Risha Chaurasia is a writer for Code Green. This is her first article.
“We are the last generation with a real opportunity to save the world,” – Laurence Overmire
No words could’ve been truer. With ever-increasing carbon emissions, sea levels, global warming, and extinctions, the world is not in a good place ecologically. Resources and fossil fuels are vanishing like water on a hot summer day and forest cover is dwindling. Currently forests cover 31% of total land area which is approximately 4 billion hectares, reduced from the 5.9 billion hectares -- cutting down 1.9 billion hectares. Add to this the substantial surge in carbon emissions, carbon dioxide levels today are higher than at any point in at least the past 800,000 years. All this has led to a surge in global temperatures.
Nature is interrelated, mess with one element and the rest come tumbling down.
Increases in temperatures speeds up melting of ice caps, 750 billion tons of ice is melting every year. This leads to loss of habitat of all the animals that make the poles their home. Polar bear numbers have shown a massive drop and they are expected to decrease by 30% by 2050. The world’s largest carnivore holds more importance than what is attributed to him. Polar bears are the apex of the ecosystem, they maintain biological populations, which are essential in the smooth functioning of the ecosystem.
We must give our future generations a thought and strive to restore our home. We, the youth have a giant responsibility on our shoulders, either we break the bubble and do something or we see the ecosystem collapsing. We are the ones the earth will be given to and it is our future we will be building on.
“We already have the solutions. All we have to do is, wake up and change,” – Greta Thunberg
*All information from NCERT science textbook*