Everybody knows the usual contributors to climate change: greenhouse gases, eating animal products, and factories run by large corporations. But there do exist other lesser known contributors to climate change. These are the silent ninjas that people seem to overlook because they don’t know any better. They range from a specific ingredient in your favorite cookie brand, all the way to the fertilizer used to keep our gardens and crops looking nice and healthy.
1. Palm oil
Palm oil is usually the ingredient that many people seem to overlook because it’s usually at the very end of the ingredient list in parenthesis. This ingredient can be found in largely known snacks and every day products such as: Oreos, ice cream, Estee Lauder branded skin care/makeup products, Pringles, Instant Noodles, and Shampoo. These products all contain palm oil and for the most part the palm oil used has been known to cause mass deforestation events which has led to the gradual extinction of Orangutans, Sumatran Tigers, Pygmy Elephants, Sumatran Rhinos, Gibbons and many others. Apart from causing the endangerment to these animals and their habitat, the gases released by these deforestation events cause huge CO2 emissions into the atmosphere that are not needed. However, if the thought of living without these items seems like too big of a burden, there are products that are created with sustainable palm oil which ensures the product was constructed in the most environmentally friendly way possible.
2. Air Conditioners and Refrigerators
Although not as aggressive and endangering to animals as palm oil is, air conditioning and refrigerators are silent contributors to climate change. These two seemingly “essential” appliances are grouped together in a category because they both release the same chemicals when they’re trying to cool a house down or keep food from spoiling. These chemicals are called HFCs, or hydrofluorocarbons which are the reason why our homes are cool and our food doesn’t spoil overnight. However, these chemicals aren’t the main reason why these two appliances contribute to climate change, air-conditioning itself releases 100 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year. That’s only including the homes in America, imagine all the air conditioned homes in the world.
3. Fertilizer
Fertilizer is the tool that many successful gardeners and farmers use to keep their crops/plants healthy and their soil full of nutrients, but at what cost? Over the last couple of years, it has been shown that fertilizer is one of the largest contributors to the increase of Nitrous Oxide in the atmosphere. Nitrous oxide is the most potent greenhouse gas, this gas traps heat which leads to global warming. Apart from this, nitrous oxide can also destroy the stratospheric ozone which helps protect Earth from UV rays. However, humans can’t just stop using fertilizer, it’s needed to be able to keep soil enriched and crops/plants healthy. A “quick-fix” to this issue could be the decrease of use of fertilizers with a high amount of Nitrogen in them.
4. Freshwater greenhouse gas emissions
As impossible as it sounds, areas like rivers and streams have had an increase in greenhouse gas emissions. The most shocking part about this contributor is that humans are responsible for this (shocker). This large increase in greenhouse gases being released from these streams and rivers are usually cause by watersheds marked with heavy agriculture, other reasons including urban development and the presence of dams. The greenhouse gas these streams and rivers are emitting is called methane, methane is a greenhouse gas that is found less in the atmosphere in comparison to carbon dioxide, but is more potent. This methane is being created at a higher percentage because of the low oxygen conditions in the water due to these watersheds. When water has these low oxygen conditions and the increasing heat of Earth, bacterial breakdown is triggered and the bacteria starts metabolizing organic matter which leads to the increase of releasing more carbon dioxide and methane.
5. Removal of vegetation
It’s not new information that vegetation is important for the environment, plants are essential for life on Earth. When big corporations decide to remove chunks of forests to make room for their construction, they’re removing a vital ecosystem that is essential to the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Along with this, they remove a large contributor to oxygen which is a necessity for all living things. When vegetation is removed via fire, a large amount of carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere which contributes to climate change. Apart from the unnecessary addition of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, vegetation is a very important factor to our world. Vegetation can help slow down the process of climate change because plants remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to convert and release oxygen which humans need.
These few contributors are just a couple of the lesser known contributors to climate change, for all we know there could be a million things that we as a population can be doing without knowing the damaging effects it has on this planet we call “home”. Hopefully this article can help[p shine a light on ways we can slowly help our planet.