Reflection on Newspaper cuttings: Abrupt climate shift perilously close(study)

Abrupt Climate Shift Perilously Close: Study, Thursday, 24th March 2016

"Rapidly rising sea levels may inundate coastal cities before end of century, warn researchers"
The world just might be coming to an end, not in 2012, but very very soon. Aside from the Kyoto Protocol, which was a good attempt in my opinion the nations of the world have established many other agreements to try to reduce the rate of global warming to a level where it is tolerable. However, this article states that despite all the efforts, the leading climate scientists have warned that the level of global warming that we are already at is beyond the threshold of tolerance for us. Any further increase will result in disastrous consequences, as the warming will lead to an increase in the intensity of natural disasters such as killer storms and also the rise in sea level caused by the acceleration of the melting polar ice sheets, sufficient to drown coastal cities by the end of the century! That's by 2099, we have another 75 years or so to come up with a solution!

The article addresses the one thing that is really of concern, which is ironically that the young people, myself included, are not taking this issue seriously and are not equipped with the knowledge or awareness to deal with the situation. We are being taught about global warming and almost all of us have a rough idea of climate change when we are asked in a test or in an interview but once we go back to our everyday lives, we basically flick a switch and do not care about our actions. We walk by recycle bins, take away food, choose meat over whole plant foods, all these actions, multiplied by the population of the world, actively contributes to the alarming rate of global warming. There are people that argue that a major contributor of global warming is agricultural farming and that it also uses a huge amount of resources, however, they fail to realize that a large percentage of these crops are used to farm the animals, such as cows and chickens, to get the eggs, milk, chicken and beef that we eat on a daily basis and is so highly in demand.

"In 2009, nations agreed to try to limit planetary warming to 2 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level. The earth has already warmed by about half that amount."

The climate scientists in the article state that the rapid rise in sea level could rise to a high enough level to force humanity to retreat from all the coasts, and imagine what would happen if it increases further.

We could look at renewable sources of energy, waste to energy and also clean sources of energy, but ultimately, in my opinion, it our actions in our everyday lives that we have to watch if we want to prevent a potentially world ending disaster in the near future. I agree also that in public and among our friends and family it is not an easy task to change our habits such as suddenly going vegan or collecting all used plastic bottles and other recyclable materials due to peer pressure. We just have to remember that every individual effort counts, and we can always start simple. Every small action can have a great impact, it is not really the action that counts, it is the attitude that you develop. When we are bold enough to do what we feel is the right thing to do, we will also develop courage in other areas of our lives, and realize that other people's opinions of us do not matter sometime. We as a society do not like to be left out or do something out of a social norm due to our conditioning since birth and also our fear of being left out, but how can we ever improve and evolve as a human being if all we are concerned about is pleasure, profits and being up to date on trends?

We have to realize that we are a part of earth, and the earth is also part of us, always connected. The things we throw to the earth, whether beneficial or harmful, comes full circle to us. The waste we throw, such as plastic, decomposes and produces gases harmful to the environment WE are living in. The rubbish that we conveniently dump into the sea affects the marine life which is a major source of food for us, and it also pollutes other nearby water bodies. These are just a few of the countless examples. One small action such as throwing a plastic bottle into the sea can have a large impact, but so can recycling one plastic bottle. Until we see that we are the ones that control our own fate, and that we are creating "hell on earth" for ourselves, we will not actually fix anything but continue to contribute to global warming.