The Reality of Climate Change: What Can We Do | Karen Ibasco | TEDxYouth@PSHSMain

Summary

Karen Ibasco, a physics graduate and Miss Earth 2017, shares her insights on climate change in this TEDx talk. She begins by explaining how her background in physics led her to focus on climate issues, particularly the connection between energy use and carbon emissions. Ibasco emphasizes the role of renewable energy as a solution, having observed climate challenges worldwide. She stresses that climate change is scientifically proven, citing rising temperatures, sea levels, and melting ice. Ibasco calls for global cooperation, individual action to conserve energy, reduce waste, and minimize plastic use as crucial steps towards sustainability.

Highlights

• Karen uses her physics background to address climate change. 🌡️
• Renewable energy is crucial in reducing carbon emissions. ⚡
• Climate change is evidenced by increasing temperatures and melting ice. ❄️
• The Paris Agreement aims to limit global temperature increase. 🌐
• Plastic pollution is a major environmental issue. 🐬

Key Takeaways

• Climate change is real and scientifically proven. 🌍
• Awareness and understanding are key to addressing climate change. 🧠
• Individual actions can have a global impact. 💪
• Renewable energy is a vital solution to reduce carbon emissions. 🔋
• Plastic pollution significantly harms marine life and ecosystems. 🐢

Overview

Karen Ibasco, a passionate advocate for climate action, links her physics expertise to the urgency of addressing climate change. She emphasizes how her understanding of energy led her to focus on the environmental impact of carbon emissions and the critical need for renewable energy sources like solar and wind power.

In her travels as Miss Earth 2017, Karen saw firsthand the environmental challenges different regions face. She explains the scientific evidence of climate change, including rising temperatures, melting ice caps, and sea-level rise, urging listeners to understand these facts to comprehend the gravity of the situation.

Karen passionately argues for personal responsibility in combating climate change. She outlines practical steps such as conserving energy, reducing food waste, opting for plant-based diets, and minimizing plastic use. Her message is clear: individual actions, when multiplied, can significantly impact the global effort to save our planet.

The Reality of Climate Change: What Can We Do | Karen Ibasco | TEDxYouth@PSHSMain Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 okay today I'm going to talk about the really reality of climate change and what can we do now a lot of you may think how did it all start for me well I'm a physics graduate and I know a lot of people and they hear the word physics the first thing that come to mind is yes work momento pours which is correct but when you hear or when a physics graduate hear the word physics the first thing that comes to mind is energy now I
• 00:30 - 01:00 wanted to use a platform so I can use whatever I have to bring the light light to actually represent the scientific community to give a great message I am NOT an environmental scientist so I had to do my research what is one of the biggest issue that our world is facing right now which is global warming and climate change and the purpose or the sole reason of this success of carbon emission in the atmosphere now I furthered think what is one thing that
• 01:00 - 01:30 people have access to nowadays that electricity and electricity is connected to energy so I had to find the relation in my field to that now if a lot of countries such as the Philippines and also other countries they'll use coal power plants when you burn soft fossil fuels you actually release carbon dioxide to the atmosphere there I already found my connection if there is a problem there must be a solution that's why I've heard my research the
• 01:30 - 02:00 solution would be renewable energy such as solar and wind turbines and so on that is how it all started when advocating about the conservation of energy and the use of renewable energy I want miss Earth's 2017 last November of 2017 and ever since then I traveled the world from Asia to Europe South America and Africa and I had a chance to see what was the real problem
• 02:00 - 02:30 what were the problems that are we're going through in different parts of the planet if I'm going to ask you what is the most serious issue facing our world today well according to the World Economic Forum global shapers annual survey 2016 45% unique responses identified by climate change and destruction of Natural Resources are one of them and you can truly test it out when it comes to the Philippine it's very much known now let me give you just a brief background of a little science I
• 02:30 - 03:00 know people or the students in front of me are science students in our solar system we have a Sun and we have the earth in your herd we have the atmosphere and in the atmosphere we have what we call it some greenhouse gases now for us to see life in the planet we need heat a certain amount of heat that it comes from the Sun the Sun gives a sunlight but not everything is absorbed by the planet some are reflected back in space but the greenhouse gases are the ones responsible for trapping the heat
• 03:00 - 03:30 in the planet and that is what you call this the greenhouse effect now what happens if you increase the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere you are going to increase the amount of temperature in the planet then I was asked one time okay Karen you know how to explain Lima changing your the concept of climate change but how can you explain climate change to a fire you're getting I want you all to listen to this because I remember what my professor told me when I was in
• 03:30 - 04:00 college if you want to be a lecturer or a speaker you need to make your topic understandable by all people so you always have to use layman's term so I started thinking of what this the perfect analogy to explain to a five year kid what climate change is all about now I found the perfect analogy climate change is quite similar with the side the human body you need heat for you to sustain your life but because of the external force that sort of things that
• 04:00 - 04:30 we do such as eating all those ice cream you playing in the rain and don't sleep early you can have a fever just simply by adding one degree Celsius to your body you already have a fever and it's quite the same with the planet it's like the planet is having a fever because there's success of the temperature now these are the sources of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide which is the main greenhouse gases which is taken by a burning of fossil fuels followed by methane which is quite a powerful gas
• 04:30 - 05:00 that comes from wetlands and other cultures and lentils where your garbage is go and lifestyle nitrous oxide from your automobile exhaust and of course your different kinds of carbon such as your HFCS and others hf C's is very common in refrigerators and air conditioners so if you're not using them properly you're actually meeting so much carbon now he was look at the screen those are the biggest sources of greenhouse gases peak pests of human activities such as
• 05:00 - 05:30 transport air land water we have forests spreading we have Agriculture's we have industries and coal mining now scientists believe there is a natural greenhouse gas effect in the planet but because of all the human activities being done there is an increase of greenhouse gases that close to the atmosphere that's why there's what we call as global warming and they raise the temperature in the planet you have top 10 emitters of greenhouse gases such
• 05:30 - 06:00 as China United States followed by India Russia and Japan the Philippines is not a part of it because we're a developing country and of course this is not a list that you want to be a part of now I'm going to give you three facts three indisputable facts to show that climate change really is happening and it's science-based first one is the earth is warming the average temperature or the global average temperature of the Earth's surface has increased by about point 85
• 06:00 - 06:30 degrees Celsius before pre-industrial times are during pre-industrial times that is when before machineries were created to make the lives of people better but when this were created sometimes it's used and accepts that's why all these things are happening now you can see here that in the x-axis you would see the year from 1880 to 2016 and in the y-axis you would see the temperature anomaly and the carbon dioxide concentration once you increase the amount of carbon dioxide you're
• 06:30 - 07:00 actually increasing the temperature and that's what's happening in the planet the second one the sea level is rising in the earth more water is found here than life and since 1900s sea levels have risen by an average of 19 centimeters globally you have to understand in this case that it's not simply a body in your experiment in laboratories we're talking about a global scale and for you to add 1
• 07:00 - 07:30 centimeters globally that is already in which yield and it's going to be affected or Islands are going to be affected such as us because we have long coastline the third one is the ice is melting this is a photo from NASA to show that in 1984 this was the amount of ice that was left and in 2012 this is the moon only once I was seen so it really shows that different Sciences are actually coinciding into one conclusion
• 07:30 - 08:00 that climate change really and Leonardo DiCaprio says that the science is clear but the future is not he is now a you 10 a Mac you and messenger of peace and he actually created a document Harry named beyond the flood it's so easy for you to just search it on YouTube and it's very comprehensive and informative at the same time he actually interviewed different professions from astronaut to environmental sciences and they really show that all the conclusions are just
• 08:00 - 08:30 converging to one now the Paris agreement a lot of people are not aware of the Paris agreement the Paris agreement was held last December 2015 in Paris and it took effect last November 4th 2016 but what is a Paris agreement this is when all the world leaders came together to talk about climate change and global warming and what must we do in order for us to cut the carbon emissions that we do now they actually stepped a limit to a global average
• 08:30 - 09:00 temperature which is 2 degrees Celsius we're not supposed to exceed that and we're already point 85 degrees Celsius and we're experiencing all these things in the planet but they ordered the limit to 1.5 degrees Celsius and the Philippines is a part of this Paris agreement that's why we have to learn how to mitigate are ways to lessen the carbon emission now you might ask me the Philippines is not a major contributor of greenhouse gases but why are we still woman about the climate change well it's
• 09:00 - 09:30 because of our geographical location it's one thing that we cannot do about according to world risk report of 2016 Philippines is ranked third among countries most grips of disaster but in their recent report of 2019 Philippines actually went below from third night that is to this mullah ability is actually composed of susceptibility adaptation and coping so people must know how to do it and there is a right strategy for us to do it as fall would help the government now let's
• 09:30 - 10:00 go to the waters the water is the biggest victim of climate change you can see in this photo the before and after this is actually a photo or a part in the Pacific Ocean where all these corals are so colorful and alive after quite some time they bleached and they died corals are very important because they are the habitat and spawning and feeding of a lot of marine species which is connected to us because
• 10:00 - 10:30 of the lighting foods of our Fisher folks and we are the consumers of them but that's not all the problem that we have we also have plastic pollution it's one of the biggest problems that we're facing and I'm sad to say that the Philippines is one of the biggest plastic polluter in the whole world you can see here the sea turtles are eating the plastics the birds and of course we have the whale sharks are there with anything that we call it in the Philippine this creatures cannot
• 10:30 - 11:00 distinguish plastic from not plastic or plastic from their food so they tend to eat everything what happens is that their bodies cannot digest all these things and why to die but the sad part is even when their bodies decompose a class will just simply go back to the ocean you see the effect and in time plastics are not very gradable but they be great and the small pieces call this micro plastics and when that happens it's very much easily eaten by these
• 11:00 - 11:30 creatures and sometimes fishes actually eat micro plastic and you don't know sometimes those micro plastics are already on your table and you're already eating them it's actually backfires at us ever we're doing now you've seen some of the classes and I'm gonna give you some solutions it's quite visible for what I can do and what you can do how can we help the first one is to conserve your energy if you're not using your life if you're not using your air conditioner
• 11:30 - 12:00 just simply turn it off if you can use the sunlight why turn on the light as simple as that reduce your food waste if you cannot finish everything don't buy it there's so much carbon emission that was actually used up before that food was put on your table and you're increasing all this methane of goes to the landfills if you not eat them there's so many people in decline we cannot even afford what you have the third one is to diversify your diet who among here eats burger i eat burger but
• 12:00 - 12:30 i'm not telling you not to eat burger I'm just saying to learn to diversify your diet a lot of people love to eat meat steak and pork that's okay what I'm saying is for you not to stop what I'm saying is for you to learn to blessing it and eat more vegetable you know why because the global livestock industry produces more greenhouse gases compared to all cars trains planes and ships combined so I'm just saying for you to just messin it and eat more vegetables and you're actually helping
• 12:30 - 13:00 the environment by doing that the third one is to conserve your water water is life we cannot wait for water to run out before you see how important it is it's also important for us to protect our forest because forests are no one takes in carbon the outside and releases oxygen for us it also holds oil for it's not your road and absorbs all this flood would it happen and to walk by and use trains when you're just going to a new your place I'm not saying not to use cars I also have a car but I'm just
• 13:00 - 13:30 saying that we have to listen what we actually consume and of course to refuse those plastic every time I give talks people always open their eyes to this how important it is how many of you have tumblers I believe a lot of you have some clerks and a lot of people just actually collect tumblers and put them in the shelves and don't use them well actually it's important for you to use your thumb blurs start washing them always bring them in you for you to
• 13:30 - 14:00 avoid a single use of plastic bottles you know I can talk sometimes people give me a plastic bottle and I would just simply refuse because I always bring my bumbler with me no matter where I go the second one I heard someone asked her to metal straw earlier the metal straw or the bamboo straw if you can't if you're not trying to just drink something you can actually drink it even without a single use of plastic straw even if you don't have any metal straw
• 14:00 - 14:30 if you're one of those people who actually think that hey it's just one strong how many billions of people have the same mindset as you and sometimes you just don't take it or use a plastic straw once a week sometimes you take it once a week so you multiply that can you imagine how much plastic is being consumed just because you thought hey it's just one plastic but you have to see minds and other people that's why we're encouraging others to change their ways as simple as that and using of echo pack everybody goes to the grocery
• 14:30 - 15:00 stores everybody goes and buy stuff and a lot here in the Philippines some use what we call as the sand or plastic bags so when you use your echo box you're just actually reusing them and you're not consuming all this single-use plastic and of course there are other things such as recycling the plastic because sometimes when you buy things there's so plastic that it's included and sometimes you can't say no to it that's why recycling plastic there is
• 15:00 - 15:30 what we call as the plastic solution where they actually make Eko bricks these people were actually I believe there were surfers and they wanted to remove the plastics in the ocean that's why they started is movement and found that if there's a consumed plastic bottle you can simply just stop all the other plastic inside and you can use them as an alternative for hollow blocks not for buildings but for low-cost housing and other things like walls of gardening it ordered in that way you're actually recycling the plastic and it
• 15:30 - 16:00 also show is that you have to lessen the plastic consumption that you do every single thing and of course a three hours as simple as we use reduce and recycle and this sort of things in actually showing you and of course I want you to share it to other people as simple as educating other people I was asked this question in front of millions of people who or what do you think is the biggest enemy of moniker and why and without
• 16:00 - 16:30 hesitation I said but the real problem of this world is not climate change the real problem is us because of our ignorance and apathy well we have to do is to start changing our ways there start recalibrating our minds and redirecting our sexes because only together as a global community our micro efforts to have a back way back to help save your planet thank you very much [Applause]