Climate Change Cause and Effect - Essay Example

?The terms climate change and global warming are interchangeable. The instructions were followed very carefully. All sections are written as instructed. You did not respond to the last message so I do not know how to help you with this. Climate Change Cause and Effect Student name Instructor name Course name Date Global warming is a term commonly used to describe the consequences of man- made pollutants overloading the naturally-occurring greenhouse gases causing an increase of the average global temperature, the subject of great debate and concern worldwide. According to all peer-reviewed scientific studies, if the amount of greenhouse gasses being pumped into the air by factories, power plants and automobiles is not severely curtailed and soon, the earth and its inhabitants will suffer cataclysmic consequences in the near future. Continued global warming causes will have negative economic, social and environmental effects as will be discussed in this paper. Misconceptions are perpetrated by large corporations such as oil and auto companies which believe they will be the losers if limits to CO2 emissions are legislated in the U.S. According to their propaganda, the planet’s climate is experiencing a normal cycle of change. Television commercials distributed by the oil and gas companies demonstrate how CO2 is an essential component of the economy and an integral element of the cycle of life itself and therefore should not be regulated (Hopkins, 2006). In American particularly auto companies lobby against regulating automobile emissions claiming that it is not economically feasible for them. This is simply untrue because countries such as Japan, Korea and China have much stricter emission standards than the U.S. yet these country’s car sales are up while U.S. automakers are down. The nations that produce the most energy efficient autos also sell the most cars and suggest that if U.S. auto makers followed suit, their profits would rise, not fall as they claim (Thomas, 2006). The economic consequence of doing nothing is far greater than solving the problem through legislation. New industries that supply solar, nuclear, wind and battery power will replace any jobs lost by the old pollution producing industries and likely produce more. The economy will be enhanced by aggressively pursuing alternate energy sources rather than destroyed. “We have a false belief that we have to choose between a healthy economy and a healthy environment” (Schroeder, 2007). The earth’s natural abilities to filter out damaging elements such as CO2 and the less prevalent harmful gasses such as methane, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and nitrous oxide (N2O) are being overwhelmed. The collective rainforests of the world act as a climatic sponge to store a great deal of the world’s rainwater. Trees in the rainforest recycle water drawn from the forest ground. This filtered water, combined with the moisture that evaporates from the leaves, is released back into the atmosphere to fall as rain elsewhere. If not for this enormous system, rivers, lakes and land masses would dry-up, thus loss of rainforest equals increasing droughts of increasing proportions. Disease, starvation and famine on a worldwide scale will be deforestation’s direct result. If immediate action is not taken to reverse the present trend of deforestation, the immense Amazon rainforest will soon become a desert region not unlike the Sahara in Africa. Once this process is underway, the effects are irreversible. Studies have determined that the Amazon rainforest, even in its current state, could not withstand three years of drought conditions without beginning the irrevocable path to becoming the Amazon desert. This result, in and of itself, is tragic enough but the repercussions to the rest of the world would be as catastrophic. “Scientists say that this would spread drought into the northern hemisphere, including Britain, and could massively accelerate global warming with incalculable consequences, spinning out of control, a process that might end in the world becoming uninhabitable.” (Lean/Pearce, 2006) The Amazon rainforest has been characterised as the ‘lungs of the world.’ It is astonishing that though people know that without trees, they are without oxygen, the trees keep falling at increasingly larger rates. Trees are a resource that can be replenished if cutting is managed properly yet this has been anything but the case in the Amazon. The rain forest is home to indigenous tribes, many who have become extinct in the past three decades. Some have estimated that more than 100 entire tribes have been lost in recent years. After living harmoniously with nature for untold thousands of years, deforestation has deprived these indigenous peoples of the land which provided them housing, food and medications. Many were killed by the diseases brought in by the loggers or outright while attempting to protect their homes. Medicines that originate from rainforest plants are not only important to the indigenous tribes but to the rest of the world population as well. More than a quarter of contemporary medications were derived from rainforest plants but only one percent of these plants have been tapped for their medicinal value. Therefore, the potential for life-saving medicines yet discovered is tremendous. “Rainforests and the native populations who discovered these medicines could hold the cure to many more diseases if we would only nurture the forests and allow their people to show us.” (“Why,” 2007) The scientific community agrees that global temperatures are rising due to the burning of fossil fuels which are damaging the protective atmospheric Ozone layer by changing its composition. Human pollution is changing the climate of our earth and has increased global warming in the past half century. The effects are being felt worldwide, not just in western countries where most of the CO2 emissions are generated. In the UK., for example, four of the five warmest years for more than three centuries have occurred in the last 10 years. Scientists predict that in 50 years, annual temperatures in the south east of England could be at least three degrees (Fahrenheit) warmer, on average, than they are now (Climate Crisis 2000). Global warming is further evidenced by the well-documented melting of glaciers along with thermal expansion of the oceans, which have contributed to an increase in sea level over the past century of about six inches in that country. Studies have been conducted by the National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA) has demonstrated that the past decade has been the warmest on record. At first thought, especially during the cold winter months, a little warming wouldn’t seem to be such a bad thing. Several varieties of fruits and vegetables could be produced in northern climates that today only grow in warmer climates. Warmer seas are likely to be attractive to more species of fish to the colder habitats as well. This is not to mention additional tourist currency to what would be the warm, sandy beaches of Canada or England (Climate Crisis 2000). However, as in everything, there is a downside and in this case, one of horrific proportions. Studies in the UK have found that warming could increase rainfall by more than 20 percent during the winter by the 2080’s and decrease it by the same amount during summer months in the southern half of that country. This would cause severe droughts in some regions but areas such as East Anglia could very well be under water altogether. The economic consequence of doing nothing is far greater than solving the problem through legislation. If ‘we’ choose not to do anything or to insist a problem does not exist, there will cease to be a ‘we’ as weather patterns become overtly hostile and air, water and food supplies will either become non-existent or too poisonous to sustain life. If the earth cannot sustain human life, the automakers will not make any money. Maybe that is an argument they can understand. Saving the Amazon rainforest is a good idea whether or not its destruction would also likely kill most everything on earth. Much as the global warming issue, whose destiny is tied to deforestation, even if climate change due to carbon monoxide emissions were proved a myth, reducing air pollution still makes sense. The question before us is, are we stewards of our earth and will we preserve it for future generations? If the past 30 years are any indication, then the answer is no. References Climate Crisis: All Change in the UK? (12 November, 2000). BBC News. [On-line]. Available: 7 May 2011 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1015796.stm Hopkins, Rob. (17 November 2006). A Review of An Inconvenient Truth. Transition Culture. [On-line]. Available: 7 May 2011 from http://transitionculture.org/2006/11/17/a-review-of-an-inconvenient-truth/ Lean, Geoffrey & Pearce, Fred. (23 July 2006). Amazon rainforest could become a desert. The Independent. [On-line]. Schroeder, Peter. (January 2007). The American Physical Society. Forum on Physics and Society. Vol. 36, N. 1. Thomas, David A. (2006). Earthcare: An Inconvenient Truth. Christian Ethics Today. Vol. 12, N. 5. [On-line]. Available: 7 May 2011 from http://www.christianethicstoday.com/issue/062/Earthcare-An_Inconvenient_Truth_(2006)_Reviewed_By_David_A._Thomas_062_23_.htm Why are the Rainforests Important? (2007). Rain Forest Concern. [On-line]. Available: 7 May 2011 from http://www.rainforestconcern.org/rainforest_facts/why_the_importance/ Read More