The short answer is yes, and today I’m gonna talk about our current situation and if we should be worried. Global warming is a problem that the world is facing and has been facing for years now, and whether we notice it or not, it is slowly killing our planet.

On November 30th, 2015, the United Nations held a meeting to discuss the importance of global warming called the “Climate Change Conference” , and in this conference they agreed to try to slow the global warming down to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Before we go on, I should let you know what that means, compared to pre-industrial times (1880-1920) the global temperature has risen by 1.2 degrees Celsius, and it was continuing to rise, so they wanted to slow this down by dedicating more to keep the temperature down to just 1.5 degrees Celsius. We failed to meet this goal and have overshot it, reaching nearly 1.6 degrees Celsius.

Now why would it matter if the earth heats up a couple degrees? Well it could affect major climates drastically, such as the northern snowy regions might start melting (which they already have) and this could lead to rise in oceans around the world, meaning major cities like London, San Francisco, New York, Seattle, and many more would be underwater in just a couple decades.

As I had mentioned before, the spike in temperature could not only be deadly for our oceans, but it can also wipe out our tropical forests, and pretty much any other ecosystem our lush green earth has to hold, and we would turn into just another floating desert. This would happen if we ever reached 4 degrees Celsius.

Now are we doomed to watch humanity fall? I wouldn’t say so just yet, humanity is very innovative, INCREDIBLY innovative, and we have come up with several products that can limit climate change by a lot and one day even potentially stop it for good. Things like wind turbines, solar panels, hydroelectric dams, electric cars, and carbon capture are all things that exist and will hopefully become cheaper over the years. The cheaper an item it is, the more likely it is for governments to go with that.

Another thing that is affecting us are facility like coal burning facilities that spread carbon dioxide every day, and the owners of these facilities would rather sacrifice humanity’s future for a few years of being rich beyond belief and having all the money to themselves. They will try to keep the coal burning industry alive as long as they can because it puts money in their pockets, but the cheaper we make eco-friendly products, the harder it will be for them to spend billions of dollars to keep coal burning production up. As the world starts to realize its easier to become green, these coal burning facilities will become the number one enemy.

Don’t forget, while you may not have billions of dollars to spend, you can still help affect climate change. You can help by voting for people who will take action on climate change, while you yourself may not be able to do it, you can still tell your parents to vote for them. In order for all this stuff to TRULY work, we need governments who care about the environment, and as more and more younger people get elected into government positions, they are raising more awareness about climate change, and we need to induct more of those people into our governments, whether local, or national.

In conclusion, even though everything may seem all gloom and doom, we actually have a very optimistic outlook right now, with amazing scientists coming up with new products every day to help slow climate change, we have an almost certain chance of avoiding humanity’s doom.

Sources:

CNBC.com|Insideclimatenews.org|Youtube(Kurzgesagt-In a Nutshell)|UNFCCC.int| detroittimes.com|latimes.com|thegaurdian.com|