We know that climate-change is real. We are facing abrupt disasters every year randomly in many places of the world. It can become everyone's problem and those problem can be unavoidable like we have been avoiding climate change. We cannot just switch to electric car or shut down the industrialized realm to fight this problem. But what if every person changed their habit of consumption /utilization? Scientific society is aware enough and may have been practicing more cleaner or greener ways of lives but how can we propagate this awareness to other people whose priority for clean/green environment is at the bottom of their list?
Effective and economic way of carbon capture from atmospheric air would beat global warming. I am also very much interested to find such a method.
@KennethTowe: I agree that climate must change and it has been changing. But by "Climate-Change" , I mean it is changing faster than it should. The sea level is rising faster than it should. The temperature has hit record high. Animals are perishing (Except for humans) forever. I am sorry to mention this but I find your answer discouraging. Do you mean that we should be staying home not worrying about the future? Or could we develop something and/or utilize the infrastructure that we have built to deliver awareness? A man can dream to colonize Mars and move there. As such can we still dream to to fight this thing?
Well, first of all I would reframe your question, since the issue is not about the average person beating climate change. A better way of asking it is, 'what's the best way the average person can reduce the possibility of climate change happening?'. I won't go into why this is a better way of asking this question here. But, in answer to the question, in my opinion, 2 things any person can do to mitigate climate change are: stop eating meat and animal products as much as possible (ideally switch to a vegan diet) and reduce using personal fossil fuel powered transport.
Kenneth,
You are of course right in saying that the climate has always been changing. The earth only became inhabitable due to the presence of carbon, which made earth's atmosphere warm enough for life to exist. But, here we are talking about anthropogenic climate change. That is, climate change caused directly or indirectly by human activity, which is making the earth too hot. Without getting into the science, first of all we cannot make a dent in atmospheric concentrations of green house gasses. Because, there's already too much of it in the atmosphere and we have no way of taking it out. But, what we can do is to reduce further emissions by for example reducing meat consumption and switching from fossil fuels to non-carbon intensive forms of energy. Addressing one of your points about the animals left if we don't eat them, I must remind you that they only exist because we eat them. We destroy forests, which are the earths air conditioners, in order to plant crops, 80% of which are fed to animals to produce meat. Those animals would simply not exist, if we did not eat them. By the way, those who try and deny that climate change exists, do it because they do not like the policies for tackling the causes of climate change and not because the science is wrong.
One can try to reduce carbon products, less fossil fuels and less waste to the disposal site. Planting more trees could use some of the carbon in the air.
Using less water and electricity will reduce the emissions too.
What is your solution then, Professor Towe? How do you propose we reduce global population? Are you proposing we take no action against AGW, and wait for an abrupt climate change to do the dirty work for you?
http://www.nap.edu/catalog/18373/abrupt-impacts-of-climate-change-anticipating-surprises#multimedia
If everybody changes his ways, like cutting the use of fossil fuels, then there will be changes in the air quality.
Since adults never agree on a joint course of action, it is easier to adopt new ways starting from kindergarten and school.
I was astonished to find out from my grandchildren in the USA that some - at least- of their teachers have engaged 5-year olds with information about the weather (some is identical to my course notes in first year university). Up to now there was nothing on the weather at schools, so the university students find it extremely hard to understand the subject.
That will be only sure way to beat climate change: Education!
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