Every day more than 60 people sign up for news and alerts, to find out when their support helps most. Will you join them? Read our privacy policy. How climate change plunders the planet A warming Earth disturbs weather, people, animals and much more.
It's not a major infraction, but not charging electronic gadgets overnight can at least save you some energy and money. When your cell phone, tablet, or laptop is fully charged, the excess energy is simply being wasted. Again, not a major offense but still something to think about.
It takes a surprising amount of water and chemicals to produce jeans. One pair alone uses approximately 2, gallons of water. That's about 70 bathtubs full. Not everyone has the luxury of water availability. In fact, one in nine people worldwide do not have access to safe water. Consider donating old pairs of jeans or keep them for when the fashion cycle inevitably comes around again. Even if you're leaving the room for just a few minutes, it's best to turn the lights off.
Using less electricity reduces the number of toxic fumes emitted by power plants. That's because most plants burn coal, fossil fuel, or crude oil to generate electricity. So turning out the lights will save your electricity bill and the environment. Boiling a full kettle of water to make one cup of tea not only adds to your electric bill, it also wastes a valuable but limited resource. Consider measuring the amount of water needed before boiling and if that's too tedious there are several energy-efficient kettles on the market.
More winter and spring precipitation is projected for the northern United States, and less for the Southwest, over this century. Projections of future climate over the U. This trend is projected to occur even in regions where total precipitation is expected to decrease, such as the Southwest.
These NASA visualizations show model projections of the precipitation changes from to as a percentage difference between the year precipitation averages and the average. The official website for NASA's fleet of Earth science missions that study rainfall and other types precipitation around the globe. How much do you know about Earth's water cycle and the crucial role it plays in our climate? Droughts in the Southwest and heat waves periods of abnormally hot weather lasting days to weeks everywhere are projected to become more intense, and cold waves less intense everywhere.
Summer temperatures are projected to continue rising, and a reduction of soil moisture, which exacerbates heat waves, is projected for much of the western and central U. By the end of this century, what have been once-inyear extreme heat days one-day events are projected to occur every two or three years over most of the nation.
Droughts in the Southwest and Central Plains of the United States in the second half of the 21st century could be drier and longer than anything humans have seen in those regions in the last 1, years, according to a NASA study published in Science Advances on February 12, The intensity, frequency and duration of North Atlantic hurricanes, as well as the frequency of the strongest Category 4 and 5 hurricanes, have all increased since the early s.
The relative contributions of human and natural causes to these increases are still uncertain. Hurricane-associated storm intensity and rainfall rates are projected to increase as the climate continues to warm.
This video explains the findings of this study. Global sea level has risen by about 8 inches since reliable record keeping began in It is projected to rise another 1 to 8 feet by This is the result of added water from melting land ice and the expansion of seawater as it warms. In the next several decades, storm surges and high tides could combine with sea level rise and land subsidence to further increase flooding in many regions.
Ocean waters will therefore continue to warm and sea level will continue to rise for many centuries at rates equal to or higher than those of the current century. Even if we can replace all fossil fuel-based vehicles with electric ones, for example, cities are already struggling to take road space from cars and electric vehicles have their own footprint on the world's resources due to the materials needed to build them. Every step in this direction will have a positive effect. Look at the carbon footprint of our gadgets, the internet and the systems supporting.
It accounts for about 3. It's possible to cut down emissions with one less email or avoiding an unnecessary photo sharing on social media — it may seem like an insignificant reduction from one individual but then add billions of such small actions together. Read more about the impact of our internet activity on the climate. Big technology companies claim they are going green or set goals for carbon neutrality but they rarely encourage people to spend less time on social media or order fewer products.
Rather advertising and marketing models convey powerful messages that reinforce the motto: create and consume more. This irrational savage materialism is ingrained so deeply with traditions and cultural symbols as well. During this ritual, long lines of customers hit the malls and often get injured or trampled — but people are convinced that it's an effort worth the trouble. In the age of Anthropocene, humans may feel entitled to pin hope on technology to fix any problems so that they can continue to do what they are doing.
Faced with the accumulation of long-lived plastic in the environment, for example, a spurt of innovation led to biodegradable coffee cups, bags for life and reusable straws. But while it is true that a sustainable growth model that includes our environment has much larger potential to persist, we need a different approach to sustainability that addresses our massive consumerism. The Covid has reminded us how fragile and unprepared human civilisation is when it comes to even known knowns like a pandemic.
It has also taught us that human behaviour can be modified with minor actions like wearing mask to mitigate the intensity of global tragedies. The passive approach to proliferation of anthropogenic mass is not merely due to the lack of knowledge about its impact, but in general, it has also to do with human inclination t o dismiss facts that don't fit their worldview.
Humans are naturally disposed to disregard issues that are not challenging their daily lives or those which dilute their convenience.
Additionally, humans might find the solace in the thought that nature might equip organisms to survive, no matter what we do. It is true that the slow and gradual, Darwinian-style evolution through natural selection is often overtaken in certain extremely polluted environments.
In , a team of scientists in Japan found a strain of bacteria from bottle recycling facility that can break down and metabolise plastic. On the other hand, this finding shows the subtle and powerful ways in which human actions are changing the life on this planet. The adaptation of organisms in response to pollutants is a complex phenomenon.
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