Causes and predictions concerning climate change

Welcome to my presentation on climate change. I will be talking about who and what are responsible for our rising temperatures, and what our future consequences are if we continue down this track.

There are very few people that still deny that Earth is heating. Earth’s temperature has rose approximately a degree Celsius throughout the previous century. The 10 hottest years recorded are all after 1998, with 2016 being the hottest ever. There should not be any doubt as to wether or not humans contribute to this.

Predictions have been made that by the end of the century, the Earth’s temperature will have risen enough to have melted a lot of our polar ice caps. If this happens, a lot of our land will then be under water, entire cities completely drowned. Our sea levels are also predicted to rise by anywhere between 30 and 120cm by the year 2100. Here’s a map of what Australia would look like if all of the ice melted. We would gain in inland sea, and lose most of our coast, an area where 4 out of 5 Australians reside.

Global warming is caused by our atmosphere having too much carbon dioxide in it. Earth’s atmosphere now has 34% more carbon dioxide in it than it had in the 17th century. There is no doubt that humans are mainly responsible for this, but what are some of our major contributors to this?

Our transportation is responsible for just under 25% of carbon dioxide emissions. We must better utilize sustainable transport in order to lower these numbers. Lots of countries are attempting to use more sustainable public transportation, but no-one is doing nearly enough. Our emissions are still incredibly high, we have to start taking these threats more seriously and implement real change.

Gas, oil and coal that are used to create heat and electricity make up just over 25% of our greenhouse gases globally. There are over 1. 2 billion people on the plane that don’t have access to electricity, but as countries develop more, there will be a time where practically everyone has it, and we need to start using cleaner energy sources long before then if we could possibly hope to make a noticeable difference. Besides, fossil fuels are finite and we will eventually run out of them.

Agriculture accounts for more than 11% of our carbon dioxide emissions. Deforestation for agriculture means that our forests don’t absorb as much carbon dioxide as before, meaning more of it goes into the Earth’s atmosphere. A couple of the biggest contributors for releasing methane, another greenhouse gas, are the Asian rice paddies and the United States cattle industry.

Humans are destroying the Earth. But it isn’t too late to try and make a difference, to stop this senseless destruction that is used to satisfy our own greed. I hope that one day this issue is taken more seriously and we make some serious changes to the way we live our lives.