The time has come for me to make the last post on this blog. When I started this a couple of months ago I was extremely apprehensive about it - in simple terms, blogging was not my thing. I did not think that I would enjoy it this much, and I am sad that it is coming to an end. Nonetheless, this has been a very exciting journey for both me and you, and all I want to say is that I hope you have enjoyed it as much as I have. I have definitely learnt things along the way, and I hope you have too. Hopefully I have put the scientific facts to you as correctly as possible - if i have not, I apologise. Maybe one day in the future we will stumble across this blog and see that a change has been made, and the impacts covered in this post have been reduced or stopped all together.
I would like to take this opportunity to summarise some of the key things that we have been through over the last couple of weeks. I am aware that I have thrown a vast majority of things at you throughout this blog, but that just goes to show how much debate there is within the climate science field, and in particular the impacts it has on humans, which this blog has been focusing on. Although the posts I have made have varied in location and impact, what they did have in common was that all where focused on developing nations and the unfair distribution of climate change impacts.
1) Environmental impacts: It is clear that global environmental change caused by humans is having a massive environmental impact on those living in developing countries. Lets take the drought in Somaliland for example, or the floods in developing Asian countries such as Bangladesh. The reason why this is so important is because although farmland may not be as important to those living in developed countries - those in poor parts of the world rely on agriculture to make a living. If land used for cultivation is destroyed, then those living in developing nations are unlikely to be able to earn a living through another industry as many of them are uneducated. Thus the impacts are huge.
2) Social impacts: Today is New Years Day. Imagine you had to spend it at a refugee camp because your home was destroyed by a flood. Well that is the case for many people from developing countries. Somebody in the world right now is separated from their community, alone, because climate change has taken their livelihood away from them. Many climate migrants from developing nations are forced to flee each day due to difficulties caused by climate change. The vast majority of the time, they are bearing the brunt of the more developed world, but impacts are unfairly distributed.
3) Economic impacts: Once houses, schools, hospitals and other infrastructure is destroyed, governments of developing nations have to spend money to rebuild and recover. This money could be spent on development but instead its being spent on damages caused by avoidable circumstances. This then means the development of certain countries is halted, leaving them further behind and forgotten about.
The impacts of climate change is unfairly distributed, felt most by those who live in developing countries, and by those who do not contribute as much as we do.
