Climate Change

Mattie Salamon wrote a very interesting article about Climate change.  He too us for a journey through time right from the beginning of our carbon dioxide emission story.  Looking at the data he gathered from the research he carried out, he found patterns in the emission of five countries.  Read the full article to understand the issue well and go through the suggestions Mattie proposed we should be doing to mitigate the carbon dioxide problem and slow down climate change.  This article will be submitted for the Young Reporters for the Environment competition.

When you think about climate change, the first thing that comes to mind, is the pollution of atmosphere, which till this day is a huge problem.

But there are many questions to it: when did it start? Is there a solution? And what can we do to prevent this from getting worse. All these questions will be answered to hopefully give the governments an idea on what to do. Let’s start with when it started. The invention of the factories in the late 1700s by a British man named Arkwright. Original factories were powered by water and steam and later electricity. Obviously, since the factory was created in Great Britain, the British started the production of CO2. Later, this invention was spread out into the world and the five power houses producing CO2 were USA, China, Great Britain, Russia and Germany.

CountryAmount of CO2
Chinan/a
USA21.00
UK124.00
Russia0.07
Germany16.40

Although Russia and China were slow at the beginning, we all know that Russia and China are the two biggest producers of CO2 today. Within 20 years, the production of CO2 tripled, with the USA and UK drastically increasing production.

CountryAmount of CO2
Chinan/a
USA105.00
UK230.00
Russia2.31
Germany82.90

The emissions of Germany, USA and the UK all increased threefold. On the plus side, these countries nowadays try to lower their emissions. Let’s fast forward to after the war. Wars in general make countries produce more CO2 because of the production of military equipment.

CountryAmount of CO2
China87.80
USA2670.00
UK524.00
Russia438.00
Germany550.00

As you can see from the chart you can see that the USA has taken over as the number one producer of CO2 whilst the UK has fallen back a bit.

These days, America still holds the number one spot, but China has clenched the number two spot which is not a good thing. Many countries around the world are agreeing to stop carbon emissions by 2050.

I have one problem with what the government has chosen to do. As many know, the world is trying to stop manufacturing diesel and petrol cars. Although it is a good idea, there are a few cons. To power an electric car, you need a battery. This battery requires electricity, electricity comes from electric socket outlets, electric sockets are powered by power stations.

Most of our power stations operate using non-eco-friendly sources like coal, gas and oil so the more electric cars there are on the road, the more these power stations have to work, which means that more carbon dioxide is pumped into our atmosphere and will cause the atmosphere to heat up faster. So even though this idea is good, we still need to replace our power supply with more eco-friendly sources.

After we do that, maybe then we can consider replacing diesel and petrol cars.
Some countries are making a change. Let’s take Canada for example. 80% of Canada’s energy comes from eco-friendly sources, which is quite impressive. There’s also Bhutan which Is the only carbon neutral country in the world. Some countries like Vancouver have some green buildings, buildings, which have vegetation on them. Factories are being replaced by eco-friendly sources, parks are abundant so it’s going great, but there have been some hiccups like the Russo Ukrainian war, which is unfortunately, still ongoing.

The solution to carbon pollution is to work together. The only time the world worked together was when scientists discovered a hole in the ozone layer and countries worked to stop producing CFCs, which generally came from fridges.
So, we need to take an example from this and use it in the present day when CO2 is at an all time high. It’s so bad that 420 people in the USA die from carbon dioxide poisoning and 100,000 visit the hospital each year. This is only the USA, so imagine the damage being done globally!

People can help as well. They can go out there and plant trees which are the best clean up crew, because threes need carbon dioxide to grow and develop. By planting trees, you are decreasing the amount of carbon in the air. Obviously
planting three trees isn’t going to eliminate climate change but planting a few trees does make a small difference.

The best fighter to carbon pollution is the amazon rainforest which is sadly being cut down to be replaced by palm oil trees. When will we ever learn?!

When are we going to stop being selfish and work to save our planet?!

Hopefully this article will be useful, and this message will hopefully be spread out across the world.

Add Comment