This Is The Reality Of The Climate Crisis

[Dobhal, Shivani]

https://cleantechnica.com/2017/04/24/reality-climate-crisis/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+IM-cleantechnica+%28CleanTechnica%29

[Arslan Ijaz]

Global warming is an alarming issue/challenge for human beings. Increase in the average earth surface's temperature is effecting the melting rate of glaciers and sea ice, causing them to melt faster. As a result of that, sea level will go up and ultimately threatens millions of people. Like many other people, author has brought up this important issue. I just don't understand how can people deny this and say that climate has not been changing. We have a shift in the weather seasons, summer is being hotter and winter is being colder. Author has tried to realize the importance of the climate change, but I don't really agree with his approach. Although he is right about those people that weather change is affecting them more but it is definitely effecting other people as well. Sooner or later, everyone will be effected by this climate change. So rather than mentioning those people, he could have addressed it in a broader sense. If we have to work on this issue to stop it, we need every body to be worried about it and play their fair part in it. We have to work together and come up with alternatives to fossil fuels so we can stop polluting the environment. We need to think about our future generations. We need to move on to sustainable energy resources. It is definitely a good initiative to conduct these marches to make dumb people realize about the importance of this alarming situation. I hope they realize it.  

[Chun S]

According to EIA, in 2016, emissions of CO2 by the U.S. electric power sectors were 1,821 million metric tons, about 35% of the total U.S. energy-related CO2 emissions. And 68% of it came from its coal power plants and 30% from gas plants, and 30% from transportation. The use of clean energy has become increasingly important subject and issues in recent years. The technology advance in renewable energy are something that many countries and firms are heavily investing in these years as well, no matter they do it this just because afraid of high carbon tax or actually care about the environment, it will benefit the world. As we have seen many of automobile firms have been launching hybrid cars, and a few of them already have pure electric vehicles for the customers. The current major challenge is car charging station is not widespread yet, the charging time is not efficiency as gasoline station, and the biggest barrier is too pricy. These problems are getting better. However, the renewable energy is still not ready to replace the current primary fossil fuels in the electricity wise, such as coal, petroleum, and natural gas. The renewable energy – solar power and wind power can reduce the use of current coal and petroleum, and I’m looking forward to it.

[Martinez, Alfred S.]

Arslan, I agree with you in that I do not agree with the author's approach to convey his message. Although there is merit in his claims of the climate crisis, some of his arguments are a bit of a stretch and somewhat unfounded without any substantiated evidence. Yes, one may have to make leaps to get one's point across; however, one must make sure that his or her claims are valid and supported with unequivocal facts. For example, when he describes how women are affected - he drives the point that the climate crisis may be a direct detriment to a woman's career. This to me a really powerful claim because income is a critical aspect for one's livelihood. However, this comes across with a general statement with no hard values to back it up.

Another example of an unsubstantiated claim is the following line directly from the article: "Most troubling, though, is the fact that the biggest impacts children could suffer might be the ones that we have yet to see." Which again, the author makes an attempt to draw out the fear from the readers. I am not arguing that these claims are not true, but I would only like to see this verified with definitive values. 

I do agree and hope most others do as well - which obviously isn't the case otherwise these discussions wouldn't be had - but we all must do our part as we all hope for a safe and sustainable future.

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One interesting tidbit that popped up in my news feed: the US reached a milestone back in March, as reported from National Geographic, that for the first time, sources of renewable energy accounted for 10% of energy generation across the country. 8% in wind power, 2% in solar power. Although, 10% doesn't sound like much, it's a step in the green direction for the US. See link below for article:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/06/solar-wind-renewable-energy-record/

[Arslan Ijaz]

Alfred, you picked out some good points. I was not agree with his over all approach by excluding the high class people and just including certain people claiming to be effected most by the climate change. As you mentioned, even these claims are not supported very well. I believe to make this change, we need to convince a part of the influential people who are sitting in the parliament that they are on the equal risk as other people. This climate crises is going to effect them as well. We need to categories the factors which are negatively effecting the climate and then starting from the worst one, we need  government support to stop the use of that specific product and find an alternative to replace it at a reduced cost. Even though we are moving in that direction, but at first we need to convince every body that there is something like climate change and we need to take actions to stop it. Once we are there, then we can work together at top as well as lower level to resolve the issue. 

[Dobhal, Shivani]

Like Aslan mentioned, Alfred makes sense in his observation as to how the author makes some fairly big statements related to women and children and how minorities seem to be the most affected. However, I believe this article has a dramatic undertone only to alarm its readers to a certain extent. Climate change is real, but obviously not everyone seems to be paying close attention to it. I think the author chose these underrepresented groups on purpose, since our society tends to empathize with certain groups of people( women, children, indigenous people etc) more than others and he is basically using that to create awareness, and I do not see anything wrong in that. I am sure he/she and their organization are well aware that climate change is not a genetic disease that would affect one group of people more than the other. It is a societal issue created by the people, affecting the people. I work in healthcare and I could provide some recent examples of how certain viral outbreaks in recent times have affected children more than other age groups. Zika virus outbreak, for instance, that hit most of Latin America recently had several studies claiming that climate change and warmer temperatures are major contributors to certain deadly mosquito strains causing congenital birth defects amongst newborns. Climate change is directly responsible (through higher temperatures, creating perfect breeding habitat for mosquitoes) for increased cases of West Nile virus and dengue fever, again diseases common amongst children. It's higher impact on immigrants and refuges also makes complete sense, since these are the groups that tend to live in unfavorable conditions in their initial years in this country. Lastly, socially organized events such as this climate change march are a concrete form of advocacy and it's only through these combined efforts by not just 100's but 1000's of people that someone higher up in the political hierarchy would actually sit up and notice. 

[wmt3]

I think one of the biggest issues passing any green legislature in the United States right now is the immediate negative impact it would have on the American economy. I think that we have invested so heavily into fossil fuels sources and solidified our energy needs through coal that switching over to greener sustainable fuels may have some negative impacts on our economy initially. Chun pointed out that "68% of CO2 emissions come from coal power plants" and Alfred stated that "renewable energy accounted for 10% of energy generation". Those are pretty drastic differences. So much of the american energy sector is based off of the use of coal that switching over to green would require great amounts of investing and restructuring. 

I truly hope this doesn't sound like I am supporting the continued use of fossil fuels, I am all for sustainable development. In my opinion, at the end of the day the limiting factor in a green future is the US governments willingness to allocate a large amount of money towards green development. Given the current administrations capitalistic views, its possible to see why they are more willing to work in favor of keeping big oil around rather than going green. Generous "donations" and party endorsements have plagues the current administration. In my honest opinion I think Washingston deep down knows that climate change is real, they just don't care to admit it because the rewards in endorsing big oil are too good for them to admit otherwise.