Just imagine you're about to perform a song in front of a big audience. A cue is given by the man backstage to unveil the stage. Your heart is pounding hard, your chest is hurting, and you start to feel breathless. You've second thoughts about whether you would stop in the middle. The curtains open and there is light flashing into your eyes. Seeing the audience in front makes your gut twist and your palms sweat.
But why does the body respond in such a way? Isn't supposed to make us feel more confident and ready for the situation according to evolution? Well, yes it is supposed to make us more confident but it does it in a slightly different manner than we think.
Anxiety increases your pulse and breathing rate, so your brain can get more oxygen. This prepares you to respond appropriately to an intense situation. Can trigger your flight-or-fight stress response and release hormones, like adrenaline, into your system. In pre-historic times this is what helped us either run away from our predators or fight for our prey.
You might be thinking why am I even talking about such a random thing. Well, there is an actual condition called ''Climate Anxiety''. It has been defined as "a chronic fear of environmental doom". Symptoms are irritability, sleeplessness, loss of appetite, bouts of weakness, panic attacks, and twitching.
"Gradual, long-term changes in climate can also surface a number of different emotions, including fear, anger, feelings of powerlessness, or exhaustion". Generally, this is likely to have the greatest impact on young people. Here we can use this anxiety to spur more passion in youth.
If you ever had climate anxiety: Would you choose to fight or flight
Fight climate change
Flight climate change
Both - Fight as well as Flight
The climate-related stress now affecting teenagers and those in their 20s has been likened to Cold War fears that gripped young baby boomers who came of age under the threat of nuclear annihilation
Personally, I also had instances of climate anxiety myself. It was a feeling of uneasiness and exhaustion when I learned that the global temperature was not going as we predicted it. As the average global temperature increased more the effects of climate change were felt.
For those who don't understand what the global average temperature is, well let's say every decade (10 years) they take the average global temperature of the world and compare it with the previous decade. For example from 1990-2000 let's say the global temperature was approximately 14'C and from 2000-2010 it is 15'C. So we see there is a 1'C increase in the global temperature.
Current statistics show our earth is at 1.2'C as compared to pre-industrial times. 1.5'C was the Paris Agreement, and there is no doubt we'll reach there in no time which is bad news.
Consequences of hitting unimaginable average global temperatures:-
Warming more than 2'C
More extreme weather events
Ecosystems will be under collapse
Some will not survive
At 3'C
Large natural systems will break down.
Heat waves will become common
Hurricanes and Droughts will be more frequent
Subsistence farmers will be hit the hardest
There will be mass migration - Hundreds of people will leave their homes
Developing countries will be unable to feed their populations
4'C -8'C
Earth will be unable to support the large population
Billions will perish
Scientists are predicting by 2100, the world will be reaching at 3'C if current trends continue. It was considered that the last decade was a fail. Last decade greenhouse gases increased from 7% to 24%. Coal was used a lot, especially in India and China.
However, in this decade there is a significant improvement. The usage of coal has significantly dropped. Solar energy has become 10x cheaper and wind energy 3x. In Norway, 7/10 cars were electric in 2021 and within the next year 2022 it went up to 8/10 cars.
One important message that we can get is ''Emissions are not always coupled with economic growth''. Burning more fossil fuels doesn't necessarily mean more economic growth anymore.
We're currently in phase 4 of the climate crisis.
Phase 1 - CLIMATE CHANGE IS NOT REAL
Phase 2 - IS REAL BUT NOT CAUSED BY HUMANS
Phase 3 - IS CAUSED BY HUMANS BUT NOT THAT BAD
Phase 4 - UNAVOIDABLE, DOOMED
Reference
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