Our planet is burning.
No, literally, our planet is on fire and we’ve received little coverage from major news networks. Fires across California, Montana, Idaho and Colorado have destroyed over 1.4 million acres of land. High temperature records are being broken through heat waves in Poland, France, Germany and other European nations. The Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets have decreased in mass. This begs the question, when are we going to start taking the state of our planet seriously?
Ever since the outbreak of the coronavirus, our attention as a species has been narrowly focused. We slip on our masks, stand six feet apart and continue scrubbing our hands clean because we know the dangers of this virus. We know the consequences if we do not adhere to the guidelines that were put into place to keep us safe. Yet, our planet is burning – partly because of us – and we are not responding with the same urgency and caution as we do to combat COVID-19.
According to NASA, ninety-seven percent or more of actively publishing climate scientists agree that climate-warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human activities. In a 140-year record, the ten warmest years have all occurred since 2005. The top six of those ten years were the six most recent years.
Europe has experienced heat waves before, but now they are becoming more frequent and deadly (UK’s Meteorological Office). A few weeks ago, the BBC reported that London saw its longest stretch of high temperatures in almost six decades. Thermometers read 34 degrees C (92.3 degrees F) or above for six consecutive days.
Now, for citizens in more southern countries or even in the U.S., having the temperature be above ninety degrees doesn’t seem insane. In fact, most of the time those temperatures are expected, especially in the summer. However, this is not a good sign for Europe.
Air conditioning units are not as common there, and countries like England are not used to constant high temperatures. Because of these heat waves, buildings cannot cool down and put people, such as the elderly, infants and those with medical issues, more at risk for heatstroke and dehydration.
Then there are the fires destroying the western half of the United States. California is known to be fire-prone, but the blame comes from more than just the dry season, lightning strikes or the Santa Ana winds. Climate change increases the risk of fire. People ignore those risks and move into the urban-wildland interface, or areas closer to forests. This, in turn, only causes more fires.
“People are always creating possible sparks,” said Dr. Park Williams, a bioclimatologist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. “And as the dry season wears on and stuff is drying out more and more, the chance that a spark comes off a person at the wrong time just goes up. And that’s putting aside arson.”
To combat climate change and to protect Earth, it isn’t right to keep moving around and hope that things will eventually get better. NASA’s research has shown that even if we stopped emitting greenhouse gases today, global warming would continue to happen for at least several more decades, if not centuries. Our mistakes can’t be fixed in the snap of a finger–and recycling or giving up plastic straws isn’t enough anymore to be an adequate solution.
“The solution will require both a globally-coordinated response, such as international policies and agreements between countries, and a push to cleaner forms of energy,” NASA said. “And local efforts on the city- and regional-level. For example, public transport upgrades, energy efficiency improvements, sustainable city planning, etc.”
Our planet is burning. It’s up to us to decide what will happen next.
