Hey Guys,
Hope you are all doing well.
I have heard the argument recently that what we see happening to our climate at the moment, climate change, may not actually be the fault of humans.
There are definitely some solid scientific foundations for this argument. It is true that natural changes have been happening to our planet for millions and millions of years and our atmosphere is constantly changing, whether for worse or better. Some of these events have caused massive catastrophe such as the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. Natural changes in the modern world are happening through a variety of natural events such as variations in the suns orbit, solar activity, volcanic eruptions etc. However, it has also been observed that there is currently more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere today than there has been in the past 1 million years, and this is undoubtedly due to human influence.
Carbon dioxide has the largest overall influence on the planet than all other gases combined. Humans are putting an estimated 9.5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year by burning fossil fuels, and another 1.5 billion through deforestation and other land cover changes and since 1750, humans have increased the abundance of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by nearly 50%. There is absolutely no denying that climate change, particularly the influence of carbon dioxide is caused by humans.
Climate change is happening and it is because of human activity.
We don’t need to feel a huge amount of guilt because of the actions of our ancestors that started the chain of climate change. As Adam Frank argues “we didn’t change the planet because we were greedy. We did it by mistake.” (Frank, 2015) And it is true that when we first started producing these devastating gases, we did so because it benefitted the human race and we could not yet see the consequences. However, now things have changed, we do know the consequences and “while triggering climate change may not be our fault, not doing everything we can now that we know it’s happening – that would be our fault.” (Frank, 2015)
References:
Frank, A. ‘Climate change is not our fault’ in Cosmos and Culture (2015) Available at: https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2015/10/06/446109168/climate-change-is-not-our-fault?t=1659441440692
Thank you again for reading. Any support I get on here means the world to me.
For more information please visit:
https://www.bartleby.com/essay/Climate-Change-Is-Our-Fault-FKYXEDQ3PVDX
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/are-humans-causing-or-contributing-global-warming
https://www.nationalacademies.org/based-on-science/climate-change-humans-are-causing-global-warming
https://www.cnet.com/science/guess-what-global-warming-is-real-and-its-our-fault/
And follow me on social media:
Twitter – EllaBaxter2001
Instagram – ella_baxter27 / ellasecojournal
Ella's Eco Journal 