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THE CLIMATE IS CHANGING - SO SHOULD WE! #ACTNOW_edited_edited.jpg
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Contradictions: Climate change as we know it, is humans’ single most catastrophic mistake, all of our research so far has pointed towards the technological innovations to slow global warming and attempt to heal our planet. However, it has become apparent that our methods to ‘save our planet’ are having a negative impact on other sectors. One which has come up many times is the use of solar panels. The majority of people have seen at least one advertisement, poster or even a political endorsement of solar panels but they are quite possibly doing more harm than help. The twenty first century has seen a technology “boom”, from the dotcom bubble burst to robots becoming our servers in restaurants, however most modern technologies require the use of rare minerals during the manufacturing, solar panels are no different to this, in order to reach these rare minerals they must be mined, in more places than one. This mining is having a huge impact on the environment as we know it; it is causing air pollution usually involving lead, arsenic and other toxic elements being released into the atmosphere, water pollution including mental contamination in turn affects both human lives and animals, it is having a detrimental effect on biodiversity (essential for life on earth). 
Another contradiction of the ‘fight against climate change’ includes the process of afforestation, although the idea seems very positive to plant two trees in place of one and so one, so forth, there are still negative impacts from afforestation. One particular concern is Desert greening; the strong reason for concern here is how the greening of the Sahara desert would interfere with how it fertilize's the oceans/ amazon rain-forest with airborne mineral dust. An essential nutrient for plant proteins and growth is phosphorus, one of which the Amazon rain-forest relies upon, some of these nutrients in short supply in Amazonian soils being washed away by rainfall. It is estimated that an average of 22,000 tons per year if phosphorus reaches the Amazon soils from Sahara dust, without the iron contained in Phosphorus mammals could not make hemoglobin to transport oxygen around the bloodstream, and plants cannot make chlorophyll to photosynthesize tissue from air and sunlight.. In 2006, Israeli researchers found that more than half the dust needed to fertilize the Brazilian rain-forest blew in from just one desiccated valley in Chad. 

Inflections: In recent years, the world as a whole has come to an inflection point regarding climate change.  The 2021 United Nations climate change conference occurred only a few days before this write up, within this conference world leaders have pledged to save the earth.  NOAA officially declared July 2021 as the hottest month ever recorded since records started, around the globe, the combined land and ocean-surface temperature was 1.67 Fahrenheit, the Arctic sea ice coverage was the fourth smallest for that month ever recorded with the tropics being busier than average with tropical cyclones. It is due to the rise in temperature that we are seeing these effects globally. These weather conditions have caused some of the worlds worst natural disasters, this year alone namely; flash floods in Indonesia, Hurricane Laura in the US, Dominican Republic and Haiti, Cyclone Amphan, Hurricane Eta and one of the worst seen are the Australian bushfires which began in 2019, resulting in at least 445 deaths, both human and animal. 
Another inflection which can be linked back to climate change is the development of technological innovation. The world is looking to technology to lead us to producing “net-zero” emissions by 2050 (something of which dozens of countries have promised at the UN climate change conference, COP26), robots are becoming more and more integrated into society and their role will be vital in the climate change battle. There have already been robots designed which ingest microbes in the ocean and instead convert it into energy, the ‘row-bot’. This robot can operate for months on end; such technology can aid in reducing the impact of oil spillages while also helping to remove chemicals from rivers and seas. Following from this, Monterey Bay Aquarium research institute for the last seven years have been continuously monitoring an autonomous robot, ’Benthic Rover II’ collecting data in order to have a deeper insight into the impacts of climate change on the ocean, carbon cycling and sequestration, this robot is aiding in the study of carbon consumption by deep seafloor communities, again illustrating the role climate change has played in the inflection of robotics. 

Practices: It is safe to say that climate change has and will continue to affect the way we go about our daily lives. It has been proven by researchers in Loma Linda University California that vegans have the smallest carbon footprint, generating 41,7 percent smaller volumes of greenhouse gases than meat eaters do. Through previous research we have found that methane gas is the main contributor to greenhouse gas emissions driving climate change. This gas can be attributed to farming, specifically cattle farms, sheep, goats and pigs which are all killed for food. As there is such a demand for these meats the reproduction of these animals are vital worldwide, therefore producing more methane gas emissions due to meat eaters, hence why veganism is becoming a behavioural trend in the fight against climate change, and where the practice of climate smart agriculture stems from. Climate smart agriculture, which is an approach to manage livestock, forests, farmland, fisheries etc that affect climate change and attempt to reduce the agricultural negative impact on global warming.
Climate change has been put into practice not only by social behavioral trends, but legally implemented. A strong example of this includes France, one of the European Union’s best performers in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. France was among one of the first countries to implement laws to go carbon neutral, followed by Britain who made a commitment to reach net zero greenhouse emissions by 2050, (implemented into the law). Francois De Rugy, who is a french politician said in relation to the bill bearing on energy and climate aiming to put the goal of achieving zero net greenhouse gas on the map that  “At a time when we are confronted by climate change with phenomena such as the current heatwave, we reaffirmed our ambitions with this law... by inscribing in marble the principle of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050,” This is only one illustration of how climate change has been implemented by law and therefore put into practice. 

Hacks: When speaking about how Climate Change has influenced other sectors, one that mainly comes to mind is transportation. As a typical passenger vehicle emits 4.6 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year one of the biggest ways to reduce emissions was for governments, political figures, and celebrities to endorse either carpooling or taking public transport more often, for example the influential James Cordan has a section in his show specifically for carpool karaoke.  Taking a trip on public transport or getting a ride from a work colleague or friend has actually been deemed as the mental health break you never knew you needed “carpooling isn’t just a practical way to save money, time and the environment - it’s also a source of human connection and make you feel happy and positive no matter what kind of day you had.“. Carpooling is an energy friendly sustainable mode of transport while also being a social aspect in everyday life and an extension of reducing emissions and protecting the environment aiding climate change. 


Extremes: Climate Change extremes are growing to a new height annually, with catastrophic events happening globally, an extreme weather event falls outside the typical fluctuation in weather patterns, according to the future institute today 2020 trends extreme weather events have become more frequent and have only gotten worse. An example well known to many include both the Australian and East coast American wildfires, scientists  at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute claim that the climate change phenomenon with record breaking heat in southeastern Australia helped increase the regions fire risk by 30 percent.  It is due to catastrophic events like the previous mentioned that technological advancements are being pushed to new boundaries in order to attempt to “save us from climate change”.  Transport represents 23% of global energy related CO-2 emissions, however the demand for transport is only going to increase, researchers at the university of surrey have claimed to make a scientific breakthrough in regards to transport and the use of electric vehicles,  “the new technology is believed to have the potential for electric cars to travel similar distances as petrol cars without the need to stop for lengthy recharging breaks of between 6 and 8 hours, and instead recharge fully in the time is takes to fill a regular car with petrol”, this is only one example of how climate change is aiding the technological scientific advancements of not only robotics but also the engineering sector in order to assist the fight against climate change.  
Another example of the extremes climate change is pushing is how the industries are evolving, how our buildings are going to look in the future. Sidewalk Labs are an urban innovation company attempting to build more sustainable, innovative and ‘clean’ cities around the world. Sidewalk Labs have had innovations such as ‘Mesa’, “a greener, smarter building in a box”. This simple box which is easily installed in buildings helps to comply with green building regulations improving energy efficiency, Sidewalk Labs also have an innovation product called ‘Delve’ this is a design product for upcoming buildings in which uses generative design and AI to reveal the best option for project priorities such as daylight in order to cut electricity consumption while also reducing the carbon footprint for the upcoming buildings. Again this is only one example of how climate change is pushing the boundaries for building projects in order to help the race against climate change.

Rarities: Rarities have been described by the future today institute as black swan events, this can also be determined as an extremistan event  as laid out in the best seller “the black swan” by Nassim Nicholas Taleb he describes Mediocristan events as mostly predictable following the curve while extremistan events are the opposite existing in much larger fluctuations and the impact of one of these events towering over many others “imagine 99 average people standing in the stadium with Bill Gates.” As black swan events represent uncertainty; then Climate change can definitely as a whole fall into this category. Our judgement of the evolution of climate change takes past events and figures into account in order to measure the rate our atmosphere is depleting, however we as humans are producing carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere at an uncanny rate therefore proving the high uncertainty that the climate fluctuations are not 100% predictable. The real black swan instances fall inside the scope of climate change, such as the current predictions of  the capital city of Ireland, Dublin being submerged underwater by 2050, if action is not taken, however if action is not taken and we continue ruining our planet at the rate previous we could see sea levels rise faster than predicted causing catastrophic black swan events.

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