Various factors influence the feasibility of proposed solutions to reduce one’s carbon footprint involving household, transportation, and travel. In this instance, planting 218 trees would help mitigate 15.28 TONS of greenhouse emissions annually. They are mainly elicited from energy consumption as oil, natural gas, and coal are major fonts of carbon emissions and common household energy sources. While renewables, nuclear energy, and bioenergy showcase substantial usage, the aforementioned fossil fuels are the main energy source in the USA.
It is important to consider various ways to mitigate increasing carbon emissions to reduce the rising temperature from 3.60C to 20C. The country should increase its energy efficiency and focus on electrification of normal processes such as travel to mitigate the devastating effects of carbon emissions on the atmosphere. For instance, exploiting nuclear power would enable the USA to produce high amounts of energy using a clean energy source.
Global carbon emission reduction posits various issues, such as reduced economic development in emerging countries. A large section of people in the developing world are poor and would face issues such as starvation and unaffordable housing (Zhou, 2020). While this action would lower global temperature as it forms the majority of countries currently developing, it would lead to a high human cost. In this instance, it is prudent to assume that developing countries would not conduct an activity that their developed counterparts would avoid (Zhou, 2020). Nonetheless, the optimal method to deal with climate change would not be to reduce economic output due to fossil fuel usage. The best thing to do would be to alter energy sources to incorporate high-yielding nuclear reactors and bioenergy to reduce the carbon footprint. Households consume the most energy and provide a drastic temperature difference, lowering global averages.
Individuals and governments should avoid climate change as continued temperature rising would result in irreversible damage to our planet’s ecosystem and weather patterns. Human beings would lose the capacity to accurately discern the weather as it would be erratic with frequent storms and prolonged dry seasons. This variation should be avoided as it would destabilize the world’s normal weather patterns.
Reference
Zhou, S. W. W. (2020). Carbon Management for a sustainable environment. Springer International.