CILT,Brasília, Brazil, Teacher Marcia, 3C

Globalization   Aug 27, 2017 by Juliana Pereira

The climate of a region or city is typical of the average weather. For example, the climate of Hawaii is sunny and warm, but the climate of Antarctica is freezing cold.

Climate change is the rise in average surface temperatures on Earth, mostly due to the burning of fossil fuels. Could be a change in a region's average annual rainfall, or it could be a change in a city's average temperature for a given month or season.

Earth´s climate is always changing, observations show that Earth´s climate has been warming, it´s called global warming. Some causes of climate change is natural, but most scientist think the recent warming could not be a natural change, they said it's very likely that most of the warming since the mid-1900s is due to the burning of coal.

The climate change affect us with the warming temperatures that are going to have negative effects in the polar ice caps, melting and changing the sea level which will affect all of people around the globe, besides animals and fish. If the ice caps melt, it will affect 19 climate-tipping points. Some tipping points outlined by scientists include:

• Growth on the vegetation of tundra
• Higher releases of methane, a potent greenhouse gas
• Shifts in snow distribution, consequently, ocean warming

How can that affect humans?

• The growth on the vegetation of tundra means that our planet is going to suffer the second ice age;

• The release of methane is toxic and this can poison a large part of the world`s drinking water;
• Shifts in snow distribution, warms the ocean and it will kill a large part of the marine life and a lot of fish.

The colonization had a transition period between the Renaissance and Industrialization. It brought us great innovations like cars, steam trains, coal and huge industries. Those innovations have given us great technological advance. However, those innovations have brought pollutants that did not have the effect they currently have. For example, now we have a huge lack of trees that used to purify the air. The need to build industries, buildings and skyscrapers in fertile lands, are examples of big ecological shocks. Obviously, a long time ago, this was not expected and today we have the largest emission of CO2 in the air and the greatest waste of water. Therefore, we need urgent changes to provide life for future generations. Every day in Brazil, for example, we watch TV advertisements teaching us how to save water, it was a small idea that became bigger and reached all Brazilian opened TV channels. Today we need small ideas that together will became great ideas to provide a sustainable world.

As it was stated before, colonization has had good and bad aspects to be taken into consideration. We all can see how that has brought us such a great diversity in many ways. On the other hand, it did not cause just good things. For example, the trade culture, and the respect for queens and kings, also brought to colonized countries the rape culture and exploitation of the natural lands treasures.

In Brazil, for example, which was colonized by Portugal in the 1500s , Pau Brazil (a tree with reddish color and strong wood, which named the country later) was exploited and almost devastated from the country. The native Brazilian indian tribes were another example of exploitation, at earlier stages of settlement, there were indigenous slavery labor to maintain the subsistence economy. Later, there were the slaves brought from Africa (about 4.9 million) from 1501 to 1866. Only in 1888, slavery was abolished in Brazil. Another kind of exploitation that happened in Brazil, was related to the Brazilian gold for many years in an era called the Golden Age (1650-1808) Unfortunately, Brazil did not take advantage from that era due to colonization.

Now, many of those resources are is in extinction. Even though, colonization has brought many progress for the colonized countries, it also brought the main factor of world destruction, the idea that we can use every resource without thinking about tomorrow, if we do not change this reality, we will not have any resource in a near future.

There are some actions that people can do to make the world more sustainable, like saving water, saving energy, not wasting food, because people waist too much fuel to make food to put on the crash, also, using the three “Rs” ideas, which are reduce, reuse, and recycle. Another suggestions to help the environment are using cars less frequently, being a conscious buyer, for example not buying unnecessary stuff. We need to make boundaries to spread the idea of sustainability around the world and make it a better place. It depends only on us.

A sustainable world consists of balancing global efforts to meet basic human needs without destroying or degrading the natural environment. It is something that improves the quality of human life while living within the capacity of supporting ecosystems.

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