Protecting The Earth and Saving Our Climate - Akinola Babatunde

 Our Earth is in great danger! And frankly speaking, protecting the Earth is our responsibility, first as individuals or industries, then as a nation. The damage the earth has experienced so far is human induced. It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed climate changes and warming since the mid 20th century. This presentation aims at making a statement about protecting our Environment and our Earth. By this, we mean creating a favorable and conducive climate we can live in, not just for us and the present times, but for several generations and thousands of years to come. This article should spur you to action and encourage you to begin to take steps in your homes, religious settings, institutions and personal lives on protecting our earth and reducing the amount of human induced gases, leading to the untimely death of the earth and its inhabitants. We will discuss the effect of our in-action as humans as it concerns hazardous gases in the atmosphere, warmer/colder climatic conditions, the human health, food, water and agriculture in general. What are the evidences that our earth is in danger? What are the proofs of climate change that could endanger the lives and future?

The first evidence is increase in CO₂ (carbon dioxide) concentrations and emissions. CO₂ is a green house gas. Green house gases cause the earth to become warmer. These gases act like blanket that prevent heat radiation from escaping into space, thereby increasing the earth surface temperature. According to Keeling et al. (1976) and Pales & Keeling (1965), there has been an increase in CO₂ from 316 ppm (parts per million) to 391 ppm between 1958 and 2012. This is about 25% increase 54 years. Since 1959, about 350 billion metric tons of carbon has been emitted through human activity; 45% of these have remained in the atmosphere while the remaining 55% is absorbed by the ocean. The present atmospheric CO₂ concentrations are higher than any time in the last 15 million years (Tripati, Roberts, and Eagle 2009). This tells us that the earth will get warmer/hotter, endangering its inhabitants. The more the green house gases, the higher the global mean temperature will rise. Global mean temperature is now 0.8°C above the preindustrial levels. This increase is caused by human induced (anthropogenic) gases. Currently we are at the brink of a 2°C warmer world. Projections have it that by the end of this century, we may experience a 4°C warmer world - this should be avoided! Even a 2°C world is unacceptable.

The increase in ocean heat storage is another proof that our earth is in danger. Approximately 93% of the additional heat absorbed by the earth system resulting from an increase in green house gas concentration since 1955 is stored in the ocean (Levitus et al., 2012). Between 1955 and 2010, the world’s oceans, to a depth of 2000 meters, have warmed on average by 0.09°C. The effect of this is adverse on fisheries, especially in tropical regions as they migrate from tropical countries to cooler waters. In addition, warming ocean surface can boost stratification (formation of water layers based on saltiness and temperature of water), potentially limiting nutrient availability to primary producers. Also, ocean warming damages the marine ecosystems and interferes with global ocean production. This happens when there is an expansion in ocean hypoxic zones (dead zones or low oxygen areas) due to ocean warming. In this case the ocean basin becomes less habitable for marine habitats (Stramma et al., 2011).

Third evidence that climate change could endanger our present and future is the experience of heat waves and extreme temperatures. The past 10 to 15 years witnessed exceptional number of heat waves around the world that each caused severe societal impacts. Examples of such are European heat waves of 2003 (led to 70,000 deaths), Greek heat wave of 2007, Australian heat wave of 2009, Russian heat wave of 2010 (led to 55,000 deaths and more than 1 million hectares of burned land), Texas heat wave of 2011, and U.S heat wave of 2012 (total burned area of 7.72 million acres). The unpalatable effects of such heat waves are: many heat related deaths, forest fires, and harvest losses. All these are due to human influence on the climate. Wouldn’t we rather protect our climate and earth?

Lastly, the effect of anthropogenic gases on agriculture is enormous. Dry regions are getting drier, and wet regions are getting wetter. Warming due to human induced gases lead to more evaporation and evapotranspiration, which enhances surface drying, and in turn the intensity and duration of droughts (Trenberth 2010). Droughts have been on the increase; sown areas for all major crops have increasingly experienced drought, with drought affected areas for maize increasing from 8.5% to 18.6% since 1960s; this is more than double! It has been seen and proven that global crop production has been negatively affected by climate trends. This has led to billions of dollars of total economic losses (and still counting) as the case is with Russia in 2010.

In conclusion, we should begin to ask ourselves, what can we do to protect our earth, and save our climate and environment? What legacy and statements am we making towards making our climate cleaner and safer? Whatever we decide at personal level, industrial, local, national and global levels, we must ensure the reduction of anthropogenic green house gases (particularly CO₂), which will in turn reduce global warming, and all its negative effects enumerated above. We must join hands to protect our earth and climate so we can secure our future and that of the generations unborn. Thank you.

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