Climate change is causing impacts and phenomena never seen before, causing loss of life, devastated ecosystems and a net reduction in the biodiversity that sustains our lives.
The Earth is only partially able to convert carbon dioxide and the excess remains trapped in the atmosphere, generating the greenhouse effect. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have reached enormous levels. Global warming will have catastrophic effects such as sea level rising, the increase of the heat waves and periods of intense drought, floods, and the increase of extreme weather events. These phenomena will have a negative impact, damaging food production and beyond. NASA is the one in charge of measuring the gases in the atmosphere thanks to the help of satellites and the help of scientists.
In reality, we human beings have the solution, because even with small daily gestures we can help prevent these catastrophes for present and future generations. For example, we can choose to go for a walk instead of taking the car for short trips and, at home, we can try to waste as little food as possible and save energy by installing photovoltaic panels. Each of us pollutes a lot and we can understand it just by calculating our carbon footprint and seeing our impact on the world.
An environmental activist, Greta Thunberg, leader of the international student movement Fridays for Future, fights against the effects of climate change and for sustainable development. She says “You can still fix things!”. We need to stop logging trees because trees are actually a natural machine that eliminates carbon dioxide. She claims that we don’t have to burn so many fossil fuels to survive and the simplest natural solution is the tree! We are destroying Nature, many animal species are on the verge of extinction, glaciers are melting and to avoid this we must protect, restore and finance nature and we can do this with small steps every day. We must not use our savings to harm it, but to help it, as our salvation.
Each of us can contribute to the protection of the environment in which we live, everyone can start with small steps, such as polluting the environment less and becoming more sustainable by buying and producing less plastic. Only in this way can we help the Earth and live in better conditions. In conclusion, the answer to the question in the title is: yes, of course it is! Climate change is a huge problem, even bigger than most of us think.
Alessia Domi, Nicole Fogli
