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Introduction

Climate change is a common topic in the modern world, it is the long term change in weather patterns. Climate change affects economies and rural areas in phenomena such as: drought, fires, the death of animal and plant species, flooding from rivers and lakes. As the name implies, it has a variant range of affects to the environment.

Vocabulary:

Mitigate: lessen the gravity of a situation. (To Lessen)

Objectives:

+ In the growing interest in the common topic of global warming, we will learn a little bit of what climate change is and how you can help adapt to it.

What is Climate Change Mitigation?

-it refers to any action focused to lessen the effects of global warming.

In order to counter effects, various actions, treaties were conducted and several policies are being drafted for implementation in global and local levels. During the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro from June 3-14, 1994, an international environmental treaty now popularly known as United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was negotiated to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. Considering the role of pollutants, the treaty developed different programs that they believe could mitigate the effects of climate change.

Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFane7eS9Ys

Ways to Mitigate the effects of Climate Change

Increasing carbon sequestration and conservation

both natural and deliberate processes by which CO2 is either removed from the atmosphere or diverted from

emission sources and stored in the ocean, terrestrial environments (vegetation, soils,and sediments), and geologic formations. Before human-caused CO2 emissions began, the natural processes that make up the global “carbon cycle” (fig. 1) maintained a near balance between the uptake of CO2 and its release back to the atmosphere.

Use of Bioenergy

Introduced by Jens Dall Bentzen on 2001, Bioenergy is energy made from biomass or biofuel. Biomass is any organic material which has absorbed sunlight and stored it in the form of chemical energy. Examples are wood, energy crops and waste from forests, yards, or farms. Recently developed forms of bioenergy use materials called “biomass,” such as sugar cane, grasses, straw, soybeans, and corn.

Reduced Chemical fertilizer use

A Chemical fertilizer or fertiliser is any material of synthetic origin that is applied to soil or to plant tissues to supply one or more plant nutrients essential to the growth of plants. They are composed of one or more growth elements such as nitrogen, phosphorus,potassium which when applied may cause Eutrophication.

Eutrophication: increased production of organic material

Anaerobic Digestion of waste

Methane, is an identified greenhouse gas that is produces through natural decay of waste water, crop waste, and animal waste. to reduce its emission, wastes can be collected and stored in anaerobix digesters. As a process, anaerobix digestion uses naturally occurring microorginasims to breakdown organic materials and produce Biogas.

Improved energy efficiency

With the limited natural resources that can be offered by planet, man has to think of ways on how to improve energy efficiency while reducing the carbon dioxide emissions,

Some practices that would improve energy use and efficiency:

• Utilizations of domestic energy sources.
• Make mass transits more extensive, economical and user-friendly.
• Develop and disseminate practical energy conservation packages for the general population and for industry sectors such as agriculture, etc.
• Set guidlines for industry and consumers in the use of Energy Star products.
• Recycle items as much as possible. Sometimes this can be counterproductive if there is not enough volume or if recycling needs too much energy or cost.

Question Time

How can you help in the movement?

Speak up!

What’s the single biggest way you can make an impact on global climate change? “Talk to your friends and family, and make sure your representatives are making good decisions.