Mitchell Broughton

Our world today faces many threats including, but not limited to: starvation, poverty,

war, and disease. All of these are talked about constantly across the globe, but perhaps the most

threatening issue to our planet is climate change. Naturally as time progresses, climates will

change. However, humans today are influencing the climate to change at an extremely alarming

rate. When most people think about this, they’ll look towards the melting glaciers, rising

temperatures, and harsher storms, but what is going unnoticed by billions of people is a mass

extinction of many species. Elizabeth Kolbert addresses this issue head on in her book, The Sixth

Extinction. Unlike the other issues mentioned before, climate change affects all seven and a half

billion of us, and we all hold responsibility for the consequences that will come.

Paul Crutzen, the Nobel Prize winning scientist who helped discover the effects of

chemicals that break up the ozone later, named today’s natural era as the Anthropocene, meaning

“human-dominated geological epoch” (Kolbert, 2014, 107). Like other eras such as the Jurassic

and Cretaceous, they begin and end with a major catastrophic event that likely ends in a mass

extinction of many species around the world. Instead of an asteroid, Crutzen stated that our

world is in the midst of a catastrophic change due to the actions of humans. These actions

include: transforming one third of Earth’s natural land surface, diverting and damming of major

rivers, fertilizers producing far more nitrogen in our natural ecosystems, and humans using up

more than a half of the world’s accessible fresh water supply. Most importantly, our entire

atmosphere has changed along with the evolution of mankind. According to Crutzen, carbon

dioxide concentration in our atmosphere has risen by forty percent, and methane levels have

more than doubled in the last two centuries. (Kolbert, 2014, 108). What this means is that unlike
every other species out there today, humans are the only ones who are capable of causing the

extinction of other species.

How does this mass extinction affect humans if we are at the top of this chain? In reality,

nature is one big interconnected network. Severe climate change can affect humans in many

ways. A rise in global temperatures, due to massive amounts of greenhouse gas emissions, can

lead do prolonged droughts in many areas. This prohibits farming and leads to large cases of

food and water scarcity across the globe. The rise in temperature can also lead to large wildfires

that raze natural landscapes across the globe, especially here in the western part of the United

States. These emissions don’t just have a detrimental effect on the air, some make the case to say

that they impact our oceans more. Kolbert writes, “Since the industrial revolution, humans have

burned through enough fossil fuels to add 365 billion metric tons of carbon into our atmosphere.”

(2014, 113). A large portion of the carbon is absorbed into the ocean, which raises the acidity

and wiping out entire ecosystems that support millions of diverse species of plants and animals.

The influx of carbon will melt most of the remaining glaciers and the Arctic ice cap, which will

raise the sea level, ultimately resulting in many islands and coastal cities across the globe to be

submerged, which will displace millions of humans from their homes.

It is practically impossible to undo all of the harm that humans have caused to this planet.

So, what can be done? In my personal opinion, leaving this matter to global governments is only

delaying the problem. Legislations and restrictions on emissions and other areas of concern can

help, but in a largely capitalist world it seems that businesses have a higher priority than our

environment. Even our own president refuses to acknowledge that climate change exists. The

best way to get the masses involved it to raise awareness. In the past we’ve seen global icons

step up to aid in fixing world hunger and the AIDS epidemic, but very rarely do we see
significant steps to get people focused on the environment, which is the underlying cause in

many of the global issues present today. Well known persons such as celebrities need to get their

message out to their followings because in reality if the public isn’t concerned, the global

governments will not be either.

In the short term, we as a global community need to indulge in practices taught at a

young age: reduce, reuse, recycle. As elementary as that sounds, I believe that starting simple

and altering our behavior will have the most effect on our environment in the present day. As a

global society, we need to begin to move away from plastics and start incorporating metals such

as aluminum and steel into our everyday items. Yes, plastics can be recycled, but only a finite

amount of times before it loses quality. Metals like aluminum however, can be reused and

recycled an endless amount of times and will still provide the same quality that it had when it

was once forged. If the planet stopped using plastics for everyday items, carbon emissions would

drop significantly, ecosystems would be cleaner, and it would save a lot of species from dying

out at the alarming rate that it’s at today.

Looking at the long term, there needs to be research into more sustainable sources of

energy. Not only will our fossil fuel supply eventually run dry, but it will prevent mass amounts

of carbon dioxide and methane to be released into our atmosphere and oceans. Until an

alternative is found, there needs to be fairly harsh restrictions on emissions put out by

governments across the globe, starting with industrial powerhouses like the United States and

China. No matter how much we recycle and conserve, it is the businesses that have the most

impact on our environment and it is the duty of the governments to pass bills to combat their

excessive pollution outputs.

 From an realistic perspective, we are in too deep. Like previously stated it has become

impossible at this point to undo our actions that have destroyed ecosystems, killed off millions of

species, and in the end ruining the planet we call home. Earth is dying in both a figurative and

literal sense, and we as humans are waiting for the day where is becomes our turn to go extinct.

Efforts need to be made on an individual and global level to slow down this mass extinction, but

it cannot be stopped. This is an issue that requires efforts from every country, though they may

disagree on other topics, keeping our home safe and protected should be on the top of every

governments’ list. Protecting our planet from drastic climate change and the consequences that

come from it is not only a responsibility for us today, but it will take generations to get it back on

track. If failed to do so, the change will lead to resource scarcity, starvation, poverty and

displacement, which all contribute to increased chances for political unrest and war.
This work complies with the JMU honor code. Mitchell Broughton

Bibliography

Kolbert, Elizabeth. 2014. The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History. New York: Picador.