What can youwe do to minimize the impacts of climate change?

As involving to climatic system, the high concentration of greenhouse gases in the air will lead to higher temperature of Earth’s atmosphere and oceans, also known as Global Warming. Global warming not only has much negative impact on the environment such as polar ice melts, sea level rise, floods and droughts, typhoons, but also threaten human lives

What can you/we do to minimize the impacts of climate change?

Nowadays, the most significant evidences of climate change derived from

sea level rise, ice declining, extreme climate events and global warming

From the science perspective, the main reason cause climate change is a

greenhouse effect For more detail, the greenhouse effect is a process

where short-wave solar radiation heats the Earth’s surface and the energy

is radiated back to the space as long-wave heat, absorbed by a certain

composition of the atmosphere called greenhouse gases The primary

greenhouse gases include water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous

oxide, ozone and other chemicals such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)

[ CITATION Raf11 \l 5129 ] Although the greenhouse gas is a very

important component of our planet as it keeps the earth warm enough for

life exist, the increasing amount of greenhouse gases today will damage

the planet [ CITATION Gre13 \l 5129 ]

As involving to climatic system, the high concentration of greenhouse

gases in the air will lead to higher temperature of Earth’s atmosphere and

oceans, also known as Global Warming Global warming not only has

much negative impact on the environment such as polar ice melts, sea

level rise, floods and droughts, typhoons, but also threaten human lives

[ CITATION Cli \l 5129 ]

In terms of minimizing the impact of climate change, we need to find the

solution to reduce the greenhouse gases in the air There are two

dominant strategies called mitigation and adaptation Climate change

mitigation refers to lower emission of greenhouse gases that mainly

reduce carbon dioxide, which accounts for the highest percentage (72%)

of greenhouse gases [ CITATION KSh10 \l 5129 ] The most recent report of

the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found that since

the Industrial Revolution in 1750, human activity has changed the

concentration of certain greenhouse gases in the atmosphere There is a

dramatically raising in amounts of carbon dioxide in the earth's

atmosphere over the past 1,000 years, with the most rapid increase

occurring over the past fifty years [ CITATION Cub13 \l 5129 ]

In general, to reduce the ultimate extent of climate change and its impact,

it is essential to have global responsibility Basically, by utilizing the

energy sources that don't release greenhouse gases and increase the

energy efficiency of our homes and offices, and driving less, we can

reduce our effect on the climate and limit the change To some extent,

regarding to transportation, use public transport or non-motorized

transport such as walking, cycling not only reduce pollution but also save

our money Moreover, there are many new advanced vehicles such as

hybrid vehicle, cleaner diesel vehicles, and higher efficiency aircraft as

well has invented to reduce air pollution, lower CO2 emission [ CITATION

Car \l 5129 ]

Refer to energy supply, nowadays, oil, diesel, coal and fuel are used as

the main source of production in our live; so to limit the expansion of

carbon dioxide, we need to change our behavior in energy using There

are a number of alternative energy source which efficiently produce

electricity compare to coal and gas such as hydro energy, geothermal

energy, wind, solar and marine energy [ CITATION Gre \l 5129 ] For

example, New Zealand as a leader in change to use green and clean

energy, today, nearly 73 per cent of New Zealand’s electricity is

generated from renewable sources and the remaining 27 per cent is

conducted from non-renewable sources such as gas and coal The New

Zealand’s government aim to change to renewable sources for 90 per cent

by 2050 [CITATION Min07 \n \l 5129 ]

Other concerning relates to forestry, it should be emphasized that forest

has a vital role in protecting humanity Forestry delivers many

environmental benefits As trees and plants grow, they absorb carbon

dioxide from the atmosphere and store it as wood [ CITATION For14 \l 5129 ]

As a consequence, it's necessary to have a strict management in protect

and conserve forest, reduce deforestation, harvested wood management,

tree species improvement to increase biomass productivity and carbon

sequestration [ CITATION Vit10 \l 5129 ]

For daily routine, as a lot of little things make a big change, each

individual person can contribute to decrease climate change impact by

reducing waste by choosing reusable products instead of disposables And

if it's possible, we should recycle newspaper, glass, plastic and aluminum

cans By recycling half of household waste, we can save 2,400 pounds of

carbon dioxide annually [CITATION Tex10 \n \l 1033 ]

Nevertheless, due to a lag between increased greenhouse gas emissions

and increased warming, even if greenhouse gas emissions stopped today,

it would take a long time for the effects of human-caused climate change

to disappear So adaptation is a crucial issue go along with mitigation to

minimize the climate change As a result, we need to change our behavior

to make living conditions suitable with changing climate There are some

strategies has implemented, for instance, building new public works such

as sewers, bridges to deal with changes in rainfall and flooding, protect

national park as well as forest, building sea walls and moving away from

the dangerous coastal area in order to avoid the natural calamity

[CITATION eIn07 \l 5129 ] One major thing that can be done about climate

change is to raise the society’s awareness about the importance of the

ecosystem as well as lead them to understand how human behavior harm

to the Earth Moreover, the World Health Organization (WHO) is helping

countries respond to this challenge, primarily by encouraging them to set

up public health systems as the first line of defense against

climate-related health risks [ CITATION Cli14 \l 5129 ]

In conclusion, climate change is not only an environmental problem but

also expand to larger scale as economy and social issue [ CITATION Sco11 \

l 1033 ], affect every part of the community; thus the response to climate

change is involved to whole societies Ideally, by reducing the impact and

adapting to climate change, the present generation will not only save

themselves and enhance life quality, but also benefit future generations

through their foresight and suitable planning

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