How Climate Change is Linked to Pakistan Floods
As we all know, there have been some awful floods in Pakistan recently. All over my social media page were videos and images of Pakistani communities, and all of them were devastating and horrific. It is so unfair that Pakistan contributes less than 1% of global emissions, but they get the worst impacts of climate change. Another continent that receives the worst effects of climate change is Africa, and they contribute to less than 4% of global emissions as of 2020. Homes, villages, communities, and trees were wiped away in the floods in Pakistan and, while we still have more technology to discover, we have so many high-tech devices and machines that can make a huge difference in preventing floods and droughts like the ones Pakistan is experiencing right now. For example, we could put the money that we put towards fossil fuels towards solar panels and wind mills or hydroelectricity to prevent more carbon dioxide from going into the air.
After hearing about these floods, it feels more and more like climate change is hurting these people instead of the water. Climate change is more than rising temperatures and worse storms. It is eight million people displaced, houses and schools underwater, 1,500 people being killed, no food or clothes, and sicknesses. When I hear about events like this, I feel so upset that a country is being hurt like this from something that we can prevent. We don’t need fossil fuels. They will run out one day, so why don’t we start using renewable energy earlier? We don’t need fossil fuels, we don’t need so much wood from the Amazon, we don’t need plastic water bottles. What we need more than anything is climate action.
The tragic events in Pakistan are awful and have changed the lives of the people affected so much. The thing about climate change that can be so frustrating is that we can take steps to lessen or prevent events like this from happening. If we simply change our lifestyle, people’s homes, schools, families, and lives could be saved. If our electricity came from renewable energy, if we only used metal water bottles, if we planted more trees maybe floods and droughts would occur less often. We have the answers in our hands, and what we must do is use them.
Sources: https://fortune.com/2022/09/06/how-much-pakistan-flooding-cost-climate-change-damage-ahsan-iqba/
https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/09/1127051
Image: Sikkema, Kelly. “traffic light sign underwater photo.” Unsplash, 28 January 2017,https://unsplash.com/photos/_whs7FPfkwQ
