There is no denying that global warming and the fast-paced climate change are very serious issues and need our urgent attention. The global increase in temperature has been influencing the physical, biological, and human systems. Variations in physical systems can be observed in the melting of the poles, which are correspondingly causing glacial regression, snow melting, warming and thawing of permafrost, flooding as well as droughts in lakes and rivers, coastal erosion, sea level rise, and extreme natural phenomenons. In the biological systems, flora and fauna in terrestrial and marine ecosystems are dying, many species are on the verge of extinction and some have already gone extinct.
There is displacement happening in the case of many flora and fauna in search of better survival conditions. In human systems, climate changes effects and destroys crops and overall food production causes diseases and deaths. The increasing destruction and loss of economic livelihoods have also increased the migration of climate refugees. These negative consequences are interrelated and thus feed each other back and increase in magnitude, for example; Droughts frequently cause wildfires, which then destroy crops. The melting of glaciers, ice and snow causes sea level rise, which then erodes the coast and involves the destruction of many economic means of subsistence.
While warning about the global impact of climate change continue to mount, Ryan Maia a student at Northeastern University believes we need to turn our attention toward the solutions to climate change than the risk it poses to people and the environment. In 2017, Maia visited Singapore and interviewed leaders at some non-government organisations, universities, and government officials. There he learned about a program that recycles sewage into clean drinkable water, businesses committed to reducing the packaging for their products, and a city park design to help prevent flooding.
He says the experienced opened his eyes to the solutions that exist out there and the potential for the solutions that exist around the world. Maia co-founded EcoScholars, a program in which students of Northeastern University teach lessons on environmental education to children at after-school programs in Boston. They teach about climate change explaining how people contribute to it, how it affects people and the world, and how people can fight it. When we start talking about the problems we create awareness about it, if every person does his part, we will come closer to our goals in fighting climate change.
Mayuri Talgaonkar