Climate Change
Why worry about climate change now, when it 200 years we probably won't bother with it at all. Of course, that's because 200 years from now, the human race might not exist. Climate change is occurring at a rapid pace, and we are already past many key tipping points. The basics are this: burning carbon creates a greenhouse gas effect. We used to call this global warming, but climate change is a more accurate way of framing it, because the climate effects are going to be different in different areas around the world, but in general it will result in increased temperatures (Shah, 2013). At present, our main task as a society is to limit the amount of carbon that we expel into the atmosphere so as to limit the negative effects of climate change. In the future, it will require a tremendous amount of effort to survive the outcomes of climate change -- rising oceans, acidification of oceans, increased desertification and more frequent extreme weather events (Shah, 2013). As countries become unable to feed their populations, conflict will increase dramatically (Reuters, 2014), as will disease and starvation. In essence, if nothing is done about climate change, and we continue to pollute the way we have been doing, human society as we know it will be at risk, and ultimately so will our very survival.
Effects Today
Climate change is already happening, and it will affect today's societies. The saturation of carbon dioxide in the
The global temperature has risen dramatically, such that the 10 hottest years since 1880 have occurred within the past 12 years (NASA, 2014). These figures are not outliers -- and they backed with data about the shrinking polar ice sheets, warming oceans and a 30% rise in the acidity of ocean surface water (NASA, 2014). The effects are already showing -- Miami is being submerged (Staletovich, 2014) and acidification in Alaskan waters threatens 50% of America's total seafood production (Rocha, 2014) -- scallop and oyster fisheries have already been devastated in British Columbia and Washington (Schlanger, 2014).
Furthermore, desertification is increasing, a condition where deserts increase their size, something that occurs with a combination of hot temperatures and declining rainfall that make it difficult for plantlife to survive. Each year, 12 million hectares are lost to desertification, a rate that is 30 to 35 times the historical rate. Desertification is expected to affect 1.5 billion people, and 50 million people may be displaced within the next ten years (UN, 2014). Most glaciers in the world are also retreated, the most important ones being at the poles, as these glaciers not only reflect sunlight back away from the earth, but they absorb tremendous amounts of energy. We are also seeing an increase in extreme weather events, including high temperature events and extreme rainfall (NASA, 2014). These effects are not accidental -- they are directly linked to the changes in the chemical composition of our atmosphere that are brought about by burning fossil fuels, a process that releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Effects Tomorrow
The effects of climate change today are merely inconvenient, and most of the affect the developing world more than they do the developed world. But in the future -- that of our children and grandchildren -- these effects with be much stronger, because climate change is a feedback loop. The most critical is the melting of polar ice caps. This is what it causing the rise in sea levels. Worse, when the polar snows melt -- and in particular when…
