The Life Of Christiana Figueres

Global warming has become an undisputed fact about our current livelihoods; our planet is warming up and we are definitely part of the problem. However, this isn’t the only environmental problem that we should be concerned about. All across the world,

“There’s one issue that will define the contours of this century more dramatically than any other, and that is the urgent threat of a changing climate.” - Barack Obama. Climate change has been a popular topic of discussion for years now, because of the threat to our environment. The world will forever be changed if climate change isn’t taken into serious consideration and not in a good way. Climate change has had many negative effects, for example, damage to coral reefs, the increase of wildfires, and most importantly rising sea levels. Climate change is happening now and action should be taken now to stop it. The damage to our earth cannot always be undone as well as making some places disappear forever.

In Michael Pollan's article “Why Bother?” he discusses how climate change is a serious threat to humanity and needs to be addressed immediately. Pollan begins to discuss possible solutions but also realizes that these “solutions” may not be easily achieved. There is no way to eliminate people who make a conscious effort to help the advancement of climate change, but it is still important for others to attempt to make changes to help save the environment.

Have you heard what is happening to the environment? Like how Greenland loses is 286 Gigatonnes of ice per year! And as of January 22, 2017, it has lost 3778.7 Gigatonnes since 2002! Why you ask? It’s due to Climate change. Climate change is a serious problem in our world, It can either end it or make it prosper that is why I chose to research it. Climate change won’t just effect on a country or continent, it will affect the whole world, and we are a part of that world. So, I decided to research it to see what we as humanity can do about climate change. To help I asked myself more questions such as “What will happen if we don’t intervene?”, “What is the source of the problem?”, “What are our choices as humanity?” After my research, I believe that there is a way to stop climate change and to do that we as humanity need to work together.

The fight for climate change is a fight that has been ongoing in modern years and is all too familiar for people who never seem to have the voice to speak up against it. With the increase in oil extractions or the rise in carbon emissions, it is no secret that climate change’s impacts have severely taken a toll on people and the environment, but it is also evident that certain people are being impacted by its affects more than others. Often times, marginalized people are the people that have to deal with the most apparent effects of climate change - whether it being combating it or living with it, they are the ones whose lives are being changed the most because of it. In Bill McKibben’s Oil and Honey, Bill McKibben finds himself at the forefront

The author first starts off his argument by claiming that the climate change issue is no longer a problem for the next generation ; instead a trouble that the current generation will face and will have to solve. In order to raise awareness and the seriousness of the issue, Eduardo describes the issue as something that ‘we’ cannot do to prevent it ; an issue that is

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

When I polled a few of my friends about “what is the single most critical problem facing us today?” I got a frequent response that’s not so shocking, climate change. So why climate change? Why not obesity, or population control, or education? While all of those are problems that deserve discussion, no single topic is so fundamental to us as humans as climate change. In 2007 Al Gore stated in his person of the year interview that “Today we 're dumping 70 million tons of global-warming pollution into the environment, and tomorrow we will dump more, and there is no effective worldwide response. Until we start sharply reducing global-warming pollution, I will feel that I have failed.” (Walsh) Perhaps the paradigm has changed. Climate change is now talked about at every level of government, in large and small businesses, and communities across the globe. It’s a topic that functions to affect our economy and our environment. Moving forward, it’s important to understand why our way of life will be affected by the way we tackle these issues surrounding climate change. Climate change is the single most important issue affecting the human race today due to its widespread impact on our survival; impacting food sources, transportation, weather, geography and other life forms on the earth.

Climate change is something that affects us all as a human race, and we need to do something about it immediately. Ultimately, climate change is dangerous and upon us more than we realize. While there are some individuals who don't believe it exists at all, there are some who simply believe it is not caused by humans on this planet. My goal for this paper is to make aware the dangers that climate change poses to our planet and the human race. While doing this, I hope to provide fact-based evidence that supports the claim that we, as humans, cause the dangerous phenomena that is climate change and that we need to change our course of action before it is too late.

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.

Phrases such as “climate change” and “global warming” are often thrown around on the news and in politics; however their meaning and significance was never clear to me. I enjoyed my reading of the Susan Solomon interview because, it was very informative and easy to understand. Solomon’s outstanding achievements as a female scientist are inspiring and remarkable. Her groundbreaking studies in Antarctica concerning the ozone hole, prove to us how important it is to take care of our planet. Human produced substances known as CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) have damaged our ozone beyond repair. It is hard to believe that humans can be so careless as to destroy their own Earth. Thankfully, “the nations of the world agreed to stop producing CFCs” in 1987.

Michael Pollan author of “Why Bother?” (an article from The New York Times) was very clear on delivering his message on climate change. Throughout his article he uses many different sources and reasons to explain, not only what is happening, but things we should be doing to create solutions to the problems we created. Micheal directs us to think about his thoughts about how climate change is a real problem, and demonstrates with examples from other authors, consequences that we could very soon be facing, and what we can do to evade these problems that are coming our way. With the few solutions we are presented with it is unrealistic to try to solve the climate change problem we have arrived to.

“Climate change has revealed this underlying dynamic in its starkest form: the potentially cataclysmic trade-off between economic and environmental well-being,” Christopher Wright and Daniel Nyberg remark in their book Climate Change, Capitalism, and Corporations. [HOOK]. Indeed, human beings are risking the whole planet existence by stepping more forward in the endless path of economic growth [CONNECTION]. In her book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. Climate Change, Naomi Klein, a Canadian filmmaker, social activist, award-winning journalist, and author known for her political analysis and criticism of capitalism, explains why capitalists are denying the obvious fact of climate crisis and how they are procrastinating the appropriate

It cannot be denied that humans are both the greatest contributors to climate change and the most affected by it. Approaching the issue of climate change from an anthropocentric lens breaks down the issue and makes it much easier to understand and combat. Given that climate change is our fault and our problem, it is clear that we are also the only ones who can reverse or mitigate its effects. Through personal actions, education, and institutional restructuring we can lessen the impact of climate change and find hope in the

A meeting discussing global warming and the ongoing climate change (and the impact CO2 emissions have on the growing problem) has been in session in Peru for the past few days. Dozens of world leaders are gathering to discuss possible changes that can be implemented to halt the increase in temperature seen around the globe. However, many prominent scientists have stated that it may be too late for these world leaders to make any significant impacts (Associated). These scientists, and many other people around the world, believe that humans have contributed significantly to global warming, and as a result mankind needs to do whatever it can to combat this ongoing crisis. Nearly 3,500 miles away from Peru, United States Senator James Inhofe is in Washington D.C., representing Oklahoma in the United States Senate. Senator Inhofe is one of the loudest preachers of the belief that global warming is not the dire threat that so many scientists make it out to be. Inhofe has claimed that it is “arrogant for people to believe human beings are able to change what He (God) is doing in the climate” (Tashman). The Senator believes that only God controls the climate and the environment, and to even think that humans are impacting the earth’s climate is misguided (Tashman). These two opposing viewpoints bring with them questions of religion, politics, human responsibility, and ultimately the fate of the planet. On one side, there are those who say that the science is so concrete, and the