One of the critical challenges of preparedness for future environmental changes is the uncertainty of how the climate system will change in several decades. This ambiguity arises due to two reasons, which make it impossible to predict the mean temperature shifts. First, the response of the system to the increase in greenhouse gas levels is unknowable, and existing simulation models provide different forecasts for the future (Mathez, 2020). Secondly, these predictions assume that the emission levels will grow according to the existing pattern. However, there is no way to tell how the human activity will change and how it will influence the atmosphere. The sources of emissions, such as industry or transportation, might experience changes of different scales, and it is impossible to design an aggregate model for all of them.
Nevertheless, it is undoubted that climate change depends on human activity which should be transformed. One of the ways to manage human actions to avoid adverse outcomes is to access the risks. Risk evaluation includes an assessment of the probability of the change and its potential damage. As protection and prevention practices require costs and effort, they should be justified and overcome the potential losses. According to Mathez (2020), the impact of climate change on some ecosystems is inevitable but will have little effect on humanity. On the other hand, global catastrophic changes might bring immense damage, but their probability seems lower. Therefore, governments must take action regarding the disastrous consequences of environmental change.
The core challenge is that climate change is evolving slowly, and people might notice only slight changes over a human lifetime. However, two chief dangers should be emphasized while educating people about climate change. The accumulating effect of human activity can result in some “tipping points” that have no forewarning and can happen rapidly (Mathez, 2020). Moreover, the emissions have a distant effect, meaning that “if we instantly reduced emissions so that the greenhouse gas content of the atmosphere remained stable, the global mean temperature would continue to increase for several decades” (Mathez, 2020, p. 4). It is critical to inform this fact people as they do not see the immediate effects of their activity, but that does not mean that there is none.
Reference
Mathez, E. (2020). Risk, uncertainty, and the future, 1-5.