United States Government's Decision To Combat Climate Change

Climate change is not a new concept. It has been mostly referred to as global warming in the past. As much as people would like to file this issue away as something to deal with at a later date, it simply cannot wait. This problem we face is costing us billions of dollars, forests and wildlife are being eliminated, and people are dying. Starting to sound like a big deal, right? Future generations will be affected the most. People who do not even exist will have to pay for what we, all people, have done to this earth. To begin to make changes, one must realize the severity of the issue. Bill Mckibben, author of “Recalculating the Climate Math,” conveys that “We’ve already raised the world’s temperature by one degree—enough to melt almost half the ice in the Arctic, kill off huge swaths of the world’s coral, and unleash lethal floods and drought. July and August tied for the hottest months ever recorded on our planet, and scientists think they were almost certainly the hottest in the history of human civilization” (Page 3 of 5). Global climate change is a serious problem because it increases natural disasters and is the cause of extreme weather.

As a kid who has cared about nature his entire life, and an avid modern environmentalist for four years and counting, this issue has been at the center of my psyche for quite some time. I have seen public perspective on this issue change before my eyes. From the original rejection of Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth movie on “global warming” to personally marching alongside 300,000 people in our nation's capital to raise awareness on climate change. However, despite all of these avenues the issue is still spoken about as this distant idea that eventually will be a disaster. Many politicians and news networks speak of the need for slow implementation of policies and programs to right our environmental wrongs. The best way to paraphrase the common narrative of this issue would be to say, climate change is going to happen down the road, it will probably be bad and trying to fix it in the near future would be a good idea. That weak call to action shoves climate change onto the long to-do list of the leaders of our world. Not only does it not create the urgency needed to actually curb the effects of our environmental ignorance, but it does not accurately describe the threat of a changing climate. Treating this like a political issue will not allow for the rigorous changes needed to address such a problem in the timely manner that is required.

addressing climate change. Global climate change means it is a global problem, so one nation or

Throughout the years climate change has been a controversial issue affecting individuals worldwide; climate change has been debated by scientists including the rest of the world. Many factors can affect climate change such as biological factors and human actions. The intricate details are what go unnoticed and unmanaged, people may be greatly against this claim. However, it is underlying factors, like landfills and driving cars, that help maintain the increasing temperature of the earth thus, climate change has become a controversial topic. There have been concerns that climate change does not exist but there is reliable proof that it does even if many scientists do not agree on the existence of climate change.

concerned of the effects climate change could have on the world. There is so much evidence that climate change exist so we need to find a way to stop climate change so the effects of climate change won’t happen. We soon learned that the cause of climate change could have been through greenhouse gases. There are different types of greenhouse gases, but the one we’re going to talk about is carbon dioxide. Greenhouse gases (which are located below the atmosphere) are gases that allow light from the sun to pass through the gases and some light/heat back out into space, but a certain amount of light gets trapped on the earth. This is called the greenhouse effect.

As Earths average temperature increases every year, the discussion of climate change has become a significant topic in the scientific community. Human activities such as powering factories, running automobiles or something as simple as burning wood for heat, emit dangerous greenhouse gases. What makes these greenhouse gases so detrimental is that they absorb the heat radiating off of Earth and keep it in the lower atmosphere creating a “blanket” of warmth around the Earth’s surface. This causes a drastic increase in the Earths average temperature. Due to the rise in temperature, the polar caps have been melting faster than ever, this is dangerous not only because of the risk of floods and sea level increase but ocean water will become less saline and ecosystems will be destroyed, impacting humans just as much as marine life. In the article, Understand faulty thinking to tackle climate change by George Marshall, Marshall states that most people in our world today do not care about climate change because it will not affect them, “Which points to the real problem: climate change is exceptionally amorphous, … no deadlines, no geographic location, no single cause or solution.” (Marshall 2014). Because the author makes it clear that climate change is indeed a great plight, and fails to be acknowledged by people, it is a significant matter that should be discussed

The Unites States of America is currently working to combat climate change in order to protect people from its effects. By combatting climate change, the USA hopes to prevent its effects from becoming worse in the future because the USA cares for its citizens and doesn’t want them to keep experiencing the consequences of climate change. The USA is putting great effort into dealing with climate change and also hopes that other businesses, organization, and individuals will join them in their effort (Environmental News Service). One concern the USA has towards climate change is its cause of natural disasters. Climate change is bringing more natural disasters by making weather patterns stronger, and weather patterns are becoming stronger as climate change grows which is bringing more natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and drought to the USA (Rice). One example of a natural disaster that occurred in the USA as a result of climate change is the tornado in Moore, Oklahoma. In this event, a tornado rated 5 on the Enhanced Fuijta scale hit Oklahoma and had a negative impact on this city by destroying many of its houses and buildings also resulting in the destruction of businesses such as schools (Cable News Network). Another major concern of the USA towards climate change is that it will cause a rise in the global sea level which will result in many of its coastal cities to be submerged underwater. There will be a permanent 4 feet rise in the global sea level

We have all heard statistics over how unmitigated global warming can lead to rising sea levels, increased temperatures, lower rates of precipitation. The Congressional Budget Office recently found that climate change, if unmitigated, would create costly damage not only to the United States’s economy, but also to the world as a whole (source). Despite a scientific and general consensus that climate change is real and a problem, actual committed action against climate change has been disappointingly slow, until recently. We also know the cause of climate change. The United States EPA finds that “Carbon dioxide accounts for most of the nation’s emissions and most of the increase since 1990” (EPA). What we don’t know is a solution.

At the same time, evidence is mounting that any economic strategy that ignores carbon pollution will impose tremendous costs to the global economy and will result in fewer jobs and less economic growth over the long term. Estimates of the economic damages from warming of 4°C over preindustrial levels range from 1% to 5% of global GDP each year by 2100 (4). One of the most frequently cited economic models pins the estimate of annual damages from warming of 4°C at ~4% of global GDP (4–6), which could lead to lost U.S. federal revenue of roughly $340 billion to $690 billion annually (7).

Climate change in America is getting worse everyday and can destroy many of living organisms including humans; therefore, humans need to cut our greenhouse gas emissions fast or, oceans will be dramatically changed, the ice will melt causing floods, and the changing in weather causing severe damage. These are major issues that need to be resolved if we are planning on making a bright future on earth.

With climate change leading species to go extinct and causing sea levels to rise, what have our major governments done to prevent all this from happening. In 2006 Al Gore stated that "The voluminous evidence now strongly suggest that unless we act boldly and quickly to deal with the underlying causes of global warming, our world will undergo a string of terrible catastrophes"(An Inconvenient Truth). What Al Gore has said over 10 years ago has become a gruesome reality with many natural disasters affecting major countries and shutting down developing countries completely. If our governments don’t take initiative to reduce and prevent climate change, we must make the first move to do something ourselves. But do the actions of us individuals have an effect to something as big as climate change? I believe that the actions of individuals towards the prevention of climate change all have an effect to the greater cause, but the concentration and types of actions such as personal changes, taking alternative transportation, and overall education and awareness of the climate change determine the strength of the effect to it.

The issue of climate change is a recurring topic in the news, there have been scientist trying to gain support from politicians and the general public to combat this issue for years. There are several reasons why there is a lack of support and policy to address the problem relating to climate change. The issue of climate change is so divisive because people are uneducated about the topic. While there are numerous sources of information that is available to the general public, people are still ill-informed. To add, the general public and politicians may disregard conversations of climate change because they may think there are other issues that are more important. To make the public understand and to gain support for control climate change,

As said by Ban Ki-Moon, a former secretary-general of the United Nations, “Climate change does not respect border; it does not respect who you are - rich and poor, small and big. Therefore, this is what we call 'global challenges,' which require global solidarity” (Ki-Moon 2011). Recently, climate change has become one of the most emphasized topics in the world. While the idea of global warming is not new to anyone, its effects are starting to become more prevalent, and the issue is becoming increasingly dreadful. Global warming is often a debated topic in elections, as some people believe it is real and caused by people, some believe it is made up, and the rest believe it is happing but is simply part of Earth’s natural cycle. The issue also

Climate change can affect negatively the economy of an entire nation in so many ways. Rising sea levels and warmer oceans are what makes storms more destructives. Which mean that the more destructive a storm is the most the government would have to spend money trying to fix the disasters that comes with it. When a strong hurricane make landfall, it destroyed everything that it on its way. It destroys houses, roads, bridges, railroad track, airports runways, power lines, dam, levees, and seawalls. All this cost money, and time that the government and the public could’ve avoid if they listen to what the experts said. One probe that one hurricane can affect the economy of a country is the latest hurricane that happened in Puerto Rico, Virgin Island, and Florida, which happens to be part of the United States. Hurricane Maria cause so many damage to the Island of Puerto Rico. A librarian at the university of Puerto Rico describes the condition of the island after it was hit saying 80 percent of the island was without power. Houses, bridges were destroyed, people don’t have enough food to eat, there is not enough drinking water. It’s not clear yet how much it would cost to rebuild the island but there’s been an estimated of 95 billion. This show that if the government priories climate change, things like this would happen less often.

Global warming has become one of the most important scientific, political and economic issues. According to the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), the period between 1995 and 2006 seems to have been one of the warmest yet recorded since 1850 relevant variables such as changes in ocean temperatures, changes in terrestrial ecosystems, the decrease in the extent of snow and ice in the northern hemisphere, the shortening of the cold seasons, melting glaciers, reduction in the extent of permafrost and rising sea level, provide clear evidence of that the world is warming (Miller, 2013). Delay and limit climate change requires long-term, large international effort. The most important is the current via the United Nations Convention on Climate Change has given, but it is also important to take preventive measures at national level (Gonzales, 2013). Industrialized countries have made some progress, albeit limited, in curbing GHG emissions (greenhouse gasses) recognizing the urgent need to develop specific policies, such as the use of emissions permits, taxes energy and environmental, industrial voluntary measures, regulatory