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Showing posts with label GLOBAL WARMING - Articles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label GLOBAL WARMING - Articles. Show all posts

Global Warming - Climate Change



GLOBAL WARMING - Climate Change




The Perils of Climate Change

Global warming is a hotly debated subject and is of no less importance for our very survival on this planet. And, no matter how much we debate and in whichever direction, the glaring fact is that from bad to worse global environmental changes are taking place somewhere in the world at this very moment, drastically affecting and uprooting the very lives of the inhabitants including animal and plant life.

     Since the last several decades, the global warming may have averaged 1%, but in recent times the temperature change has progressed quickly to 1.33% plus. As per scientific evidence available, any substantial increase in the global average temperature of more than 2°F could be dangerous for human welfare as well as upset the nature's cycle.

     Data is plentiful that the sea levels are rising and beaches eroding. Records indicate that Arctic sea ice is now declining at a rate of 11.5 percent per decade since year 2000 and as the polar caps melt the sea levels are going up by 3.16 mm per year, due also to warming of the ocean waters. NASA's information is that since 2002 both ice caps at the Antarctica and Greenland are losing mass by above 24 cubic miles per year, which is significant.

How does the Nature warn us about any Climate Change?

     We are often jolted out of our self-imposed complacency, when the weather takes on a sudden change, even going into the extreme mode, in or outside the season, as the nature appears to play a truant with the winds and storms, extreme heat and cold, bringing an onslaught of torrential rains, causing landslides, flooding rural land and urban cities.Thick layers of snowfall blanket the streets and the resulting ice freezes rivers, lakes and even parts of the seas. Forest fires burning down homes and trees and releasing poisonous gases into the air, extreme temperature causing droughts resulting in famines and starvation, spread of epidemics and deaths.

     This is not a picture of doomsday. All these telltale signs of the advancing climate change ought to wake us up to mend our ways to take immediate remedial action in order to slow down the global warming to the degree we are responsible for.

     The earth is forever warning us through its sudden outbursts of rains, storms, heat and drought. Admittedly, nature does destroy in its process to rebuild. But, to a larger extent, we, the humans, specially the present civilization, in our quest for fast-paced advancement and the "I-care-a-damn" mind-set, are doing more damage to the nature and its laws by polluting the environment wholesale without the slightest of heed, while the nature reacts by short-circuiting our achievement through ways that nature knows best.  Political and ulterior motives are the greatest hurdles to tackling Global Warming issues on a war-like footing.

     Studies of the past climate changes are some indicators to what may be expected during the next several decades.  Many eminent scientific believe and some agree that we are heading for another ice age.  As early as 1975, New York Times, in its January article, stated: "The most drastic potential change considered in the new report (by the National Academy of Sciences) is an abrupt end to the present interglacial period of relative warmth that has governed the planet’s climate for the past 10,000 years."

     Moreover, even earlier in 1971, Dr. Holdren (later President Obama's adviser) and his co-author, the biologist Paul Ehrlich, in their essay, “Overpopulation and the Potential for Ecocide,” prewarned of a coming ice age:

     "The effects of a new ice age on agriculture and the support-ability of large human populations scarcely need elaboration here. Even more dramatic results are possible, however; for instance, a sudden outward slumping in the Antarctic ice cap, induced by added weight, could generate a tidal wave of proportions unprecedented in recorded history."
(Courtesy: Article, "Global Warming or The “New Ice Age”? Fear of the “Big Freeze” by www.globalresearch.ca)

What is the major cause for Global Warming?

     Carbon Dioxide, the heat-trapping greenhouse gas, is said to be the major culprit for polluting our environment, thereby making the temperatures to rise abnormally which is turn bring about extreme climate changes. Not any lesser evils are Carbon Monoxide, Methane and Nitrous Oxide, due to malpractices and mismanagement of industrial and agricultural waste.

The most direct cause is the greenhouse effect caused through emission of gases from cars, particularly diesel, jet planes, industrial smoke-belching factories, furnaces and mills, oil and gas refineries, power plants and also owing to human activities such as unchecked deforestation for farming and plantations from rapid growth of urbanization specially in the  under-developed  countries.

Where is the solution?  Are there any specific answers?

     The solutions are obvious but the will to implement the solutions is generally lacking. Our first concern must be to reduce CO2 emissions from polluting the environment.  Even a small step in this direction would benefit immensely, as we adopt and search for newer ways of producing and using clean, renewable energy.

     One major setback  that we often face is the lack of will on the part of the governments and even the society, in many developed and under-developed  countries. Their self-destructive environmental policies must be shunned forthwith if we are to collectively share the responsibility to slow down the global warming and thus be able to contribute towards subsiding the present disturbing trends of storms, floods, droughts, famines and epidemic - and, consequently, the advent of the coming ice age

     In the next article, we will share some more information on Global Warming, particularly the effect of Methane and other pollutants on Climate Change. Methane levels have not only doubled but this pollutant has a far more lasting and damaging effect on the atmosphere.

I would appreciate your comments on this article.  Thank you.

Paul Rodricks, Author
Contact: paulrodericks@gmail.com
Blog: www.paulswritersdig7.blogspot.com