Thursday, April 29, 2010
Me essay on Global Warming
There are many environmental issues facing our world today. If I were given a year to improve the earths environment I would focus on one issue the world faces today, it is global warming.
Imagine that one day your children's children and their children's children will be worrying about sunburn from the sun and flooding from icebergs. Imagine that as a child your only house was on the beachfront in Cape Town and you decide to move away to Johannesburg but seventy years later you visit Cape Town and you realise that your house is gone. You ask someone walking by what happened to all the houses and the stranger says that the houses had to be taken away because the water level had risen too much. This could happen if global warming continues at the rate is going. Global Warming is worsening but there are many solutions that we can take together to take care of this problem as it is destroying nature and human civilization. Global warming causes the water level to rise. Some people have lost their beach houses because the water level was too high and to put things into perspective, Manhattan will be under water in about three hundred years. Eventually people will have to travel to higher ground and cut the population in half because of the land we might lose. Water level is rising because of the melting ice from the North and South Pole. The ice melts every summer and then builds back up in the winter. But it does not build up as much as it melts resulting in the water level rising every year. The rising water level forces aquatic animals to come in close to shore. More frequent shark attacks are occurring because of the rising water and this resulted from the glaciers that melt more and more every year.
If it weren't for global warming then 25 out of 52 people would not have died from shark attacks. Personally, I think that it would be horrible if one day all of our coasts were under water. Cut backs are needed on the air pollution caused by factories, cars, agriculture and other problems. The fumes that come out of cars are very harmful to the ozone layer. The exhaust gets up in the sky and deteriorates the ozone layer. Also the fumes that come out of factories are very harmful. The fumes from the factory have chloroforming carbons that destroy the ozone layer. The smoke from cigarettes is also harmful to the ozone layer because of chloroforming carbons that are in the smoke. In arousal cans there are also chloroforming carbons that are causing the ozone layer to deteriorate.
To be more precise, the increase in the earth's temperature is due to fossil fuels, industries, and agricultural processes caused by human, natural, and other gas emissions. This results in an increased emission of greenhouse gases (a gas that contributes to the greenhouse effect by absorbing infrared radiation, e.g.. carbon dioxide and chlorofluorocarbons). Short-wave solar radiation sinks into the Earth's atmosphere and warms its surface, while long wave infrared radiation emitted by earth's surface is absorbed, and then re-emitted by trace gases.
Climate changes occur in our earth's atmosphere due to a buildup of greenhouse gases. The greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. These gases occur naturally. The Earth uses those gases to warm its surface. Carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere when solid waste, fossil fuels, wood, and wood products are burned. Each greenhouse gas absorbs heat differently. If natural gases did not occur, the temperatures would be 91.4 degrees cooler than the current temperatures. These gases trap heat and cause the greenhouse effect, rising global temperatures. Human activities add to the levels of these gasses, causing more problems. The burning of solid waste, fossil fuels, and wood products are major causes. Motorvehicles, heat from homes and businesses, and factories are responsible for about 80% of today's carbon dioxide emissions, 25% of methane, and 20% of the nitrous oxide emissions. The increase in agriculture, deforestation, landfills, industrial production, and mining contribute a significant share of emissions too. The gases released into the atmosphere are tracked by emission inventories. An emission inventory counts the amount of air pollutants discharged into the atmosphere. These emission inventories are used by many organizations.
There are many misconceptions about global warming. Some believe that only pollution causes global warming, but the fact is global warming is the result of burning fossil fuels, coal, and oil that releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Another misconception is nuclear power causes climate change, when in actual fact nuclear power actually reduces emissions of carbon dioxide when used in place of coal. Also, people believe that global warming means that it will become warmer all over because of the word ‘warming’ but the name is misleading. What will actually happen is that in some places, it will actually become colder. But one thing that is not a myth is that global warming is human induced and there is no getting around it.
Global warming is a danger to a human's health. Its affect on climate can adversely affect humans. Plagues have been attributed to global warming and an increase in temperature can result in a longer life cycle for diseases or the agents that spread them. Living in a warm area makes egg production a quicker process and could be more fatal to the human health. Global warming will lead to more precipitation (snow, sleet, rain or hail that falls to the ground), which allows contagious diseases to be more easily contracted and spread but the effects of global warming on human health might not be immediately detected.
Global warming can affect our ability to obtain food in the future. As climates change, plants and animals will change, leading to a change in the eating patterns of humans. Precipitation not only affects human health but growth of food as well. First, the quality of crops would be affected and increasing rain could lead to an increase in soil erosion.
There are ways that you can help prevent global warming. Car pooling, saving energy in your home, buying fuel-efficient cars, and reducing the electricity in your home are ways to help prevent global warming. A way we could prevent more destruction to our planet due to global warming is if our government authorities help passing laws to reduce emissions from factories and also form a treaty with other countries to legally bind limits on emissions of heat trapping gases. The future of emission damages depends on several factors, demographics, economics, technology, policies and institutional developments. The future of this planet does not look good if nothing is done. Our renewable resources will be very limited. With cooperation from citizens and government officials, we can slow the effect of global warming by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
As the delicate balance of time moves on, slight differences in the weather can be noticed. Observing the breaking news headlines on news channels about heat waves, hurricanes, tsunamis and most recently the volcano in Iceland that has erupted due to the melting of the ice around it. These natural disasters are occurring faster than ever. Given the name of “global warming”, it is a problem on a world wide scale and only the cooperation of everyone can slowly but surely fix it or at least slowed down and it is so obvious to see what is happening to our planet if people took the time to notice the changes that re happening right now; glaciers are melting, lakes are drying up, and mountains are becoming barren. It is not just a climate shift like some scientists would like you to believe, nor is it just a regular occurrence in the grander scheme of the world. It is everyone’s doing.
Something that made me pleased was to see that South Africa is taking part in The Greenland Dialogue, a weeklong ministerial meeting to discuss the climate change and Kyoto Protocol. Hosted by the Danish Ministry of the Environment, the meeting includes representatives from 25 developed and developing countries, including France, Sweden, China, Brazil and Germany.
South Africa's representative is Environmental Affairs Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk. The Greenland Dialogue aims to increase international understanding of the challenges in future international climate policies.
While there, Van Schalkwyk visited the Greenland ice cap to observe the decline in the extent of sea ice in the North Pole - a result of global warming.
"Our experiences in Greenland have dramatically demonstrated the effects of the unprecedented rise in arctic temperatures," he said. "The melting of the arctic glaciers, the retreat of the ice cap and the global rise in sea levels is clearly a cause for major international concern."
Climate change is one of the most important global challenges facing the international community, he said. It is a threat to all nations, and requires a coordinated, determined and united response. One of the main aims of the meeting is to discuss ways of making the Kyoto Protocol more effective, to successfully tackle global warming, which calls for most of the developed world to make significant reductions in carbon emissions by 2012.
South Africa is holding its own provincial initiatives: a climate change conference of African scientists is currently under way in Gauteng, and a National Consultative Conference in October is to examine the policy implications of climate change.
At the Greenland Dialogue, Van Schalkwyk said there was clear evidence of climate change in South Africa - which would continue even if greenhouse gas concentrations were stabilised an that global warming is a threat to the country's sustainable development.
He also stated that expanded desertification in semi-arid areas is already a feature of the South African landscape. There is also a demonstrated dieback of desert plants, such as the kokerboom, in the Northern Cape and southern Namibia.
In wetter areas in eastern South Africa there is a marked increase in the density of thickets, such as thorn trees.
"Bush intrusion into productive grasslands in summer rainfall regions has implications for agricultural activities such as cattle and sheep ranching, wildlife management and other ecosystem services," he said.
Climate change could make Mpumalanga, Limpopo, North West, KwaZulu-Natal and even Gauteng malaria zones by 2050 if no control measures are implemented.
"The number of South Africans at high malaria risk may quadruple by 2020 - at an added cost to the country of between 0.1% and 0.2% of GDP," Van Schalkwyk said
Global warming models suggest a reduction of the area covered by the current biomes in South Africa by 35% to 55% in the next 50 years.
In a hotter and drier climate maize production would decrease by up to 20%, mostly in the drier western regions of the country. Marginal areas of maize production might well fail, especially for resource-poor farmers unable to adapt rapidly.
"South Africa's vulnerability to the direct and indirect impacts of climate change, including the costs of mitigation and adaptation, the potential loss of markets, and the consequent impact on sustainable development and poverty alleviation underline the need to create a balance between adaptation, mitigation and managing the socioeconomic impacts of climate change response measures," Van Schalkwyk said.
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