Climate Change: The Root Cause Of Climate Change

The Root Cause of Climate Change

Climate change is a major issue that is only going to get worse. Climate change is a change in global or regional climate patterns. It has become more apparent since the mid to late 20th century onwards and is attributed largely to the increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide produced by the use of fossil fuels. Climate change has been an important issue for decades that has effects on the environment and people of the world with the end result potentially being catastrophic. Although many believe that prolific use of fossil fuels is the direct cause of climate change, there are many more underlying causes including population expansion as well as irresponsible consumption of natural resources that have

Population control is a practice of altering the growth rate of a human population. In the excerpt, Hardin explains that only the rich have food reserved because they can afford it, and that the poor are the ones who eat it all. Because of the world food bank, where anyone can take from, the poor countries’ populations will continue to grow, going unchecked. This is harmful because there are overpopulated countries that cannot sustain themselves. Hardin says, “Without some system of worldwide food sharing, the proportion of people in the rich and poor nations might eventually stabilize. The overpopulated poor countries would decrease in numbers” (Hardin 588). The poor countries have no way of adding any food to the food bank and are just taking from it. This makes it hard for other countries to rationalize why they should support any poor country that is over populated and that is using up unnecessary resources because it does not benefit them in any economic or agricultural way.

Third world countries have an immense of number of issues arising, especially regarding the environment. The country of India is a perfect example used by Garrett Hardin in “Life Boat Ethics.” In one of Hardin’s excerpts, Overloading the Environment, he explains the problems happening when the population is growing too big for the environments carrying capacity. The carrying capacity is the maximum population size that an environment can sustain to its

As stated before climate change is a change in global or regional climate patterns. Climate change is expected to have the largest impact on the oceans and other large bodies of water especially through flooding and droughts. A few effects from climate change include rising sea levels due to thermal expansion and melting of glaciers, which will warm the ocean surface, and increase core temperature. Going back to Holthaus’ article he states that, “Possibly worse than rising ocean temperatures is the acidification of the water. Acidification has a direct effect on mollusks and other marine animals with hard outer bodies” (Holthaus). Acidification is the lowering of the oceans pH level, and this happens from carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere. Climate change is effecting significant streams, because water levels in rivers and the rising temperatures are killing fish, especially salmon, that are unable to survive in these rivers. Holthaus says, “Salmon are crucial to their coastal ecosystem like perhaps few other species on the planet. A significant portion of the nitrogen in West Coast forests has been traced back to salmon, which can travel hundreds of miles upstream to lay their eggs. The largest trees on Earth simply wouldn 't exist without salmon” (Holthaus). With the warm and low level of water, there would not be any salmon and, without these salmon populating the rivers there would not be an