Our human race's biggest challenge today is climate change. Indisputable, Earth is facing global warming. The Earth's average tem...
Our human race's biggest challenge today is climate change. Indisputable, Earth is facing global warming. The Earth's average temperature is rising. We can see it in many ways. Not just because the winters become milder and the summers become hotter, but the snow level is in recess. Some parts of the Earth become drier, and the extreme weather becomes more frequent.
Even if there are arguments what causes the climate change, whether it is a natural process, or it is caused by the human, it is a scientific fact that the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere is rising and it is at high as it was million years ago, when the Earth climate was much warmer than it is today. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, if it is more in the atmosphere than the Earth's heat radiation is less backward into space. These are scientific facts, no question about it. And no need to think about too much where this unbalanced, extra, rising level of carbon dioxide comes from. Since the nineteen hundred industrial revolutions, we are excessively using carbon-based fuel to create power for our society. This carbon confinement was created hundreds of millions of years ago, now we are releasing it back into the atmosphere just within a few decades. It is an extreme effect in a very short period of time on the balance of the material cycle of the atmosphere, which only can be compared to extreme volcanic activity in earlier times. And when this quick change happened earlier, it always followed by a mass extinction in the living environment.
This environmental catastrophe would be devastating for the human race too. Not just because of the danger of the changing climate and weather, but because of the stress on the Earth's flora and fauna. The environment is a complex, balanced system. Change in this balance can collapse the complex fragile system and requires a lot of time until it finds its new equilibrium again. We, the human, we are still part of this system. If the system collapses, we are in danger. Many other living creatures are wiped out earlier in similar catastrophic situations.
The environmental change is happening right now in an accelerating manner. Most likely, we are the cause. We created, and we are creating an unbalance in the environment. Our unbalanced, unrecycled consumption abuses the Earth's environment, tips over the Earth's fine equilibrium. We cause and we also suffer from the effects of the changes.
We might think we can still prevent global warming if we change our lifestyle. We try to reduce our carbon-based energy consumption by developing more efficient technology, utilizing renewable energy sources, and recycle waste products. Our politicians with the support of scientists specify deadlines prevent to exceed specific limits as they would be critical tipping points where no turnaround in global warming, and hoping these efforts would help.
These are futile efforts. The die long time cast. Not because our knowledge of science or technology could not prevent climate change. We know what causes it, we know what we should do against it. Our biggest problem is not in our limited knowledge but in our society and our behavior. We are social but selfish species. We have difficulty to make sacrifices on a personal or social level also. We can solve challenges when we have no other choices, or it can cause direct benefit, and not just sometimes in the distant future. We are this kind of species. We must accept it. This behavior has evolutionary advantages. It helped us to survive. It is in our genes, even if we do not need it in this form anymore. It is our inheritance and our fate and destiny.
Realistically, we cannot prevent global climate change. We can fool ourselves with false hopes, but we won't be able to do it. We, at least, can try to reduce its extent. We should drastically change our lifestyle to scale down global warming. It should require personal and social level sacrifices. Some of us might be capable of making the necessary changes, but most of us make lifestyle sacrifices only if no other choice presents, or it creates direct better life circumstances. And it is even more valid for our political leaders who are making the societal level decisions.
We can try and we are trying to prevent global climate change. However, instead, we should concentrate to prepare for it. It will come even if our best efforts. The die already cast. We already at the stage from where no return. Not because of theoretical reasons, rather society and leadership incapabilities. Realistically, we are incapable of preventing global climate change.
What should we prepare for? We already see many of the effects of global warming. The quickly rising average temperature causes climate changes, dryer seasons, rising sea levels, and extreme weather anomalies. What happened rarely, it becomes to be frequent. Devastating rain, wind, and firestorms, rising sea levels can wipe out residential communities. These are catastrophic events, but it is not a major risk for global societies. We can adjust our living for extreme weather anomalies. The worst, which is the major risk for the human race is somewhere else.
Global warming happened before on the Earth, we have scientific evidence about these times. When the environment on the Earth changes quicker than the biological evolution of the species can adapt to these changes, then ultimately mass extinction happens in the living environment. We are already experiencing this mass extinction. Extinction happens not just because of climate change but our other activity also. We are abusing our environment through our consumption. We are breaking the natural food chains extensively. Only this effect can create mass extinction, but as it has happened before several times, different negative effects act at the same time magnifying each other. Our activity causes several stresses on the environment, enhancing each other's effect. Mass extinction is the major problem of today's environmental changes.
What can the global warming cause for us? It causes personal and social level suffering, food shortages, mass migration, the decline of the societies. These are negative effects but could be handled by competent leadership. However, when a society is under stress, leadership incapabilities arises. Political extremists get power and want to solve social problems by appointing usually false and innocent enemies to fight against them to drain distresses of the society. These efforts rarely solve real problems. This is just a short term, temporary, false solutions for real problems. Political incompetence ultimately leads to local and global, and as we experience it in our times, to proxy wars.
These are the negative effects. However, this is not all. There is hope. Our species are smart problem solvers. If society supports it, the must-do something pressure can create smart and competent reactions. Accelerated scientific and technological advances and development can take place. Open and flexible societies can give birth to real solutions to real problems. If it is a must, we are doing it, and we can create solutions.
Even if we can't prevent this global warming, still we can prepare for it. Lots of things can be done for preparation from the smallest personal things to the society level changes. In food production, we need to make more vegetables and fewer meat products and move to artificial production. We should do it by using less water and even less insect assistance. In food consumption, we need to waste much less and distribute more efficiently. We need to prepare for wild weather anomalies by more feasible housing, more practical and protectable urbanization, and more suitable transportation. We need to prepare for mass migration because of the rising sea levels and spreading drought. Not by creating walls but by creating institutional systems to accept and integrate those who mast move and find a new place to live. Need to maintain strong societies, which are able to provide opportunities for adopting different cultural backgrounds. We need to prepare population decline by making the economy more productive and less dependent on human resources, and we need to handle overpopulation as well by education and improvement in living standards. To achieve this, primary we must find effective societal leadership methods replacing what we have now.
These are difficult but achievable tasks. It is necessary for us to survive as a species. We need to concentrate our efforts on preparation. It would prepare us for the apparent challenge and would help to solve or avoid further ones. We need to move to a self-supporting lifestyle. Science and technology need to advance in the direction of what we take, we give it back also. It can be done in harmony with the environment, or it can be done in a way, that we create everything we need in a self-sustained manner, without the dependence on the actual environment. We need to go back to nature, or we need to leave it completely. Our capabilities are adequate to achieve this, and it is a necessity for us to survive. Our societal and technological development needs to aim at these goals. This is a complex task, but only our greediness, our biggest obstacle needs to be overcome. Everything else is just time and effort.
We are smart survivors. We won't extinct, even if mass extinction happens on the Earth. We are the most capable species to adapt to different circumstances. We learned to live in the most extreme environments on the Earth, from the arctic to the high mountains. We put our footsteps, even if not self-supporting manners, under the sea, in the space, and on the Moon. Our ever-growing knowledge of science and technology supports us. Our biggest difficulties are related to societal challenges, how to apply science and technology to benefit society. If we can overcome the societal and leadership difficulties, our species can survive. Then global climate change and mass extinction mean only challenge and not a risk for us. It does not mean we can live in paradise then. Continuous challenges are ahead of us, but despite all the difficulties it can cause, we are able to, and we will find the solutions.
We can do it because we are not under the effect of the slow biological evolution, but we are now determined by the much faster, technological evolution. Only our societal evolution needs to happen faster. Even if we ruin our Earth, it would recover by itself if it is possible at all. Ultimately, we need to learn a self-sufficient lifestyle in any environmental circumstances. We need to, and eventually, we will become advanced panspermia to spread not just the life but the intelligence and consciousness in the universe.
We will be one step closer to this stage if we prepare ourselves for global warming, and in this way, we let us be closer to our final destiny.
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