Read Aloud the Text Content
This audio was created by Woord's Text to Speech service by content creators from all around the world.
Text Content or SSML code:
Additionally, many of the computers and fiber optic connections that power the internet—the reason you are reading these chapters right now—could be drowned within the next 20 years. If precautions aren't followed, Shenzhen, a city in China where a lot of smartphones are made, might potentially experience flooding. Things deteriorate further if we look out past 2100. In the following few centuries, oceans will be 6 meters higher if emissions are not reduced immediately. Approximately 444,000 square miles of land, including ports, power plants, naval bases, farms, and entire cities, will be submerged by the water in this scenario. Asia will be the region most badly impacted, with major cities like Shanghai, Mumbai, and Kolkata completely submerged or flooded. It has been predicted by numerous experts that our actions over the next ten years would be crucial in preventing these apocalyptic scenarios. Given the way we now consume, this is not comforting: The annual carbon emissions from a typical American are equivalent to melting 10,000 tons of Antarctic ice. US consumption is so high that the nation's emissions would already be cut in half if Americans adopted the carbon footprint of their European counterparts, who live on a continent that is also not well recognized for its environmentally friendly lives. Chapter 5 - Mass starvation and malnourishment will result from runaway global warming The natural disasters that have been caused by people that we have witnessed so far affect our wellness. Now let's examine looming climate disasters from a more individualized perspective. It is true to argue that grain has been the foundation of civilization. Humans have experienced a food excess ever since the Agricultural Revolution, which began approximately 12,500 years ago with the first crops like barley being cultivated. This made it possible for individuals to dedicate their lives to things other than survival, such as making pottery, working with metal, and practicing their faith. Trade boomed, cities expanded, and empires were built in this new globe. Even at present, 40% of our diet is still made up of grains. Two billion people eat primarily rice, which accounts for two-thirds of all food consumed by humans along with wheat and maize. Shortly, these necessities won't alter, but supply and demand will. The globe will require twice as much food by 2050, according to the UN. Since a third of the world's emissions are currently generated by the food industry, this presents a significant issue. However, rising demand is just the beginning; issues with the supply side are much more serious. Cereal crop yields fall by roughly 10% for every degree of global warming, largely because it makes the environment less favorable for these plants. Imagine a planet that has warmed by 5 degrees in the year 2050, with 50% less grain and a 2x increase in food demand. Where would we plant grain if yields were declining? It is already too hot in the tropics to grow it effectively, and the best places are quickly losing their effectiveness. What happens when the "North" disappears? The natural wheat belt of the earth shifts 160 miles north every ten years. Food crops' nutritional content is reducing as a result of climate change, which has additional, more subtle effects. Irakli Loladze, a pioneering mathematician, has been observing this phenomenon for the past 15 years. He found that environments with high carbon dioxide levels increase plant growth but decrease nutritional content. One study that looked into Loladze's claims discovered that, after 1950, agricultural plants' nutritional contents decreased by as much as 33%. There were around 815 million malnourished individuals in the world in 2016. How many people will there be short if there is a population boom, a food scarcity, and a nutritional crisis? Chapter 6 - Disease will increase as the temperature rises. We seldom ever pause to consider how much medical research has impacted our lives. The average lifespan in the Roman Empire was around 25 years, and even a little infection may be fatal before the vast manufacture of antibiotics in the twentieth century. Climate change, however, has the power to reverse all the advancements that medical science has accomplished over several centuries. In reality, a worldwide health crisis might be just around the corner, one that could be caused by both the resurgence of old diseases and the revitalization of current ones. Dealing with dormant disorders should come first. Bacteria from ancient diseases, some of which have been extinct for millions of years, are now trapped in our Arctic ice sheets. Since some of them have existed there longer than Homo sapiens have, our immune systems would be entirely at a loss as to how to combat them. More well-known illnesses, such as smallpox or the bubonic plague, are also present in the ice. The Deadly 1918 influenza virus, which caused up to 50 million deaths, was uncovered by one research team searching in Alaskan ice. Furthermore, when a 75-year-old frozen carcass of a reindeer thawed in 2016, two dozen people became sick with anthrax, underscoring the danger that the reappearance of such diseases now imprisoned in ice poses. However, the second scenario—the spread of present illnesses—is what medical specialists are most concerned about. Heat and humidity are ideal conditions for disease. Bacteria flourish in warm, moist environments, from salmonella growing in leftover pork to cholera outbreaks throughout the summer in developing nations. As the world's temperature continues to rise, this poses a major risk to public health. Our ecosystems are being irreparably disrupted by global warming, which is facilitating the spread of illness to previously unaffected areas. Consider malaria, which now kills one million people each year, primarily in tropical places. More nations will turn into malaria breeding grounds as global warming picks up speed and the tropical zones of the planet widen. The tick is another common pest that spreads disease. This little parasite, which spreads Lyme disease, has a bright future as the earth warms and its habitat expands. In 2010, there were no cases of Lyme disease in either Japan or South Korea, according to author Mary Beth Pfeiffer's Lyme: The First Epidemic of Climate Change. Since then, the number of cases in these nations has increased significantly, involving hundreds of South Koreans annually. Chapter 7 - We are being suffocated by the declining air quality. You might want to pause at this point and take a deep breath. However, this might not be a smart idea depending on where you live. Global air quality is currently in a crisis, and some nations are suffering much more than others. Even those that have access to cleaner air won't be as fortunate for long, as more people are suffocated to death by polluted air, which has become the new normal. Currently, there is a serious air issue. 98 percent of cities in underdeveloped nations are safe according to the World Health Organization (WHO). In 2017, simply breathing the air in New Delhi was as harmful as smoking two packs of cigarettes per day. Furthermore, the scope of the problem as it exists today is not even remotely represented by these data. Over 10,000 people die every day from air pollution, which currently accounts for one in six fatalities worldwide. These are avoidable. The fact that air pollution hurts everyone equally—children, pregnant women, and anyone else—may be its most brutal side effect. Whether it's the smog in New Delhi or the smokestacks in China, these factors don't give any groups of people any special consideration. Our thoughts are also affected, in addition to our physical well-being. A 2016 study found a strong association between pollution and a rise in childhood mental illness, and a more recent study found that it raises the risk of dementia in later life. There are also additional mental impacts of elevated carbon dioxide levels. Our brains perform less well when huge concentrations of this greenhouse gas are present, like in stuffy spaces. This explains why, after a vigorous walk, we feel awake and alert after a day of working inside. The cognitive function starts to deteriorate by 21% when carbon dioxide levels reach 930 ppm. Although it is now twice as high in our atmosphere, we may likely reach this level by the year 2100. If that occurs, a quick stroll outside will lower our brainpower by a fifth. This reduction in mental ability doesn't only exist in the realm of "possibilities" and "could," like the physical harm caused by breathing bad air, it is happening right now. According to a 2018 study, math and verbal test scores in China would both increase by 8% and 13% respectively if air pollution were brought down to the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) minimal level for clean air. Thus, it is obvious that climate change affects our air. The second component of human life, water, is a concern, though.