The Effects of Climate Change

There is no doubt that Climate Change has been one of the greatest and most concerning issues facing our planet and the human race today. Although many Republicans and self-interested politicians may not see it as harmful, Climate Change is real and we have been feeling its affects for quite some time. Storms, like Hurricane Matthew, have been a byproduct of human activity and their fossil fuel consumption. With new amendments and measures restricting the ability to continue emitting greenhouse gases through heavy industry, the United States need to take measures like Canada that have been active in their initiative to make Climate Change a priority.

The most powerful Hurricane we have encountered in the last decade has been Hurricane Matthew – a category 4 Hurricane that has had gusts of winds up to 145 miles per hour. Destroying much of the Caribbean, killing over 260 people so far while leaving millions without power, the Hurricane has taken course across the coast of Florida. How did this Hurricane occur? – The heating of the ocean water, due to an increased amount of CO2 from human activity. With so many natural disasters occurring and being predicted in the near future, countries have been amending new legislations in order to highly tax Carbon, in hopes of eventually resulting in a world with no burning of fossil fuels.

In 2015, representatives from 196 countries met for the Paris Climate talks, setting greenhouse gas emissions targets for the year 2025. As part of this agreement, the US has set what are called "intended nationally determined contributions," which are planned reductions in carbon emissions. A recent paper in Nature Climate Change examined the current federal policies and determined that it is unlikely the US will meet its own targets as things now stand.[1]  The United States has pledged to reduce the carbon emissions 28% by the year 2025 – however, the continuous reliance on fossil fuels has not indicated this being a realistic target. The US is projected to only drop its usage of carbon by 4.8% by 2025. The United States needs to begin taking Climate Change more seriously to avoid the premature extinction of mankind. Canada has already began to make major strides regarding the greenhouse gases thanks to their Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Prime Minister Trudeau promised to make climate change a priority when he campaigned for office last year. This week he made progress on that promise with a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by putting a price on carbon. This marks a big turning point for the country, whose previous government resisted aggressive steps on climate change because it wanted to protect the oil industry.[2] By making Carbon more difficult and expensive to acquire, they have already begun making Climate Change a priority – not even entertaining the idea of the whole phenomenon being “a hoax.”

Hurricanes and other tropical storms are expected to increase from 2% to 11% more powerful by the year 2100 due to the increase of carbon. [3] With these natural disasters becoming more aggressive, humans do not have any other option but to take this matter seriously. Countries like Canada should be models for the United States to follow in hopes to end the dependency on oil. If humans continue this kind of heavy industry and reliance on oil, the Earth’s temperature will continue to rise, creating natural disasters in numerous geographic locations and eventually result in the extinction of the human race.

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[1] http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/10/us-unlikely-to-meet-targets-set-after-paris-climate-agreement/

[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/07/opinion/canadas-trudeau-steps-up-on-climate-change.html

[3] http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/07/opinions/sutter-hurricane-matthew-climate-change/index.html