Climate Change : The United States

Climate change is one of today’s most hotly debated topic. Scientists for many decades have made supposed claims that current energy creation and reliance on fossil fuels will lead to inevitable changes to the planet. Today, climate change denial is still a popular to most of the world despite the mounds of evidence to support that it exists. The climate change issue suffers from being mismanaged by various parties through focusing on the wrong issues and the lack of true commitment from the general public, according to Sandra Steingraber.

Climate change has been a subject of discussion in the media for many years, supported with the use of arguments against oil polluting the environment and extreme scare tactics of Polar ice caps flooding civilians backyards. The issue has been ignored by the majority of lay people as seeming too complicated, and with all the conflicting information in the media in the past, who can blame them? However, scientifically, climate change and what perpetrates it is fairly simple to understand and society as a whole is beginning to come to a clear consensus on climate change. Thanks in part to more readily available forms of media and information, people have become cognizant of the fact that climate change is a legitimate problem which requires immediate amelioration. While this may seem melodramatic, society is realizing that climate change is an issue which can no longer be denied if the human race wishes to continue.

Imagine your hometown underwater; the places you once hoped to show your grandchildren lost completely and swept away into an abyss. It doesn’t sound great, does it? Unfortunately, this could very well become reality. Maybe not during this generation, but eventually. Climate change is a severe issue that affects us all. Icecaps are melting, sea levels are rising, and many Americans are either unaware of the issue or have listened to major politicians dismissing the issue without much knowledge of it.

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

Recently, the environment issues are becoming more and more serious. The increasing of greenhouse gas emission and pollutions lead to many environment problems related to climate change. The climate change impact our urban life in many aspects. As the biggest metropolitan area in US, New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA Metropolitan Statistical Area has a population about 19,831,858 by year 2012 (U.S. Department of Commerce, US Census Bureau, 2012) The population has been increased by 1.35% since 2010. The increase of population again increase the consuming of resources and increase the carbon dioxide of the statistical area which aggravate the global warming. At this moment, planners and government should take the impacts from climate change that will be critical concern to our area into consideration and applying a climate change management planning policies.

Climate change and its link to increased terrorist activity will directly and indirectly affect the United States in the next ten years, while also laying the foundation for climate change to become one of the most pressing security challenges that the United States will face in the coming years.

The environment and climate change have recently become high profile issues, but that does not mean they haven’t been issues in the past. In 1903, Theodore Roosevelt created the National Wildlife Refuge System is the system of public lands and waters set aside to conserve America's fish, wildlife and plants. In 1970, Richard Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency protecting human health and the environment by writing and enforcing regulations based on laws. The Bush and Obama administrations had different stands on a lot of issues, and it’s no different when it comes to issues regarding the environment.

With the rise of calamitous news regarding extremists groups taking over certain states, countries threatening to go to war, and viruses spreading throughout the world; the outlook of humanity does not look good. In addition to these dire headlines is the matter of climate change, which, unfortunately, is not as alarming to the public eye. Nonetheless, climate change is a pressing matter as it will impact every facet of society from economy to even human survival. Perhaps the general public find climate change as a vapid subject because of its nature to react belatedly to human activity, and how it is often represented with numbers, graphs, and projections; things that are not compelling to those that do not understand its importance. Even

These last two election cycles have demonstrated the importance of climate change in relation to politics and the american people. What is unfortunate is that what seems to be a very crucial and real problem in our human survival, according to scientists, is being debated by people who do not have the scientific credentials to even discuss the science behind the reality of climate change. Those behind the skeptics, have funded a successful campaign against the reality of the facts and have introduce doubt into the sciences.

As human exploitation causes temperatures to increase, in turn disturbing the biodiversity of several species, laws and regulations created by organizations are becoming increasingly more valuable. Over billions of years, Earth has endured several periods of mass extinction and has recently entered another era of mass extinction. Maintaining and protecting the biodiversity of species and their habitats is beneficial since genetic variability increases species ability to adapt. To avoid the further effects of climate change, carbon emissions must be drastically reduced across the globe. The World Wildlife Fund works to prevent the effects of climate change by partnering up with local communities and governments through restoring beach vegetation to shade marine turtle nests in the Caribbean, secure access to fresh water for elephants in Thailand during periods of drought, and identify areas where polar bears can live on solid Arctic sea ice for decades to come.

Climate change is one of the most controversial and ongoing topics in society today. Scientist and politicians alike all have opinions, but very often they are not in line with each other. 97% of climatologists agree that climate change is happening, as well as many of the large corporations in this field such as NASA, the Geological Society of America, and the American Association for the Advancement of science. Still, these debates take place on sites such as climatedebatedaily.com or the worldwide conference that was held on June 6, 2015 that took place 79 countries. Both sides claim to have solid evidence that supports their theories, but it is evident to most scientists and corporations alike that the human race is creating our own destruction

The dichotomy of climate change can divide the world down the middle. Those who believe in climate change advocate for earth-friendly policy to better the environment and help society as a whole. Those who believe the evidence does not support a climate change theory simply ignore scientists and do not advocate for any type of change in living. However, change is necessary to preserve the planet and maintain the modern democracy- not just in the US, but in the world. Those who deny climate change also deny the chance for cleaner, eventually cheaper energy, long-term jobs, healthier lifestyles, and greater unity between nations. The best and most efficient way to control the path to sustainable, green living is through the government.

The 21st century has begun with one of the most challenge security threats to the United States of America have had to face. The perils of climate change have the ability to impact the national interest concerning power, prosperity and peace. The continued challenges around the world, and domestically, it is critical the US implements a comprehensive grand strategy. Cooperative security gives the US the best possibility to achieve the goals that will lessen the effects and place the US ahead of the international agenda. Combating climate change will require successful policies such as international climate pacts, collective-action and cap and trade initiatives. In the past, we have seen the US shy away from such accords worried about the

One of the great parts about wind energy is that it has a large amount of positives to the environment and hardly any negative effects. Because wind energy uses the wind for the energy there is no emissions generated from the energy produced. It is estimated that the use of one million kWh of wind power can save around 600 tons of carbon dioxide emissions (Saidur, Rahim, Islam, & Solangi, 2011). Therefore, it is easy to see that the widespread use of wind power can help mitigate climate change. This is critical to help stop climate change and the United States is uniquely positioned to be the leader in curbing climate. When the United States starts heavily investing in alternative energy sources other countries will likely follow suit, which will be key to reducing global emissions.

There is an issue on this planet that will define this generation. The issue is climate change. Global warming. A world on the collapse as our oceans are acidified, our air polluted, our forests disappearing, and human rights issues getting worse. It seems that people are not aware of how big climate change actually is. It’s not something that only takes place on the ice caps or in the forests on the far corners of the world. This is an issue that happens here, and now. It’s real. It’s happening.