Highlighting the Effects of Global Weather Change

Issues such as climate change are often reported much more objectively, often taking on a more positivist approach by reporting on the physical effects of changing weather patterns. Reporting the facts and figures of the impact speaks to a broader audience and sometimes allows news outlets to report on the stories without gaining access to the communities. Though it can often remove the personal element that a more interpretivist approach could bring, it can be beneficial in reporting timely or larger pieces of information that immersive reporting might not allow for.

When taking the Problem-Based Seminar course, one of the topics that stood out to me the most was climate change. Since my family is from Southern Louisiana, the topic of coastal erosion and damage from hurricanes is something I know all too well. Because of the high polarization of this topic, I wanted to focus this paper with a more positivist approach, discussing facts, figures, and policy. Focusing on the effect that climate change has on the agricultural industry and the farmers affected by the policies, this paper also gives ways to engage lawmakers with farmers to create impactful policies.

In all parts of the country, signs of extreme weather headline the news every day. Stories of homes destroyed by wildfires in Colorado, deadly tornadoes in Arkansas, and devastating hurricanes in Louisiana are starting to flood the media and desensitize viewers to the impact of this violent weather.

With global pollution and mass consumption of fossil fuels on the rise, scientists find that the average temperature is on track to increase 3-5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century (Klein, 2019). Every day, we are seeing the effects of this increase. However, what isn't shown in the news is how this climate shift is affecting agriculture, the coastlines with erosion, and everyday life for marginalized communities, specifically those at or below the poverty line.

The implications of climate change on the coastal poor are enormous. This global warming and climate change affects the agriculture of these areas, putting rural farmers out of business and at risk of losing their land and livelihood (Gopalakrishnan, 2019). It also leads to climate-related migration of the inhabitants of those coastal lands. The agricultural ramification of the climate shift affects the livelihood of the farmers, but it is also impacting the food security, especially prevalent in the poorer communities (Gopalakrishnan, 2019). When farmers cannot produce crops, or if they must fully adapt which crops they can grow to adjust for increased rainfall or increased heat, the price of the cost is passed along to the consumer, which can be detrimental to those in the poorer communities.

Per the IPCC, to stop this fast downhill, we must lower our global temperature by 1.5 degrees Celsius in the next 11 years, and we must cut our global emissions by half in that time (Klein, 2019). With that increase, the global impact is immense and will be felt by all inhabitants, but some of the hardest-hit communities will be those along the coastlines with the coastal erosion and changing tides.

Policymakers have an obligation to help combat this. Working to open up funds to build up new infrastructure to protect the citizens is a start to help. Holding officials accountable to these measures is vital to ensuring that the policies are carried out. An investigation into the Army Corps of Engineers revealed in 2007 that the cause of levee failures in the Katrina disaster was primarily due to “ignoring increases in threat levels, building levees lower than required by law and committing errors of construction oversight and risk assessment” (Morse, 2008). Increased oversight of the appropriated federal funds following a natural disaster is crucial to ensuring that the proper research and implementation of safety precautions are enacted and carried out. Too often, these measures are ignored, as is the case in Louisiana, which is detrimental to the communities most impacted.