Climate change has so many topics and areas that can be discussed here. I recently learned about the rapid melting of our ice sheets in both Antarctica and Greenland. Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets are losing three times as much ice per year as they were 30 years ago. Greenland specifically is melting at very unexpectedly high rates. The newest data on record shows the combined ice sheets are melting approximately 410 billion tons of ice per year. More than 2/3 of that are just from Greenland.
I think what is important to understand here is that scientists have realized that the ice is melting faster than they could have anticipated. The ice sheet melting is devastating for these reasons, sea level rise, mass flooding of huge areas, mass migration, and warming of our climate. The things that we humans do are causing our planet to heat up faster. Oil and gas are the main problem but there are many more. Meat consumption, electricity use, plastic use, water waste, and over consumption to name a few.
Humans created this problem, we put every single species on this planet at risk due to our greed and overconsumption of everything. Humans have to fix this. We need to stop consuming so much of everything. We need to use less and less plastic until we completely eliminate plastic from being produced. We need to use less and less electricity until all electricity is sustainable. We need to eat less and less meat and demand our animals we raise for consumption are sustainable and healthy, specifically not using antibiotics or chemicals. We need to get rid of our gas consuming vehicles and replace them with sustainable electric vehicles. We need to do this with everything that uses gas. We need to get to a point where gas and coal are never used in our society again. It’s a lot I know. It’s going to take time. I personally have 3 kids and 5 grandkids. What I do today affects their future. I hope that I can teach them to live sustainably. I hope that they will understand how important it is to do the right thing now. What they do today affects their tomorrow. I have huge faith in humanity, I believe that we can fix this. We just need to all come together and come up with solutions to these problems and make a change so that our future is a stronger, healthier, cleaner planet.
