The many issues caused by climate change

Editor’s note: This is part of a series of opinions submitted by Mariposa County resident Jon Wenzel.

I would highly recommend reading “Laudato Si’ by Pope Francis, subtitled “On Care of Our Common Home.” Pope Francis tells it the way it is.

Now about some of the things climate change causes.

When we burn fossil fuels carbon dioxide is sent into the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide traps heat and the Earth becomes hotter.

The hotter temperatures cause evaporation that cause droughts and the land dries up, no longer suitable for growing crops. The evaporated water fills clouds until they can not hold any more. Then it rains and floods.

No more water for you and your cow, which has to have water and grass to produce milk for your children. This is all-too-often the story of water shortage in regions like Sahel in north central Africa stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea.

The Sahel is south of the Sahara Desert and north of the Sudanian savanna. It is the home of 400 million people; 400 million people who are migrating or will have to migrate to villages that are free of drought.

Then those villages are stressed because they have to support that many more people. And that village will move because it has a drought. It keeps snowballing over and over again until you have mass migrations causing enormous stresses on all concerned.

Some would say the drought in the Sahel is not our problem. But it is. We are number two of the top 15 emitters of carbon dioxide in the world. Second only to China.

Studies show that the hotter it is, the more people are short tempered and become angry faster. This can lead to various conflicts.

Himalayan snow and glaciers are melting at an accelerating rate due to the rising temperatures caused by global warming. The rate glaciers are melting has never been seen in nature.

Nearly two billion people in South Asia depend on a natural melt of these glaciers for their drinking water and crop irrigation. The Himalayan glaciers are melting twice as fast as they did from 1975 to 2000. The faster they melt the faster they flow to the ocean and are lost to a mixture with salt water.

This also causes flooding which causes destruction of homes and land in the Bangel Delta of Bangladesh. There are 150 million people who live on or very close to the Bangel Delta. Bangladesh is mostly Bangel Delta. This will become a migration or mass migration to another area or country.

The International Center of Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) said that between 2010 to 2019 all world glaciers melted 65 percent faster than 2001 to 2010. The ICIMOD said that this rate of melting is alarming and unprecedented.

Data gathered from NASA satellite data shows that Himalayan glaciers have lost more than a vertical foot and a half of ice each year since 2000. This is double of what melted from 1975 to 2000.

The Himalayan glaciers are shrinking faster than other glaciers in the world.

Black carbon, soot from wildfires, burning of biomass and burning of fossil fuels darkens the snow and ice. The darken snow and ice absorbs more sunlight which causes it to melt faster.

Glaciers in the Hindu Kush Himalayan region, which is in Afghanistan and Pakistan, are also melting 65 percent faster from 2010 to 2019 than from 2000 to 2009.

The ocean absorbs 25 percent to 31 percent of the carbon dioxide. A rise in temperature and more carbon dioxide kill both coral and fish.

The acidity, acid lever, in the ocean has to be just right for corals and fish to live. The right chemical balance has developed over hundreds of thousands of years.

A constant increase of 1 degree Celsius, 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, above the average temperature can cause coral to turn white and dye and fish start to die.

As the temperature rises in the ocean, the corals are stressed and eject algae that live in the coral which causes a loss of color. Algae is also the primary food for corals and fish.

Fish eat the algae, plankton and other organisms that live in the coral. They are the major food source for three billion people.

Fish are swimming north to cooler waters to escape the heat. They have a hard time breathing in warmer waters. Fishing fleets are having to go further north for their catch.

Some areas are becoming or have been completely fished out. Fleets sailing further and fish becoming scarcer make prices go up.

Noticed the prices of fish, lobster, crab, etc. lately? If the new area is being fished by an established group then territory disputes happen. This all started by dumping billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Coral reefs protect shores from storms, floods and erosion as they slow waves. Their complex structure can reduce waves energy up to 97 percent. This prevents property damage and protects people and buildings built on the beach or waterfront.

Because hotter air evaporates and holds more moisture it adds energy to hurricanes. More moisture to fill clouds to rain and more floods.

Hurricane Katrina was stronger than the average because climate change was a contributing factor in increasing the water temperature of the Gulf of Mexico. Climate change does not create hurricanes but it adds energy to them.

Katrina was a Category 5 hurricane with a wind speed of 175 mph when at sea and slowed to a Category 3 on land with winds up to 125 mph. I would rather deal with earthquakes any day rather than hurricanes.

A study shows that wind speeds of Atlantic Basin Hurricanes from 2019 to 2023 were higher because of the warmer ocean. Another study shows that every 2024 hurricane was stronger than it would have been 100 years ago.

The average carbon dioxide ppm in 1924 was 304.9. Today, the ppm is 424.69. Hurricanes today are nine to 28 mph faster with warmer oceans.

Stronger hurricanes cause more deaths and damages. Katrina killed 1,400 people and cost $201.3 billion. This is the highest cost of any storm on record.

Some scientists were saying in the late 1990s that we have to stop global warming. It is 30 years later and a little, but not enough, is being done. Today we cannot stop global warming because we have burned too much fossil fuel that has sent too much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Carbon dioxide lasts for thousands of years in the atmosphere. If we stop burning fossil fuels today the people 1,000 years from now will be feeling the effects of our business as usual.

Next time I will talk about deforestation.

Jon Wenzel is seeking other individuals interested in this topic and he can be reached at jondwenzel@gmail.com.