Climate Change

In 2013, the Philippines was hit by typhoon Haiyan or locally dubbed as

Yolanda. It left 16 million people homeless and over 6,000 people dead. The effects
of the typhoon are still visible up to this date and has been the subject of countless
concerns about how much climate change has been affecting the Earth. With the
growing issue of global warming and its effect to the Earth’s temperature, how much
do we know about climate change?

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on climate change, the Earth’s

temperature has increased to roughly 1.53 degrees Fahrenheit or 0.85 degrees
Celsius. It might not be too much in terms of the numbers, but the devastating
effects of it to us living in this world is felt all around. Most recently, countries that
are hit by the constant rising temperatures are showing disturbing signs of the heat
index that is climbing up over the course of the 21st century.

In a 1993 study conducted by Daniel Read, Ann Bostrom, M. Granger

Morgan, Baruch Fischhoff, and Tom Smuts, where they interviewed 177 participants
of Educated Laypeople, revealed that their knowledge of climate change as a whole
is a mixture of right and wrong answers. Right in terms of the basic knowledge such
as climate change being a concerning cause for the rising of the Earth’s temperature
and wrong in terms of believing that the ozone hole in our ozone layer is the primary
cause of climate change. This proved to be the problem of most citizens around the
world as well as an eye-opener for experts to educate the people on the proper
information regarding climate change. Now, talks about climate change pairs the
topic with global warming and greenhouse effect. El Niño is one of the results of
global warming and greenhouse effect. It is the term used when unusual warming of
surface waters occur. This phenomenon leads to drought and loss to the agricultural
industry. At the same time, blowing up the price for the goods that are traded
everyday. So you see, climate change does not only limit itself to the environment
we look at, the consequences of it reaches even the goods we consume.

The world might have more concerns such as our growing population and
how can we feed ourselves when food shortages are abundant, but the same
principle of how our environment can survive during those times, should be of a
consideration as well, because after earth, there is no other planet that is habitual to
us. As what a once great king of the pride lands said; “We are all part of the same
circle of life.” Whom I know, you all know who that is. He is just trying to say, do your
part and the rest will follow.