Category Weather & Climate

Flash floods, storms, heatwaves, and drought… Extreme weather events are rocking the world, and are likely to leave you feeling anxious. Recent studies have shown that climate anxiety is for real. Here’s what you can do.

Madhuvanti S. Krishnan.

Climate change and eco-crisis are well known. But what is climate anxiety? No, it isn’t a figment of your imagination, and yes, it does exist. finds recent research. In September 2021, a survey was conducted across 10 countries, led by the University of Bath, in collaboration with five universities, and funded by Avaaz, a campaign and research group. It involved 10,000 people between the ages of 16 and 25 years, and discovered that more than half of them experienced climate anxiety. and thought that humanity was doomed, courtesy, climate change

So, what is climate anxiety? Brit Wray, a Stanford researcher and author, Generation Dread says. “Climate anxiety is an assortment of feelings that a person can experience when they wake up to the full extent of the climate and wider ecological crisis.”

She further explains that as the term implies, anxiety is one aspect of it, but there are other emotions that occur alongside. For instance, she elaborates, grief, fury, helplessness, hopelessness, and difficult feelings along similar lines, that point out people’s concern for the world. Succinctly put, it is a feeling of guilt or desperation, a sense of doom, about the state of the environment.

It has been attracting progressively more attention among climate and social scientists, especially due to its impact on people’s mental health.

Drivers

Constant media exposure, the tendency to incessantly access and consume content on social media, multiple studies that show species being threatened or becoming extinct, relentless news on coral reefs dying, melting glaciers, and more, heightens anxiety.

Then, there’s Nature, which plays an instrumental role in simultaneously exacerbating and keeping at bay climate anxiety. Events such as natural disasters, resource depletion among others, drive anxiety as people who are aware of the value of nature will be more sensitised to the risk of loss relates to climate change. However, the flip side to this is that it is only when they are exposed to Nature. will they be healed of such anxiety -research details how engaging with the great outdoors and actively involving oneself in environment-related activities will reduce the rising feeling of alarm one experiences.

Maximum impact

In 2020, Friends of the Earth, an environmental non-profit organisation, estimated that over two-thirds of people, between 18 to 24 years, experience climate anxiety. Indeed, as youngsters who will bear witness to the worsening after-effects of climate chaos, it is unsurprising that it is primarily they who are most anxious and concerned. In fact, Gen Z has been nicknamed the Climate Generation.

Does this mean others are unaffected?

Not really. While the older generations are undoubtedly disquieted about the crisis, they are more perturbed by the short-term impact of climate change. In other words, their consternation will not take a toll on their mental health and overwhelm them as much as it does Gen Z

There are digital tools that help combat eco-anxiety, and an interactive website, Hold This Space, does precisely this. Designed in collaboration with psychologists and environmental scientists, it conducts activities that target people experiencing anxiety. especially youngsters, and encourages them to channelise their feelings into effective climate action, which by extension, helps them develop resilience and coping mechanisms.

SOME TIPS

*It is normal to experience climate anxiety because you are constantly exposed to climate-related news.

*You are not alone. Do not let anxiety overwhelm you. *Talk about your feelings, make yourself heard.

*Connect with like-minded people who will understand where you come from, without brushing off your anxiety as

*Get involved in activities to do with nature that will not only lessen your anxiety by virtue of being actively involved, but will also help you develop skills and build resilience.

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It’s inevitable that often its climate change that makes global headlines. For years, experts have been cautioning us about the impending doom of our planet if we do not mend our ways. Among the suggestions to save Earth is the expansion of green cover. But studies point to the fact that simply expanding green cover alone may not really rescue us from the dire situation we find ourselves in. Here’s why. It is an established fact that forests take in large quantities of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. So it would make sense to increase such areas to tackle the growing carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere. But it is important to note that due to global warming, there are increasing instances of wildfires and drought globally, killing off several trees. Such trees, dying in large numbers, are adding to the carbon in the atmosphere.

Further, it is assumed that more carbon dioxide for a tree translates to greater growth due to photosynthesis. However, a study has shown that rather than photosynthesis it’s the cell division that drives the growth of trees. And this process is severely affected by climate change impact such as drought.

Such studies appear to point to the fact that rather than only trying to increase forest areas for carbon offset, it is perhaps more urgent, pertinent, and wiser to protect what exists already. This calls for cutting down on emissions. thus bringing down instances of forests being lost to wildfires, drought, and tree-attacking insects that thrive in a warmer world.

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A climate pattern describing the unusual warming of surface waters in the easter tropical Pacific Ocean, El Nino corresponds to the warm phase of the larger phenomenon known as the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The pattern that describes the unusual cooling of the region’s surface waters, or the cool phase of ENSO, is referred to as La Nina. Ocean temperatures, the speed and strength of ocean currents, health of local fisheries, and the local weather of regions from Australia to South America and beyond are affected by the El Nino, which is not a regular cycle.

The El Nino phenomenon caused muddy rivers to overflow along the entire Peruvian coast in 2017.

El Nino can be understood as a natural phenomenon wherein the ocean temperatures rise especially in parts of the Pacific ocean. It is the nomenclature which is referred to for a periodic development along the coast of Peru. This development is a temporary replacement of the cold current along the coast of Peru.   El Nino is a Spanish word. The term El Nino basically means ‘the child’. This is due to the fact that this current starts to flow around Christmas and hence the name referring to baby Christ.

Another natural phenomenon, similar to El Nino is La Nina, which is also in news these days. The term La Nina literally means ‘ little girl’. It is termed as opposite to the phenomenon of El Nino as it results in the ‘cooling’ of the ocean water in parts of the Pacific ocean.   Both of them also result in changes in atmospheric conditions along with oceanic changes.

El Nino Effects

El Nino results in the rise of sea surface temperatures
It also weakens the trade winds of the affected region
In India, Australia, it can bring about drought conditions. This affects the crop productivity largely. It has been also observed certain times, that EL Nino may not bring drought but cause heavy rainfall. In both the cases, it causes heavy damage.
However, in some other countries it may result in a complete reversal, i.e., excessive rainfall.

Mitigation Of  Effects:

Keeping a check on the sea surface temperatures.
Maintaining sufficient buffer stocks of food grains and ensuring their smooth supply.
Ensuring relevant support to the farmer community including economic help.
Alternative ways to be promoted such as the practice of sustainable agriculture.

Credit : BYJUS.com

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A geographic area where plants, animals, and other organisms, along with weather and landscape, work together to form a sphere of life is known as an ecosystem. Ecosystems thus contain biotic or living parts like plants, animals and other organisms as well as abiotic factors like temperature, humidity and rocks. The interdependence of these various parts and factors. either directly or indirectly, is what makes ecosystems thrive.

Ecosystems are controlled by external and internal factors. External factors such as climate, parent material which forms the soil and topography, control the overall structure of an ecosystem but are not themselves influenced by the ecosystem. Internal factors are controlled, for example, by decomposition, root competition, shading, disturbance, succession, and the types of species present. While the resource inputs are generally controlled by external processes, the availability of these resources within the ecosystem is controlled by internal factors. Therefore, internal factors not only control ecosystem processes but are also controlled by them.

Ecosystems are dynamic entities—they are subject to periodic disturbances and are always in the process of recovering from some past disturbance. The tendency of an ecosystem to remain close to its equilibrium state, despite that disturbance, is termed its resistance. The capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganize while undergoing change so as to retain essentially the same function, structure, identity, and feedbacks is termed its ecological resilience. Ecosystems can be studied through a variety of approaches—theoretical studies, studies monitoring specific ecosystems over long periods of time, those that look at differences between ecosystems to elucidate how they work and direct manipulative experimentation. Biomes are general classes or categories of ecosystems. However, there is no clear distinction between biomes and ecosystems. Ecosystem classifications are specific kinds of ecological classifications that consider all four elements of the definition of ecosystems: a biotic component, an abiotic complex, the interactions between and within them, and the physical space they occupy.

Ecosystems provide a variety of goods and services upon which people depend. Ecosystem goods include the “tangible, material products” of ecosystem processes such as water, food, fuel, construction material, and medicinal plants. Ecosystem services, on the other hand, are generally “improvements in the condition or location of things of value”. These include things like the maintenance of hydrological cycles, cleaning air and water, the maintenance of oxygen in the atmosphere, crop pollination and even things like beauty, inspiration and opportunities for research. Many ecosystems become degraded through human impacts, such as soil loss, air and water pollution, habitat fragmentation, water diversion, fire suppression, and introduced species and invasive species. These threats can lead to abrupt transformation of the ecosystem or to gradual disruption of biotic processes and degradation of abiotic conditions of the ecosystem. Once the original ecosystem has lost its defining features, it is considered “collapsed”. Ecosystem restoration can contribute to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

Credit : Wikipedia 

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The long-term shifts in temperature and weather patterns is referred to as climate change. While these shifts have been natural for the longest period of humanity, human activities have become the main driver of climate change since the 1800s. This is mainly due to the burning of fossil fuels like coal oil and gas, which then produces heat-trapping gases to alter the delicate equilibrium governing the Earth in a negative fashion.

What Causes Climate Change?

There are lots of factors that contribute to Earth’s climate. However, scientists agree that Earth has been getting warmer in the past 50 to 100 years due to human activities.

Certain gases in Earth’s atmosphere block heat from escaping. This is called the greenhouse effect. These gases keep Earth warm like the glass in a greenhouse keeps plants warm.

Human activities — such as burning fuel to power factories, cars and buses — are changing the natural greenhouse. These changes cause the atmosphere to trap more heat than it used to, leading to a warmer Earth.

When human activities create greenhouse gases, Earth warms. This matters because oceans, land, air, plants, animals and energy from the Sun all have an effect on one another. The combined effects of all these things give us our global climate. In other words, Earth’s climate functions like one big, connected system.

Thinking about things as systems means looking for how every part relates to others. NASA’s Earth observing satellites collect information about how our planet’s atmosphere, water and land are changing.

By looking at this information, scientists can observe how Earth’s systems work together. This will help us understand how small changes in one place can contribute to bigger changes in Earth’s global climate.

Credit : Climate kids 

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