Essay on Climate Change

Earth and its atmosphere are slowly dying, climate change is harming animals and plants, plastic is in our ocean, and pollution is filling our atmosphere. We as humans could do so much better to keep the earth a livable place, but instead we treat it like we can replace earth with a snap of your fingers. We are not just hurting earth, we are hurting animals that deserve to live peacefully. Animals are hurt from pollution, climate change, and plastic that is not disposed of properly.

When humans use plastic a lot of the time it ends up in the ocean, because it is not disposed of properly. 50% of the plastic in the ocean is single-use plastic. We have started using more biodegradable items, like straws and utensils when you go and eat out. Some companies have started using biodegradable packaging. Using biodegradable items is helping but it does not help the mess we already made in the ocean. There are “at least 8 million tons of plastic [that] end up in our oceans every year”(IUCN, 2018), which is way too much plastic put into the ocean a year. It takes the ocean about 450 years just to break down a single plastic bottle, imagine how long it would take to break down all the plastic in the ocean. Many different marine animals have been injured or killed due to plastic, thinking it is food. Plastic is not the only thing harming animals, climate change has a huge impact on endangered animals as well. 

Climate change has started to melt the ice in Antarctica, which is causing polar bears to go endangered. Polar bears are at the top of the food chain so if they were to go extinct there would be an increase of other animals that live in the arctic. Polar bears' main meals are seals; seals create breathing holes, if there are no polar bears to decrease the number of breathing holes then in about 100-200 years the ice would break up and split the arctic circle.

If the arctic ice were to melt that means the permafrost would also melt which would not be good because “the world’s permafrost serves as a massive carbon reservoir, storing nearly twice the amount of carbon currently found in the atmosphere” (Green matters 2020). Carbon dioxide is good because it helps plants with photosynthesis, but if there is way too much carbon it can become toxic. The ocean and plants already take up to 55% of extra carbon that we have put into the atmosphere, while the other 45% stays in the atmosphere. Carbon in the ocean causes the ocean to become more acidic, which can harm marine animals. Green turtles are being affected by the ocean and from climate change. There is starting to be way more female turtles then male; the sex of turtles is determined by the tempeture of the sand covering the eggs. If there are no male turtles, that means no reproduction, which leads to extinction. If we want to start stopping the world from slowly dying we have to try harder to keep it a safe place. 

In conclusion,We as humans are starting to do better for earth but not as much as we should be doing. Some people care deeply about earth but then some people are taking advantage of what everyone else is doing to slow down the changes on earth. If humans don't start taking all these problems more seriously, in about 10-12 years sea levels will rise,arctic ice will all be melted, a higher risk of flooding and heat waves will be more frequent.