwartz, S., 2018. Resource Letter GECC-1: The Greenhouse Effect and Climate Change: Earth's Natural
Greenhouse Effect. American Journal of Physics, Volume 86, pp. 565-576.
Seung-Jae, L., In-Soo, R. and Sang-Goo, J., 2017. Emission sources and mitigation of fluorinated Non-CO2
greenhouse gas in registered CDM projects. Greenhouse Gases: Science and Technology, Volume 7, pp.
589-601.
Zevenhoven, R., 2015. Understanding greenhouse gases: mission being accomplished. Greenhouse
Gases: Science and Technology, Volume 5, pp. 695-696.