Global Warming Speech Ladies and Gentlemen, Issues

Global Warming Speech

Ladies and gentlemen, issues pertaining to global warming have literally become part of our lives. Global warming is a topic that has elicited a lot of debate from the political cycles with aspiring presidential candidates, gubernatorial, and even senatorial aspirants making it their campaign gimmick. It has, in the same breath, become the subject of many scientific studies. Nevertheless, debates surrounding global warming have also been marred with controversy with the popular media averring that global warming has much to do with depletion of the ozone layer by chlorofluorocarbons ignoring the fact that the relation between the two is not strong. This underscores how important it is to the political economies of world leading and developing economies.

The effects of global warming began manifesting themselves long before. In fact, by late 19th Century, the temperature of earth's atmosphere and oceans had begun shooting up. Two-thirds increase in Earth's mean temperature was realized early in the 1980's. Scientists are unanimous that global warming is primarily occasioned by accumulation of greenhouse gases on Earth's surface. These gases are produced as a result of human activities like burning of fossil fuels and deforestation. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has projected that there is a likelihood that the global surface temperature will rise to 6.40C in the 21st Century (Hansen 174). This will; however, vary from region to region.

Water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, and ozone are some of the major greenhouse gases. Water vapor causes at least 36% of greenhouse effect where as carbon dioxide cause utmost 26%. Clouds, through cloud forcings, also affect the radiation balance and have similar effects as those of the aforementioned greenhouse gases (Hansen 174). Since the era of industrial revolution, the amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have soared leading to 36% and 148% of carbon dioxide and methane respectively (Hansen 174). Carbon dioxide emissions have kept increasing due to the burning of fossil fuels like coal and change in land use.

Global warming has got dire consequences. Some of these include rise in sea levels and changes in amount and pattern of precipitation. It can also lead to expansion of the sub-tropical deserts. Global warming has adversely affected Arctic regions. This is manifested in the retreat of glaciers, permafrost, and sea ice (Schaefer, Zhang, Bruhwiler and Barrett 166). Shifting temperature regimes has resulted into extinction of plant and animal species. Some extreme weather events like heat waves, droughts and heavy downpour, and acidification are largely due to change in global temperatures. Poor crop yields and loss of habitat have contributed to food insecurity (Battisti 241).

If global warming continues without mitigation, there is a likelihood that by 2030, there could be a 30% decline in maize production in Southern Africa (Lobell, Tebaldi, Mastrandrea and Naylor 608). Rice and millet production in South Asia is also likely to drop by 10%. By 2080, crop yields in developing economies will most likely decrease to 25% while India could experience a drop of 30%. Rice and maize production are expected to decrease in the topics due to high temperatures. This implies that malnutrition will set in (Lobell, Tebaldi, Mastrandrea and Naylor 608).

Those living in small islands and mega deltas have all the reasons to worry about global warming. The rise in sea level will destroy human settlements in such regions. Vital infrastructure like the transport system is also likely to be destroyed. This is something that was witnessed in Maldives and Tuvalu where a good number of the population was technically rendered stateless. People living in low lying areas in Bangladesh were also rendered homeless as a result of habitat inundation.