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The deep and far-reaching effects of climate change can be felt all over the world, and those effects are only going to grow as time goes on unless their is a major shift in the mindset of humankind, which is a tall order to give. North America has no interest in giving up its lifestyle, China wants our lifestyle, others just want to live.. There is no equal bar to set all countries to, so it is extremely difficult, if not impossible to set a standard for us all to reach in terms of reducing climate change. I believe there actions we can take individually: live within our means, reduce, reuse, recycle, eat locally, and bike more and drive less being just a few. It is not as difficult as many perceive to lessen ones impact on our Earth by just a little bit and perhaps if more people joined in, that little bit could start to make more of an impact. These generations could be the point in history which they read about not with disgust as we sat idly by and let climate change destroy our known world, but as the point where we got up and took action against climate change and saved our beautiful Earth.

Fireflies. Image via Ravenloft on Reddit.

Cities are destructive, vibrant, maniac places. They sprawl and recreate, rebuilding sections of themselves every decade or so. They are exciting and innovative. We are at a point in history which is unsurpassed in the number people living in such close proximity. However, it is not all golden – there are huge numbers of people living at or below the poverty line, and their housing areas tend to be the worst – ‘poor people tend to live in poor environments’ (Davis 4.9). These are also the places that tend to be hit the hardest by environmental issues, such as Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, or the heat waves in Chicago.

Image via mod83 on Reddit.

Environmental justice groups are trying to grab the reigns and prevent unnecessary deaths in cities during these times of turmoil, but they cannot always be successful. Their land is too easy to take advantage of. The wealthy do not want to live in a neighbourhood with unsightly facilities, questionable smells, or potential danger. Poor neighbourhoods are easily taken advantage of, as they often do not have the resources, money, or motivation to protest their placement.

Environmental justice groups are, as Robert Bullard, a founder of the movement, says, ‘concerned about wetlands, birds and wilderness areas, but … also with urban habitats, where people live in cities, about reservations, about things that are happening along the US-Mexican border, about children that are being poisoned by lead in housing and kids playing outside in contaminated playgrounds.’ It is a long list, and one with issues that cannot be easily rectified.

Bibliography

Davis, Brandon. “Module 4.” The University of British Columbia – Global Environmental History, 2011. Web. 05 August 2011.

Energy is the ability to do work. We have created increasingly sophisticated manners throughout human history to harness the energy from the sun, wind and waves. We also burn fossil fuels and work with nuclear fission. With each generation that passes, our ability to utilize different forms of energy grows. This ability lead to a massive expansion in development starting during the Industrial Revolution and continuing on today. Yet is the number one  catalyst of climate change.

Image via go_go_bannananas on Reddit.

A major issue in why we wont change our consumption habits when it comes to energy is that we are used to the comfort we are given. Why wear a sweater inside during the winter when you can just crank the heat? Energy is not something one can hold so it is difficult to judge when one is being excessive or not. But climate change proves to us what we have been. Our methods of using energy – oil, coal, natural gas – are not as efficient as they could be, nor are we embracing alternative sources as much as we should be. We are an era ‘defined above all by oil’ (Davis 3.3) but that is still a title we can change.

Oil Obsession. Image via Petedk on Reddit.

Bibliography

Davis, Brandon. “Module 3.” The University of British Columbia – Global Environmental History, 2011. Web. 05 August 2011.

Agriculture has the dubious honour of being the assailant which has been attacking the environment for the longest. Around 10 000 BCE in several independent locations, variations of agriculture appeared. Through increased trade, travel, and encounters, agricultural ideas dispersed from their points of origin, and soon had become a worldwide phenomenon. Fast forward though agricultural history, and we see hand plows shifting to the use of farm animals, and then technology taking a serious role. We can witness the rapid decrease in diversification as monocropping takes over as the most effective system. We can see the commodification of seeds, and the exponential increase in fertilizer and pesticide use as we wear our land down.

Image via Tweezering on Reddit.

We have industrialized agriculture, and it is costing us dearly. We are feeding a population that has expanded beyond its own means. Fertilizers and pesticides have become an absolute necessity in large scale farming. These are both products produced by the rendering of fossil fuels.

Animals have been almost completely removed from the equation when buying meat – They are processed in factories and sent to your local supermarket in uniform sanran-wrapped packages. One no longer needs to associate the image of a cow being butchered with their dinner. And in these giant factories, the animals are being fed grain to fatten them up more quickly than is natural. Grain which was grown by fossil fuels. It takes up to five pounds of grain to produce one pount of beef.

It is a cycle of destruction which the general population does not want to quit or even think about. There has been a separation of farm and household, and it is easier to simply not think of where ones provisions are coming from.

 

 

Images via Reddit.

Mark Bittman, a New York Times food writer, does an excellent job summarizing how the worlds diet (and especially of the people living in the western hemisphere) need to change. The population needs to cut back on its excessive (and unhealthy) levels of meat consumption. “Livestock is the second most higher contributer to atmosphere altering gases … more than transportation” (Mark Bittman). So what should we do? Eat less meat and less junk food because as Mark Bittman says, ‘we don’t need either of them for health’ eat more vegetables. Not that difficult now is it?

The video can be viewed here

Governmental bodies have been meeting any attempting to resolve climate change issues. The Rio Conference, and the Kyoto and Copenhagen summits were three of such meetings. Each had varying degrees of success. In Rio, a ‘remarkable set of recommendations in the form of Agenda 21’ (Davis, 1.3) were issued. These recommendations ‘spelled out the need for a substantial transfer of economic and technical resources from the industrialized countries to developing countries and the active involvement of diverse types of people in the pursuit of sustainable development’. Also importantly, two binding treaties were formed in Rio, ‘the UN Convention of Biodiversity, a treaty that bound its signatories to protect species habitats around the world’ and ‘the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change UNFCCC)’, which was ‘the first international treaty on climate change’ (Davis 1.3).

Image via unfccc.int

The Kyoto Protocol, organized in 1997, had the UNFCCC declaring a ‘timetable for reducing emissions’ (Davis 1.3) by the way of a Cap and Trade system. As of today, it has not had great success with many countries, including Canada, experiencing rising emission rates.

The Copenhagen summit was organized in 2009. The aim of the conference was to ‘come up with binding CO2 reduction targets for both developed and developing countries’ (Davis 1.3). Once more, there has not been great success, and there is a new issue looming – the concern over environmental conflict. There is anxiety that we will be seeing an increase in global conflicts which ‘have their roots in environmental crises, as people run out of food and water, or lose their homes to environmental disasters.’ These people, termed as ‘Environmental Refugees’, are a heavy pressure on governments not suited to deal with their level of poverty and depravation.

Image via BixRex on Reddit.

One can now understand why it is easy to claim that climate change is the most serious issue of our time. For all the talk, there appears to be very little action. Throughout history, humans have done as they pleased to reap immediate benefits rather than take long term goals into consideration. I will be reviewing main themes from the modules (Agriculture, Energy, and Cities) to try to gain an understanding to why people refuse to/resist change even when they are aware they are putting the whole planet in crisis with their actions.

Bibliography

Davis, Brandon. “Module 1.” The University of British Columbia – Global Environmental History, 2011. Web. 05 August 2011.

Climate change is not a concept which can be grasped in a heartbeat. It has been such a gradual process that although it is now upon us, we have barely noticed the modifications. And there are those who have failed to educate themselves on the difference between climate change and weather..

Please watch this short video on the consequences of not understanding the differences between these two very different concepts:

Get Acclimatized to Understanding Global Warming!

Weather, as stated in the video, the state of the atmosphere at a certain time and place. Climate on the other hand, involves the extended prevailing weather conditions – the weather that occurs in a general area over a long period. Therefore, climate change is the alteration of these previously longstanding climate cycles. Humans are considered the main catalyst of climate change. We are producing more greenhouses gases than the Earth can manage at this time in its carbon cycle.

Throughout the centuries of human existence, there have always been a variety of destructive incidences and events, in all the categories of human life. Diseases can ravage populations – plague has struck all over the world, reducing human life by the thousands or even millions. There are also natural events – earthquakes bring down infrastructure, volcanoes block the sky with poisonous ash, floods come crashing in, covering extensive sections of land, sometimes accompanied by tremendous winds and storms. People even wage battles between themselves. War is a gruesome part of our history. However, there is another cataclysmic event which had previously been hovering on our horizon but is now taking us on full force while we sit idly by – whether it be because of lack of knowledge, an uncaring attitude, an inability to act, or something else – climate change is upon us and it “is the most serious and the hardest to manage” (Davis, 1.1) environmental issue of our time. The previously mentioned disasters, as terrible and altering as they may be, tend to be events which a population can eventually bounce back from. Climate change is a sneakier opponent, one which we have mostly unknowingly brought up though our own actions and now are uncertain how to deal with, as we can not travel back down the road already traveled. The human population must learn from the events of the past to attempt to manage the events of the future.

Image via Reddit.

Bibliography

Davis, Brandon. “Module 1.” The University of British Columbia – Global Environmental History, 2011. Web. 05 August 2011.