Climate Change: Causes, Remedies, and Impacts

Climate Change
Introduction
Climate change has become one of the most hotly debated topics on the world currently. This is
because the impacts of climate change are now getting felt all over the world. And the most
affected are the poor counties despite that those countries contribute less on the climate change.
First world countries such as the US, Japan and Germany are contributing to a larger part to
environmental pollution. These countries have contributing to destruction of ozone layer by
release of harmful gases such as carbon dioxide and Sulphur dioxide from their heavy
manufacturing factories to the atmosphere. The gases in turn destroy ozone layer, which is has
led to global warming (UNESCO, 2019).
The rate at which the climate change is being felt is double fold now more than it was a few
centuries ago. This only proves that increased manmade activities have contributing to climate
change, or precisely adverse climate change. Factors contributing to climate change can be
grouped into natural or manmade.
Causes
Factors that have contributed to climate change are grouped into two categories; natural factors
and manmade factors. Natural factors include volcanic eruptions, variation of solar radiation and
orbital changes. Manmade factors include mostly human activities such as mining,
industrialization, nuclear emissions and so many more (Thomas Tanner, 2014).
Volcanic eruptions, though rare, when they occur release a lot of harmful gases into the
atmosphere. Some of the gases such as carbon dioxide and gases containing Sulphur compounds
destroy the ozone layer (O3). The ozone layer is a protective layer that prevents harmful
radiations from reach the earth’s surface. And so when these radiations are allowed to reach the
surface of the earth they cause increased temperatures. High temperatures lead to melting of ice
in polar regions and eventually raising of ocean water levels which then causes flooding and
global warming (Wallace-Wells, 2019).
Mining is a major cause of climate change. This is because it impacts our climate through
different ways, some of the ways include release of gases such as carbon dioxide into the
atmosphere which destroys ozone layer and leads global warming, tremors caused by blasting
rocks using detonators such as dynamite leads to destruction of internal structure of earth which
leads to adverse effects of climate change being felt. In addition, nuclear emissions such as one
released by atomic bombs dropped by the US in Nagasaki and Hiroshima have impacted the
climate negatively (Farhana Yamin, 2004). That is the reason why the adverse effects of those
emissions are felt in Japan, decades later.

Proposed Remedies
Despite all these water tight evidences of climate change and the need to legislate measures to
curb climate change, the issue has elicited mixed reactions among the populace. The issue has
become a contest for political leaders such as the one being witnessed in the US, between
republicans and democrats. Democrats believe the science and research which has shown that
human activities especially big economy countries such as China and the US are contributing
greatly to climate, and so there is a need to legislate measures in mitigating effects of climate
change. (Stéphane Hallegatte, 2015) On the hand, republicans believe that climate is not as
severe as scientists and researchers want us to be believe and that if there is climate it is mostly
caused by natural causes which are beyond human control. The research that was done in 2016 in
New York showed that there was sharp divide even by the citizens. The polls showed that 60%
of the interviewed people in the New York agreed that climate is real and the government should
put down measures to curb its effects already being felt, as US is the superpower hence a pace
setter while 33% of the interviewed believed that climate change is a hoax, being politicized by
the democratic party.
The sharp divide has led to little or no measures being taken to conserve the environment or curb
the devastating effects of climate change. The poorest countries are bearing the blunt of climate
change. (United Nations Human Settlements Programme, 2011)The change caused reckless
human activities from the rich countries. Effects such as pro-longed drought and unpredictable
weather changes has affected these poor countries, especially from the African and south
American continents in which agricultural activities are the major economic activity.
There is an urgent need by the world political leaders and stakeholders such as the United
Nations to come into the round table and formulate measures to curb the adverse effects of
climate change and mitigate its severity, and new methods to conserve our environment. There is
also a need to educate the mass on the prevailing impacts of climate change, and ways to
conserve the environment at individual level. One of the measures to be taken is to compel
countries which are majorly manufacturing countries to legislate ways of reducing harmful
emissions being released to the atmosphere (Guzmán, 2009). Countries such as China, Britain,
USA, Japan and Germany contribute to over 50% of air pollutants released to the atmosphere.
These countries should bear greater responsibilities in ensuring that their factories have put in
place ways of ensuring harmful compounds are removed from emissions released by the
factories. In addition, multinational companies dealing in vehicle assembly should ensure that
devices are fitted in automobiles which filters emissions to ensure harmful compounds are not
released to the atmosphere. Lastly, measures should be put forward in revolutionalizing ways of
producing clean energy and banning others such use of coal which releases large amounts of
carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. (W. Neil Adger, 2006)