Environmental challenges in Campinas and in the world

Written by João Pedro Santos and Leonardo Mantovani

The globe has passed through countless environmental problems in recent years, the most known being global warming, but the changes don’t stop there. Taking a closer look into the city we are in, Campinas, São Paulo, not only has global warming caused changes for the worse, but other factors including both human and naturally caused ones have changed how we look on the horizon.

Pollution is every day becoming a bigger concern for the whole globe and the citizens of it. Multiple global crises can come with the amount of pollution the earth deals with every day, such as the famous, global warming, which every day increases because of the pollution cars and factories make. In big cities like São Paulo, multiple times the absurd traffic and smoke contribute to the quality of that horrible air.

In Campinas, the quality is a little better than in similar cities, but the amount of contamination the city throws at rivers and at the ground is big.  Despite not being an ethical action it also contributes to the spread of diseases, the creation of others, and the ocean pollution that can later on kill fish, and marine animals and extinguish species that live in certain habitats. In the city, the pollution every day harms you even though you don’t see it or smell it. According to State of Global Air, life expectancy has fallen 1.8 years just because of pollution and if it is not stopped probably more years will drastically be gone and life expectancy will fall again.

Overall the pollution of seas, rivers, cities and in the air increases every day, impulsing even more the end of cities and seas. The contamination of the oceans is almost impossible to go away even after years and climate change is set to never come back to the normal of years ago. The oceans are every day more acidic because of trash. For example, in Brazil, lots of beaches are so polluted that people refuse to go swimming there. All of this is a consequence of people in bigger cities leaving trash inside the rivers and the government and industries throwing waste inside the canals. This trash, later on, goes to the bigger rivers and ends up in oceans where this whole trash is now together and can kill multiple animals and sea life.

In this image, we can see the water loads that most receive trash annually. All this accumulated trash further on will end up in the oceans and possibly end life. We need to help our environment if we want humans to live longer, this little accident of contaminating a river or street can later on be the cause of a bigger thing such as climate change.

Over the years, more and more signs of climate change in the region where we live have been observed, affecting not only our region but also decreasing the quality of life all around the globe. Generally speaking, consequences of climate change include severe and long periods of dry, intense fires, lack of water, increase in sea level, polar melting, decline in biodiversity, and extreme weather events. According to the United Nations (UN) report, the increase in global temperature should be kept at 1,5 C° until the end of the century, but stats already indicate that the increase will be, in fact, 3,2 C°. As said in the Unicamp Journal, governments must stay aware of the local climate actions, especially in urban areas. Campinas exemplifies the necessity of proactive measures in the fight against climate change.

In the last decade, people in Brazil have increasingly felt the consequences of climate change, including food insecurity, water crisis, and extreme weather unpredictability, such as sudden floods. These disasters are already affecting daily life, especially for people with more vulnerable social conditions. For the lack of shelter or a way of avoiding extreme weather, many people in vulnerable social conditions are at risk of being affected by the weather, by getting skin cancer due to the high temperature of the sun, or even by colder weather diseases, such as hypothermia. Besides, affecting all social classes, the rise in temperature has contributed to the expansion of tropical diseases, such as Dengue, Chikungunya, and Zika. Temperature does not only cause diseases that threaten human life but other events that can be just as destructive. As there are many cities that were not well planned in the past, many of those in Brazil are at imminent risk of intense floods, such as the widely known Rio Grande do Sul case. In addition to the threats that global warming brings to humans, animals are just as affected as we are. In recent months Campinas has been constantly facing intense wildfires one after another, burning diverse forest places that served as shelter for animals.

Even though the current scenario presents challenges, the government of Campinas has been taking action for the past years. With innovations on the topic through the law and projects, the city is now in the right direction to take care of these problems, although not every person takes part in helping the city and quality of life.

Regarding the deforestation of Campinas, citizens started a project to replant multiple trees and help the environment. The name of this project is Genesis, it counts more than 600 species of plants in their vegetation and is a part of the Atlantic forest here in Campinas. The vegetation of “ARIE Mata Santa de Genebra” also brigades more than 200 species of animals. The project has the intuition to continue planting trees and enhancing the reservation. The project happens not only in Campinas and accepts the help of the population. If you look forward to learning more and improving your knowledge in this topic, take a look in this article, Environmental Projects in Campinas, by Tomas Lima.

As a sum of all the previously mentioned problems, river sources in Campinas have been reaching their worst stage for a long time. According to the G1 journal, of a total of 2.312 river sources present in Campinas, 1.577 show problems, meaning that more than 50% of fonts have been altered by human and natural intervention. The issue involving springs not only affects cities by decreasing the amount of tap water available for citizens but also has a direct impact on the economy. According to the ABC Brazil (Agência Brasileira de Cooperação | Brazilian Cooperation Agency), the agricultural sector makes up about 10% of the Brazilian economy, and is one of the largest producers of soybeans, coffee, sugarcane, poultry, and beef. Because of this important part in the economy and as river sources have become more from year to year more degraded, many farms, plantations, and livestock areas are directly affected, lacking enough water to irrigate plants

Despite the big challenges we face in battling against these environmental problems, governments are each day more focused on eliminating this contamination. Even though the government alone will not be able to convey this challenge, we need the help of people to stop throwing garbage around the city. With the help of the community, together we can face this problem and secure our health. Human and natural factors shaped the horizon for us and each day global warmth increases, leading to some day that the view will not be beautiful but a place full of piles and piles of plastic.