3 responses, 200 words and 2 sources per a respond
1st Response
Climate change is effected by many many things; big and small, high income and low income areas, and simple day to day actions. Climate change is known as the long-term alter weather and temperature patterns. Some of these alterations may be natural but for the last 200 years the main drive to these alterations have been human activity.
Large cities are the number one contributors to the rapid increase of climate change. According to UN Habit 78% of the world’s energy is consumed by cities and they are responsible for more than 60% of the production of greenhouse emissions. All while these numbers are outrageous they are accountable for 2% of Earth’s surface (Nations, 2021). WHO encourages the start of policies to reduce pollution, including things like better waste management, use of clean technologies and fuels for heating. lightening, cooking, and home air quality (Nations, 2021). UN Environment’s Share the Road Programme also has to goal of reduces greenhouse emissions and air pollution. This programme encourages walking and cycling and even has endorsed award-winning bike sharing scheme in Hangzhou. This started out to provide public transport but ended up declining traffic and significantly improving air quality (Nations, 2021). Cities do not make up a large amount of the Earth’s surface but produce the largest amount of greenhouse emissions in result of having so many factories and large amounts of traffic. The number one way to reduce these large outputs of emissions is to encourage walking, cycling, or public transportation. Encouraging these different actions and even adding in some sort of bribery or award to not partaking in the large traffic jams will highly increase the amount of people that chose to walk. In the city many things are within walking distance and not only will walking reduce greenhouse emissions but also increase the overall health of individuals that life in the city.
It is crazy to think how small of the Earth’s surface is consumed by cities but yet they still produce a large amount of air pollution and greenhouse emissions. It is important to educate individuals and societies of these large cities so that they can understand the importance of changing these simple everyday actions to benefit the decrease of climate change for the population down the road.
Giddens, A., Duneier, M., Appelbaum, R. P., & Carr, D. (2021). Essentials of sociology. W. W. Norton & Company
Nations, United. “Generating Power.” United Nations, United Nations, 2021, https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/climate-solutions/cities-pollution#:~:text=Cities%20are%20major%20contributors%20to,cent%20of%20the%20Earth’s%20surface.
2nd response
Cities have a high rate of consumption of energy, they are accountable for 70% global greenhouse gases and Skyscrapers are 70% of their carbon footprint (week 14, 2022). Chicago is leading the way in climate change resolutions, but the city still draws 80% of power from coal and nuclear resources and 21% greenhouse gas emissions are from cars, trains, and buses (week 14, 2022). The city becomes an urban heat island, where heat is stored in glass windows and concrete then released at night (week 14, 2022). Cities contribute to high rates of consumption and waste that leads to trash filling landfills, large pollution rates. Many cities come with economic inequalities and residential segregation. Then there is the problem of overcrowding, reduced healthcare, unavailability of fresh foods and overcrowding in public schools.
Cities can work on slowing the affects of climate change by providing more public transportation and encourage bike riding or walking to reduce the emissions from cars. Making solar panels more affordable so they can be used by buildings and homes to reduce resource consumption, using alternative resources like the solar panels and windmills could reduce energy consumption a great deal. Communities need to come up with expansive recycling programs, and I love the idea of green roofs that Chicago has come up with (week 14,2022).
Giddens, A., Duneier, M., Appelbaum, R. P., & Carr, D. (2021). Essentials of sociology. W. W. Norton & Company
SOCI week 14 video Chicago is Leading Americas Fight Against Climate Change3rd response
Climate change is an on going problem in which there are individuals, groups, industries and also cities that impact this problem. There are ways that cities can invest in to help so this issue down. There must be an understanding of what these cities do in the first place to contribute to climate change.
Cities are where a lot of factors that contribute to climate change happen. With many factors giving off pollutes to the air or the all the transportations (cars, buses, vans, or subways). Depending on the cities, comes with the population of a lot of residents but also people who come into the cities for work, dinner/lunch, or to see others which increases the amount of times people drive their cars causing more factors for the issue. While cities have implemented greenhouses to help slow down the issue of climate change, rather it is worsening the air quality (Orsetti et al., 2022). Which there needs to be something else in replace of the greenhouses. The larger cities could push to have people transport in one kind of transportation like subways or buses. That way there is less cars traveling throughout the city which means less traffic and cars sitting putting more into the air causing more of issue to grow. Cities could also put in charging stations for electric cars so there is more of a use for the electric cars. The subways could be more climate appropriate by using different materials to make the subway get place to place. Cities could also put up recycle bins throughout the sidewalks and parks, if there is one, to show people where they can recycle and what kind of things they put in the recycle bins.
Climate change is a growing issue for everyone and there should be something for people to slow down their actions. Cities need to start pushing these changes were the most factors are contributing to the problem.
Giddens, A., Duneier, M., Appelbaum, R. P., & Carr, D. (2021). Essentials of sociology. W. W. Norton & Company.
Orsetti, E., Tollin, N., Lehmann, M., Valderrama, V. A., & Morató, J. (2022). Building resilient cities: climate change and health interlinkages in the planning of public spaces. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(3). https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19031355Links to an external site.