Tricia Hawkins

8/1/2016
POLS 1100: E-portfolio Assignment Climate Change
As we plunge further and further into shorter winters and hotter summers, the effects of
carelessness and time, the entire population of the world should be asking themselves a question:
What can we do with the technology and advancements we have now, to improve the quality of
our environment and air quality? Before it is too late. Upon further investigation there are a
handful of things that we are able to do to improve our environment. The United States is one of
the countries with the biggest impact on the environment and our current state of climate panic.
A step in the right direction would begin with restoring and further protecting agricultural and
forest landscape in order to increase productivity and improve the environment. A beneficial
initiative would implement a new energy efficient standard, raising awareness of the exhaustion
of the resources that we have. In most countries there is constant growth and improvement in
regards to infrastructure, which is meant to improve the quality and ease of living. All of these
points brings us to the great question: is it really improving our quality of life if we wont have a
functioning planet that we can cultivate and maintain? Many may have their own opinions on the
situation but what it all comes down to (and what is most important) the official position of
planet Earth at the moment is that we can't raise the temperature more than two degrees Celsius
it's become the bottomest of bottom lines. Two degrees. (McKibben, 2012)
As we begin improvements, in the seemingly vain hope that it will actually improve
something, we must begin to look at ourselves. Based on a study conducted in 2014, the average
American uses 911 kWh per month ("How Much Electricity Does An American Home Use? -

FAQ - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)"). This number must go down if we are to
impact the amount of resources necessary for every day needs. The energy transition will change
not only how we view the world but also how we view ourselves. With rooftop solar panels to
both power homes and recharge car batteries, there will be a personal degree of energy
independence not known for generations. (Brown, 2016) Michael Mann and Lee Kump have
suggested in their book Dire Predictions that we can have our cake and eat it too.
Geoengineering, gives an alternative approach to mitigation. Many possible suggestions are
given in their book, and each of these proposed geoengineering schemes has possible
shortcomings and could be potentially dangerous. Even with the know inadequacies we might
need to resort to these schemes for a half solution. (Dire Predictions, 2015). Most have adopted
the attitude that the little things that are possible for us to do ourselves will never make the
necessary difference to really impact the world. In 2010, a poll found that while recycling is
widespread in America and 73 percent of those polled are paying bills online in order to save
paper, only four perfect are actually reducing the amount of energy and utilities are actually
being exhausted. It has been mentioned that a hundred years would be necessary to change every
persons lifestyle enough to matter, but unfortunately we dont have that kind of time.
(McKibben, 2016)
A necessary and seemingly more practical approach would be to restore and further
protect agriculture and forest landscapes in order to increase productivity and improve the
environment. A global demand for agricultural and forestry commodities food, fuel, fibre, and
timber is rising rapidly primarily in emerging and developing economies. This specific
necessity could greatly affect the amount of population growth that is expected to increase from
1.2 billion by 2030, which will only increase our need. A Simultaneous change is necessary

regarding raising agricultural and forest productivity, preventing deforestation, improving the
governance of natural resources use, and strengthening the resilience of land use systems to
climate change and other threats. The only way for this plan to effectively change the climate is
to implement them all and maintain the necessary balance between each plan. Without one
functioning the way it is needed, the rest will fail.
In America there are so many structural projects that are always occurring all at once.
This is something that produces a lot of time and money and in turn usually means economic
growth and effectiveness. On the other hand, many of those projects hinder the environment due
to the necessary tools for each development. One improvement that can and should be made to
really effect the future of the climate would be to change the new and budding infrastructure to
something that will only benefit and further improve our advances to better the environment.
Developing countries face high demand for newer substructure to support rising population
numbers. This increased consumption to a new industry, unfortunately many have maintenance
accumulations that need attention for existing infrastructure.
As I stated briefly before, for a fleeting moment one might look at any effort made by one
person as pointless or counter-productive. Many consider the fact that while one person may plan
their life around improving the environment, another might not care at all, might not put any
effort at all into the climate project. Bill Gates and Sir Richard Branson have thrown all of their
time, weight and money into generating a more purposeful and effective way to improve the
environment. When we think about global warming at all, the arguments tend to be ideological,
theological and economic. But to grasp the seriousness all we need to do is a little math of the
predicament. This analysis upends most of the conventional political thinking about climate

change. And it allows us to understand our precarious our almost-but-not-quite-finally hopeless

position with three simple numbers. (McKibben, 2012)

Works Cited
Mann, Michael E and Lee R Kump. Dire Predictions. New York: DK, 2009. Print.
Brown, Lester. "The Great Energy Transition To Solar And Wind Is Underway".
EcoWatch. N.p., 2016.

Web. 1 Aug. 2016.

"Seizing the Global Opportunity". The New Climate Economy. Web. 1 Aug. 2016.
McKibben, Bill. "Global Warming's Terrifying New Math". Rolling Stone 2012. Web. 2
Aug. 2016.
"How Much Electricity Does An American Home Use? - FAQ - U.S. Energy Information
Administration

(EIA)". Eia.gov. N.p., 2015. Web. 1 Aug. 2016.