Climate Change

Fighting Global Warming

Gary Parrish

University of Texas at El Paso

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Climate Change

Abstract

As human beings who are able to shape and mold our environments in which they are

suitable for our survival. Yet, while doing so we can adversely affect the nature of our

surroundings. Global warming is the long term rise in the average temperature of the earth’s

climate. This can cause things like rising sea levels, glaciers melting, and the overall destruction

of very old and large ecosystems. At the moment we are being held back from dealing with the

situation due to political agenda, and a unprecedented amount of lobbyist. The consequences far

out weight the short term amenities that will have to be put on hold. The people have a lot of

power in the matter whether it be political or by literally by taking action by recycling.

Fighting Global Warming

Precipitation is very important for continued survival, and their unlimited things to gain

from its continued function. Yet, with the buildup of CO2 in the atmosphere, precipitation is one

of the natural phenomenon that will take a hit. Many people nearer to the midlatitudes will feel a

big impact of the decreased rates at which snowfalls annually (Kapnick and Delworth, 2013).

Due to the large amount of people who live in these areas and considering water is a very

valuable resource many things will change in these regions. Such as people will need to relocate,

and sanitation will become extremely difficult. Thus altering public health and may even lead to

wide spread disease. Climate change needs to be addressed and dealt in a timely matter. We are

ignoring subtle changes in our world, and this could lead to a change in lifestyle we are not ready

for. The affects are apparent in some professions and regions, and these facts should not be taken

lightly. Ecosystems are being effected in way that if a home lost its air conditioner and said home

is situated in the middle of the Sahara dessert. This change also affects how soon and late bugs
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will appear and leave every year. This leads to farmers having to use more pesticides, while also

destroying more ecosystems. By allocating more resources to addressing these problems we may

be able to address these issues before it’s too late. In order to explore this controversy, the

following questions must be explored:”

1. What is climate change?

2. How is climate change affecting farms around the United States?

3. Should the United States allocate more resources to combating the effects of climate

change?

4. If the United States doesn’t start addressing climate change what are the long term

affects?

These question will help in understanding the true severity of these critical issues that are a

problem in the United States due to the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere. They may also help

people come up with solutions to these problems in the future.

What is Climate Change?

The earth’s climate is forever changing, to date there have seven cycles of glacial

advance and retreat. So global warming is a natural phenomenon, yet with intervention of human

beings that change is occurring ten times quicker than usual. Certain gases like carbon dioxide

and other heat trapping gases have accumulated in our atmosphere causing changing in our

global average surface temperature. Which has risen by 1.62 degrees since the 19th century

(Kapnick, 2013). In the last 35 years researchers have seen warming oceans, shrinking ice caps,

glacial retreat, and sea levels rising. Humans have made some of the largest impacts to earth and

its ecosystems through technology and our need for energy. At the moment human beings move
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more earth and soil than mother nature. To gather this information on how humans could affect

something on the scale of the earth, it took years of pinpointed research.

The impact of early snowmelt, linked to a warmer climate, on water availability has been

extensively documented in the western United States where water resources are essential for

farming and supply for rapidly growing western cities (Barnett. 2005). According researchers it

can be proven with 99% probability that the changes we witness in ecosystems today are not

natural. Our species is most likely the cause of such events due to our growing need for food,

energy, and population growth. Further understanding how and why we affect the environment

so greatly will be the first step to finding a solution. The picture below by The World

Meteorological Organization describes the physical and socio-economics problems caused by

climate change. These are not affects but they are record high affects that a notable for that very

reason.

How is climate change affecting farms around the United States?

The United States agricultural business relies on atmosphere, solar radiation, water, and

CO2 to help breed healthy plants and livestock. Climate change affects all these factors
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exponentially and severely. The US and Canadian government utilize simulations top determine

the outcome of certain changes that may occur in nature that would affect agriculture. Such as

more CO2 in the atmosphere, less precipitation, and a few simulations take in the microdetails;

such as can the farmers get outside to do the work if it’s too hot. Accordingly to the simulations

the crop production would remain relatively stable, but the amount of usable land would be

affected by climate change. With factors such as population growth left out of the simulation.

The nations would have to contend with a more aggressive market and more people to feed.

Changes in climate and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration are expected to

encourage pest outbreaks and associated plant damage (Shakhramanyan .2013). This fact causes

our farmers to use more pesticides; which in turn due to overuse is detrimental to human and

plant life when used in large quantity. Also we cannot look past the chance of adaptation to

pesticides; this being the bugs. Climate will also disrupt how affective the deterrent is when the

weather never allows for its dispersion. Currently the US spends 35 billions dollars on the

applications of pesticides. This is projected to increase by 50% by the year 2100. Due to the

factors mentioned alone. With climate change, we find increases in US crop production

particularly with adaptation (Shakhramanyan.2013). The problem we face is not the annihilation

of agriculture but there sheer amount of taxes it will take to maintain in its future state.

Should the United States allocate more resources to combating the effects of climate

change?

When talking about allocating more resources towards the issue. What it comes down to

is companies implementing more policies and regulations towards containment of waste and

overall usage of harmful resources. More money is dedicated within the department of homeland

security to climate change than what was spent combating “Islamist terrorists radicalizing over
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the internet in the United Stat s of America (Greenberg, J.2015). So the fact of the matter is that

our government seems to care on the outside about climate change. Yet, their problems in our

country that some feel are far more important like terrorist. The FBI actually tracks people

planning to commit an act of terror in the public and simply alerts the local law enforcement. It

helps in a few occasions, but their times when the perpetrators get away with the crime. Neither

of these matter more than the other, but considering perception is reality to most critically

thinking people. If the budget is so large for climate change why are there no results being

presented to the public.

The fact is that the government agencies fail to mention to the people the progress being

made on such spending. There is $6 million in the Federal Emergency Management Agency

budget (which is part of homeland security) for “climate workshops and regional resilience

coordination” done by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Greenberg, J.2015). What

this means is that the budget for addressing climate change is really the budget for addressing

every problem that FEMA deems worthy. We have an army to combat threats against our nation

we should also have an organization that receives a budget tailored to addressing the issue of

global warming. As it stand right now our budget for addressing climate change is fairly large,

but it has no mission. Its tentative at best with its descriptions of what is causing climate change.

It does not help create new ways of receiving clean sustainable energy. The money should be

allocated to an organization like the CDC(Center for Disease Control and Prevention) or

DOD(Department of Defense) who actually specialize in a field and have a mission statement.

Then we can start tackling the real issues; such as should we start putting more research into

cleaner my efficient forms of power. Our politicians need to start realizing that this is bigger than
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the United States, and can affect billions of people if we don’t start getting serious about the

bigger problem.

If the United States doesn’t start addressing climate change what are the long term affects?

“There are many urgent priorities that need the attention of congress, and it is not for me

as an invited guest in your country to say what they are. Yet I can say this much: on any view,

“Global Warming” is not one of them.” That is Christopher Monckton addressing United

Congress concerning climate change on May 6th, 2010. He addresses questions such as; has the

global climate warmed or does human activity account for the warming that occurred in the mid-

20th century. For these questions he brings very few facts; maybe one or two to say that the

statement is not true. He mentions a time period when humans were not around, and says that the

world was fine then why is there a problem now. The problem is that we do not know if that type

of environment he describes can support human life. Our species is very young; so to say we can

survive a time in which we were not around is a fallacy. To not address climate change now

would to things like more ice bergs melting in the north. Causing sea levels to rise, in turn would

reduce our livable square mileage. This would be a hug problem considering our rate of growth

in our population. Future population growth is uncertain and matters for climate policy: higher

growth entails more emissions and means more people will be vulnerable to climate related

impacts (Wagner, F. 2017). Places such India, China, and Australia would suffer horrific affects

from such a change. Temperatures will reach record highs, and public health would become

costly. Some places may even become uninhabitable due to such severe changes to the

ecosystem. Seasons will no longer last months, but instead years. Hurricanes will become far

more fierce and far more dangerous, thus making coastlines hazardous for infrastructure.

Conclusion
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This still much we do not know about the changes that our planet is going through. After

all we have yet to explore 95% percent of the earths oceans. There are things we still do not

understand. The information given by some organizations directly contradict and do not share

similar results in any manner. Take for instance the technology that Canada and the United States

uses to predict agriculture fertility in the future. Using separate algorithms, and variables. Canada

say that by 2100 the crop yield will be greater an plants will flourish, and available land for these

crops will be plentiful. The United States boast that yes there will be plenty of CO2 for the crops,

but land will be scarce. Along with the sheer amount of mouths to feed; it will be nearly

impossible. Climate scientists have spent billions and eons on supercomputer time studying how

increased concentration on greenhouse gases and changes in the reflectivity of the earth’s surface

effects of the climate system relevant to human society; surface temperature, precipitation,

humidity, and sea levels (Auffhammer, M. 2018). Yet, the same community of scientist agree on

no one outcome or cause for the changes, and some flat-out say there are no changes in the

atmosphere. The facts are not all clear, and it’s hard to weed out people who deny these facts

based on agenda. We either wait and observe or assume our constant depletion of resources has

no effect on an organic lifeforms.

Survey

For my survey I questioned 50 people outside of William Beaumont Hospital located in

Fort Bliss, El Paso. I asked, “Do you know what FEMA has done or doing with the 6 million

dollars allocated to the climate workshops every year.” The purpose of the question is follow up

with my paragraph about informing the people on the happenings and progress of climate

control. I chose this location to conduct the survey, because the location has military personnel

and retirees who have worked in the federal government. The participants with a plus sign next
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to their name said yes and those without said no. Informing the people as to what the government

is doing to fix these problems is the most important and crucial step if we aim to move forward

with constructing solutions for global warming.

1. Valerie Martinez +
2. Jose Perez
3. David Mccrey
4. Juana Lopez
5. Lupe Diaz
6. Juan Vasquez+
7. Ester Figueroa+
8. Lluvia Reyes+
9. Esme Juarez
10. Francisco Garibay+
11. Celia Aguilar
12. Dan Munoz+
13. Angel Gomez+
14. Eva Velasques
15. Julia Chavez+
16. Nia James+
17. Joe Roberts+
18. Rosa Mendoza+
19. Maria Cruz+
20. Clara Ortiz+
21. Gabriela Ponce+
22. Lisa Johnson
23. Samuel Garcia
24. Crystal Avila
25. Adrianna Flores
26. Margaret solis
27. Amanda Colon
28. James Santos+
29. Bella Ramirez+
30. Carlos Reyes+
31. Alexandra Vargas+
32. Terry Meza
33. Silvia Mejia+
34. James Cantu+
35. Oscar Vera+
36. Genesis Villas+
37. Emma Jones+
38. Zoe Mercado+
39. Miguel Garcia+
40. Mason Rees+
41. Christopher Gaines+
42. Pilar Castillo+
43. Alan Juan+
44. Carol Wilson
45. Isaac Crespo
46. Danna Anaya
47. Sara Campos+
48. April Moya+
49. Thomas Diaz+
50. Kate Berrazos+
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References:

Auffhammer, M. (2018). Quantifying Economic Damages from Climate Change. Journal of

Economic Perspectives, 32(4), 33–52. https://doi.org/10.1257/jep.32.4.33

Barnett, T. P., J. C. Adam, and D. P. Lettenmaier, 2005: Potential impacts of a warming climate

on water availability in snow-dominated regions. Nature, 438, 303–309,

doi:https://doi.org/10.1038/nature04141

Gollany, H. T., & Polumsky, R. W. (2018). Simulating Soil Organic Carbon Responses to

Cropping Intensity, Tillage, and Climate Change in Pacific Northwest Dryland. Journal

Of Environmental Quality, 47(4), 625–634. https://doi.org/10.2134/jeq2017.09.0374

Greenberg, J. (2015). Does Homeland Security Put More Money into Climate Change Than

Stopping Online Terrorism Recruiting? Tampa Bay Times (St. Petersburg, FL). Retrieved

https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsgov&AN=edsgcl.41372233

7&site=eds-live&scope=site

Hsiang, S., & Kopp, R. E. (2018). An Economist’s Guide to Climate Change Science. Journal of

Economic Perspectives, 32(4), 3–32. https://doi.org/10.1257/jep.32.4.3

Kapnick, S. B., and T. L. Delworth, 2013: Controls of global snow under a changed climate. J.

Climate, 26, 5537–5562, https:// doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00528.1.

Shakhramanyan, N., Schneider, U., & McCarl, B. (2013). US agricultural sector analysis on

pesticide externalities - the impact of climate change and a Pigovian tax. Climatic

Change, 117(4), 711–723. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-012-0585-3

Scovronick, N., Budolfson, M. B., Dennig, F., Fleurbaey, M., Siebert, A., Socolow, R. H., …

Wagner, F. (2017). Impact of population growth and population ethics on climate change

mitigation policy. Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences Of The United

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States Of America, 114(46), 12338–12343. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1618308114

Wight, J. (2015, August 5). Why it's urgent we act now on climate change. Retrieved April 6,

2019, from https://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-not-urgent-advanced.htm

Zhang, Y. W., & McCarl, B. A. (2013). US Agriculture under Climate Change: An Examination

of Climate Change Effects on Ease of Achieving RFS2. Economics Research

International, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1155/2013/763818