The current state of the environment is classified as disturbing. Various pieces of evidence prove that the climate change is a real problem facing the today’s society. While some officials still deny the existence of this problem, various weather disasters become more frequent each year, causing changes in people’s lives.
Scientific Evaluation
Asia
One of the most unstable regions affected by floods is the coastal line of Asia. Oppenheimer and Anttila-Hughes mention the rise of the sea level, which already shows itself in episodic coastal floods and will further result in the loss of lands (26). In 2011-2012 Thailand suffered from a set of tropical storms, which filled vast territories with water. Thousands of people were forced to leave their homes, and hundreds were pleaded dead or missing. Along with the social disaster, the economic situation was dramatic, as many crops died. People in the Asian coastal region are constantly experiencing the farming insecurity, for they never know whether the storms would hit each year. The climate variability strongly affects the world economics and food supply since the area is the major producer of rice and fruit.
North America
Heat can be just as destructive as water. The research article by Keeley and Syphard features the graph, which shows the correlation between the average temperature and the territories suffered from fires in California and Nevada (5). The real estate market does not demonstrate the decrease in prices of Californian houses. However, there is no demand for them since people are afraid their homes will be burned by nature. Moreover, the smog causes respiratory diseases making citizens spend more money on the health care, and the sun activity forces them to buy expensive cosmetics with SPF filters for protection from melanoma.
Europe
French wine is one of the most famous products in the world. However, its production is heavily affected by climate. Grapes require stable weather conditions to become suitable for making wine. Although France is considered to have the least climate variability among the other European countries (Hannaha et al. 6908), farmers are still concerned about the cases of the recent years. Heat dries out the land and grapes die if not watered artificially. Watering the vast areas requires more workers and increases the production costs.
Opposition
Despite the obvious facts supporting the climate change theory, there are people who do not believe them to be true. The recent poll conducted worldwide offers results which show that the USA has the largest portion of citizens denying the climate change (Roberts par. 2). Reasons for this position may vary. Some people live in places not so heavily affected by nature such as the major cities, especially those situated in the north and the middle of the continent. Others just do not believe that humanity has enough power to change the whole planet. Some of the individuals denying the global warming are politicians who view the problem as artificial and created by their opponents.
Solutions
The global warming is the direct threat to the existence of the mankind. One of the possible solutions to this problem lies in reducing the so-called ecological footprint of each individual. Everyone should be more responsible for such things as the water and electricity usage, the waste recycling, the air pollution, etc. However, these steps will not cause significant changes if the government does not take action. It should enforce laws prohibiting the usage of unsustainable technologies or at least imposing higher taxes on them so that the financing will cover their adverse impact.
Conclusion
The climate change is the problem which needs to be addressed urgently. Various pieces of evidence prove that the planet is changing each year. The action must be taken now before the destruction processes become permanent.
Work Cited
Hannaha, Lee, et al. “Climate Change, Wine, and Conservation.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 110, no. 17, 2013, pp. 6907-6912.
Keeley, Jon E., and Alexandra D. Syphard. “Climate Change and Future Fire Regimes: Examples from California.” Geosciences, vol. 6, no. 3, 2016, pp. 1-14.
Oppenheimer, Michael, and Jesse K. Anttila-Hughes. “The Science of Climate Change.” Future of Children, vol. 26, no. 1, 2016, pp. 11-30.
Roberts, Tom. “Funding Climate Change Denial.” National Catholic Reporter [Kansas City, MO], 2015, pp. 12-13.