Lachlan Miller

My issue and main topic of this writing piece are the effects of global warming, the effects it’s having on our environment and how its effecting our day to day life and what our future will look like if we continue on this path we have chosen. I will talk about property, the increase of temperature what lead to increased sea levels and the rise in droughts and then discussing the increase of natural disaster, extreme weather and its effect on wildlife.

There has been a massive increase in property costs and other associated insurance rates. The utility costs have risen due to effects of problems caused by global warming. In Australia 3.5% of all houses are at high risk from climate change and an estimated 10% value reduction by 2050 from climate risks. There will be a 254 high risk suburbs by 2050 and an estimated 1,500 by 2100. 1 in 9 properties will face unaffordable prices by 2030. Due to the limited amount of utility availability both property owners and tenants are being forced to pay more. Now we can see that due to our negative effects we have on the environment we have made it harder on ourselves to live in general. We are complaining about the prices of everyday living when we in fact are the ones responsible for it. We have been told time and time again of ways of being able to minimise these effects but we never listen. If we don’t face or fix these problems soon then our children and maybe even their children will be trying to fix the problems that we have made in our generation. The housing mess won’t even matter if there is no safe environment to have it in. The prices will only go up if the necessary changes aren’t made.

With global warming there has been an ever increasing rate in temperature, in turn this has led to an increase of sea level and a massively increased with commonality of droughts. Rain fall has been extremely deficient in its measurements of recent it has been in the lowest 10% of historical observations since 1990. Due to the rising heat temperatures the global average sea level has risen by approximately 210-240mm since 1880 with one third of that being in the last decade alone. Polar icecaps are melting as global warming causes climate change. We lose arctic sea ice at a rate of almost 13% per decade, and over the past 30 years, the oldest and thickest ice in Antarctica has declined by a staggering 95%. If emissions continue to rise unchecked the arctic could be ice free in the summer by 2040. Due to these rising heat temperatures drought prone areas have seen unprecedented drought rates this in turn has effected many areas in the environment for the worse. People can’t farm as effectively as they once did and in turn products have become harder to find and afford. We can see that in the last decade specifically we have been damaging the environment at an alarming rate. We need to stop this and make a change to this before the effects are irreversible.

Natural disasters and extreme weather have become much more common and is still increasing at an alarming rate. This also led to changes in certain environments and this in turn has effected many wildlife and has led to animals becoming endangered and some even extinct. The number of climate induced disasters has tripled in the past 30 years. More than 20 million people a year are forced out of homes because of change of climate in there environments. Due to the rise in temperature many plants have been starting to grow and bloom earlier in the spring and survive longer into the fall. Animals have also been waking up earlier from hibernation sooner and have started mating at different times. Due to the rising temperatures many species survival rates have been lowered due to changes in the environment that have led to less food, less successful reproduction and changes to certain animal’s natural environment has led some to leave them. The UN has estimated that adjusting to climate change and coping with already existing damages will cost an estimated $140-300 billion dollars for developing countries every year to get up to standards of other cities. As we can see here, in the past 30 years we have managed to induce almost 3 times the amount of damage that has been done before. People are being forced out of homes due to the increase of climates and countries trying to recover and advance from these disasters are having to pay hundreds of billions of dollars to do so. As we have made these disasters worse and haven’t been treating the environment right we must put a stop to this before it is too late.

People must start to find more environmentally friendly things that we can use as sustainable substitutes that would be able to replace other non-sustainable products. We must try and preserve our planet making it a safer and healthier place. Hopefully people come to their senses and can come to realise soon that if actions aren’t taken soon to reverse or minimise the effects we have had on our environment before we reach the point of no return having damaged our beautiful planet beyond repair solidifying our own human extinction by our very own hands. We must put a stop to this. We must stop global warming.