Do you think we are desirable to live in this modern world without worrying about nature? Climate change is becoming more and more widespread and hot topic in every country because of the effects and consequences of the climate change that people are suffering today. In 2013, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report concluded that “It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed climate change since the mid-20th century”. Although there is a debatable topic about global climate change like that, it is believed that climate change has been caused mainly because of the human actions including 1) Deforestation, 2) Intensive Farming and 3) Industrial Revolution.
The first scenario where climate change is due to human actions can be proved in deforestation. Deforestation occurs around the world, though tropical rainforests are particularly targeted. There are many causes of deforestation including; making more land available for housing and urbanization, harvesting timber to create commercial items such as paper, furniture and homes, creating ingredients that are highly prized consumer items, such as the oil from palm trees and so on. The deforestation of trees not only lessens the amount of carbon stored, it also releases carbon dioxide into the air; so the more CO₂ in the air, the more the atmosphere will tend to warm up. Deforestation is the second largest anthropogenic (human-caused) source of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, ranging between 6 percent and 17 percent (Van Der Werf, G. R. et al., 2009). NASA also predicts that if current deforestation levels proceed, the world’s rainforests may be completely in as little as 100 years. Based on these research and findings from NASA and scientists, deforestation (man-made action) is considered to be one of the contributing factors to global climate change.
Along with the concern of deforestation, another question of man-made action which can cause global warming should be, how are intensive farming practices connected to climate change? The point that everybody seems to miss is that climate change is contributing in the meat and dairy industry through intensive farming practices; not the eating meat. The meat and dairy industry through intensive farming practices contributed 18% of greenhouse gases while cows and sheep produce large amounts of methane when they digest their food. The “meat industry” includes meat producers which do not use intensive farming methods such as clearing rain forest to produce livestock, destroying appropriate CO2 stores in soil by tilling, utilizing a large amount of resources to produce a small amount of meat, causing environment degradation from polluted waterways to excess energy in the atmosphere and so on. According to the FAO, when emissions from land use are factored in, the livestock sector accounts for 9 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions derived from human-related activities. Hence, not conducting and following favorable farming strategies to acquire meat and dairy products can cause global warming and this is also one of the facts that can prove climate change is human action.
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Last but not the least, the industrial revolution has dramatically increased the amount of damage the human species is doing to Earth. Therefore, factories and industries which release huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is also another observable factor of human actions which lead to climate change. Factories also contribute to water and land pollution by acidifying rain, chemical spills and disposal of toxic waste. The most damaging greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, is released into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels that are used by the factories; and another harmful gas from the use of fossil fuels is sulfur dioxide, a key ingredient in the formation of acid rain. Rising carbon dioxide concentrations are already causing the planet to heat up and at the same time, the greenhouse gases such as methane, chlorofluorocarbons have been increasing, average global temperatures have risen 0.8 degrees Celsius (1.4 degrees Fahrenheit) since 1880 ( Evans 2006). Meanwhile global average temperature and greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere has been increasing since the mid-20th century, it can be proved that these effects are caused by anthropogenic( man-made) manufacturing and industrialized actions which is also result in climate change across the globe.
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To put it in a nutshell, since scientists trying to find out what’s causing climate change through working like detectives, gathering evidence to rule out some suspects to ascertain just who is responsible. It’s clear, based on over a century of scientific investigation that humans are responsible for most of the climate change we’ve seen over the last 150 years. So, it is undeniable that a lot of man-made actions such as deforestation, increasing livestock farming and raising the numbers of industries and factories to be able to supply the increasing demands of the people are the culprits that are contributing to climate change around the world. Therefore, we should be aware of the climate change including both natural and man-made disasters occurring around the world and try to improve the quality of life for the people through conservation, protection and improvement of the environment including energy and natural resources to ensure the sustainable development efforts for future generations.