The Environment and Global Warning
[Name of the Writer]
[Name of the Institution]
Abstract
Global warming is not so common in the past, but now its effects are clearly visible. This paper gathers evidence from reliable sources related to the recent impacts of global warming all around the globe. This evidence includes the rise in events of extreme weather, increasing sea level, disappearing polar ice and glaciers, damaging corals, transformation in wildlife, health and distributions and increased activity of disease vectors. The direct link to global warming is very difficult for establishing, but some environmental changes the dangers of global warming. Emission of greenhouse gases is the most significant cause of global warming. In order to stabilize the climate, some amendments in international law are required.
The Environment and Global Warming
Introduction
Global warming is now considered to be no longer prediction, but it is actually happening. It has been proved with several evidences that the average temperature of the earth surface is rising with both ocean and air warming. Since the last two centuries the warmest temperature has occurred within the last thirty years. A scientist has figured out that the reasons for global warming is increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere which mostly occurs due to several human activities like fossil fuels burning, and deforestation. Scientists are well aware of the ability of greenhouse gases such as nitrous oxide, methane and carbon dioxide for trapping the heat from the Earth's surface. Climate scientist believes that most of the warming of the earth's surface is caused by the gases of greenhouse over the past fifty years. Most people have a misconception that increase of temperature of earth's surface is just a threat, but the fact is that many scientists have proved that global warming is having a severe impact on the societies and ecosystem all around the globe. Arctic sea, glaciers, have been disappearing or shrinking, level of the sea have also been rising, increasing rate of flooding, heat waves, droughts, forest fires, and rainstorms are becoming more frequent and intense since last few decades. Moreover, as a response of it corals are dying and bleaching, and several animals and plants are migrating towards higher elevations or poles from places of higher temperature. Such a multitude of changes gives a clear and consistent evidence body of the growing and immediate danger which global warming causes. So, the global economy, human communities, and the ecosystems on which human depends on water, food and other resources are also at risk. The goal of this report is to provide the audience with the fact that they should make the decisions to stop global warming from society. This report summarizes the major effects of global warming occurs all around the globe and their possible preventions.
Discussion
Global Impacts of Warming
It is difficult to consider global warming responsible for some drastic weather events such as drought, flood-causing storm, and heat wave as the weather changes automatically. While some of the climate model and theory predict that global warming can increase the intensity or frequency of such kind of extreme natural events. A hot world is like a loaded die which comes up with Intense Rainstorm or Heat Wave than an unperturbed world. Different researchers have estimated some amount of risk of following drastic events for which human beings are responsible:
Heat Waves
Global warming caused by human beings has doubled the risk of killer heat waves as compared to the one which was recorded in 2003. All the time record of high temperature have been broken by many countries. In the UK the mercury hit more than hundred Fahrenheit last year which was the first time in this country since the record started. The all-time record of 104 Fahrenheit was set in Germany on August 8, 2018. More than twenty-seven thousand people have died due to these killing heat waves all around the globe which breaks all the records of the last few decades. In France, more than fourteen thousand people were died due to this heat wave. These damages also include the reduction of fodder production in France up to sixty percent. Moreover, the decrease of eighteen percent of wine production in Italy, Eleven percent decrease in the production of grains in America and also the decrease in production of flocks in whole Europe by fifteen to twenty percent (Santamouris, 2015). These drastic heat waves also cause the river water shortage for plant cooling as a result of which cuts in power generation occurs. According to the researcher, the risk of such heat waves by 2040 could raise the 100-fold if international society does not control the greenhouse gases growth. In the United States of America Chicago also experienced one of the worst disaster related to weather when a heat wave causes the death of more than five hundred individuals. Many studies indicate that the increase in death rate from heat waves in the future is possible in the United States.
Flooding and Torrential Rains
According to another recent research, the increase in the precipitation events intensity occurred last two decades. This rise is consistent with the impact of global warming as higher temperature gear up evaporation and rises the water vapors quantity in the atmosphere which then causes the heavier downpours. Risk of flooding is then caused by these heavier rainfalls. Another significant factor which contributes to the intense precipitation is considered to be the increase in intensity and frequency of El Nino Event since the last two decades. An El Nino is a period of warmer water in the eastern Pacific and weaker winds of tropical trade which occurs one time in every two to seven years. It brings heavy rains to the United States southern tier and Peru while resulting in a decrease in precipitation level in the U.S northwestern tier, northeastern side of Brazil, Australia, and southeast Asia. It has been observed that some events of El Nino are more long-lasting and intense than ever (Desmet & Hansberg, 2015). Some Climate scientist has observed that global warming can produce more long lasting and frequent El Nino in the future which can result in an increasing amount of droughts and extreme floods. One of extreme flooding event which might be due to global warming occurred in Venezuela a few years back. In this event, Venezuela broke the record of rainfall with flooding and landslides that resulted in the death of more than thirty thousand people. The rainfall can become unusual when it occurs in other than the normal rainy seasons. Most of the population which are affected by unusual rainfall is considered to be those people who live on slopes prone to landslides and also the area susceptible to floods. With the reduction of greenhouse gases, developments in these vulnerable locations should also be discouraged as it can help to reduce the damages from global warming.
Drought
Global warming also plays a significant role in severe and frequent droughts all around the globe. Increase in temperature can raise the evaporation rate which is drying the surface of the earth. Very less energy is required in the process of evaporation which can help in making the events of drought feasible. Moreover, if there is less evaporation in the air due to depletion of soil moisture than the amount of moisture in the atmosphere can also be decreased for forming precipitation which can result in the drying of the soil. It has been believed that global warming is responsible for the drought with the killing heat waves all around the globe. Summer droughts are considered to be highly vulnerable in several areas of mid-continent that are significant grazing or grain-producing regions (Goyal, 2018). The most common reason for such vulnerabilities is that their climate temperature isn't cooled by their seas and continental moisture helped in deriving their huge precipitation portion. In addition to deficient rainfall prolonging periods and increasing evaporation, a hotter climate can decrease the supplies of water in semi-arid and arid regions. The quicker and earlier melting of ice can result in lowering of water flow in the stream which can ultimately result in the shortage of water. The warming of the temperature of oceans due to global warming can also increase the risk of droughts. The Pacific and Indian ocean have become exceptionally warm in the recent decade due to the warming trend in the oceans all around the world. Atmospheric flow patterns of unusual persistent can result in increasing rates of droughts, high temperature, and lowering of normal precipitation in America, Europe, and Asia. So, there are several evidences which prove that global warming is responsible for severe recent droughts.
Wildfires and Forests
Researchers have also proved that global warming is contributing to the rise in the wildfire in many ways. Lack of precipitation due to increase in temperature can cause ideal situations for severe wildfires. Longer warm seasons can also be transformed into longer seasons of fire. Warmer temperature also contributes to the insect's outbreak which feed on trees and also help in creating several amounts of forest fires by killing a large number of hosts. With the combination of pests, droughts, and heat, the wildfires have become more destructive than ever. Northern Canada, Alaska, Siberia and Scandinavia are considered to some common places which are already targeted by the pest attacks (Burke, Hsaing, & Miguel, 2015). High temperature and severe droughts in the United States of America resulted in more than one hundred thousand fires which burned more than eight million acres.
Prevention by International Laws
In 1992 the several nations of the world had signed a binding agreement for stopping the dangerous anthropogenic interference with the atmosphere of the earth, but such obligation has been failed since last two decades for reducing the emission of greenhouse gases. UNFCCC (The United Nations Framework on Climate Change has sent lawyers, activists, and politicians to some famous resort of world for thrashing out a binding agreement but no positive effect has been seen so far. The most unfortunate thing is that international law world is behaving as the problem of global warming does not exist. Some useful amendments in international laws such as international trade law, human right law, state responsibility law, environmental law, and international migration law can be helpful in mitigating the effects of global warming all around the globe. Let's discuss a few of them.
International Trade Law
The problem of global warming also afflicts the department of international trade law. The one significant policy to address the issue of climate change can be to impose low standards of carbon on the production of goods such as plastics, mobile phones, and meat. IF someone is imposing standards on goods at home than he must also impose it on imports as well to avoid the suffering and uncompetitiveness of domestic industry. So international trade law should allow every state for imposing standards of low-carbon on imported goods. Import policy of zero-carbon can violate the law of the World Trade Organization. These policies can be viable but they will be expensive and time-consuming to design, and there would be no guarantee that whether the principal of the World Trade Organization would accept it or not. Maybe that is the reason that no country hasn't tried it yet (Brown, 2018).
Human Rights Law:
Change in climate also affect the human rights to shelter, water, food, and health. So human rights should provide a viable route for protecting such human rights. It is not easy to implement such policies as most of the principal victims related to climate change do not belong to the country where emissions of greenhouse gases are considered to be highest. So, it makes it impossible or difficult to sue anyone. Such human right laws can be effective for the people living in the high-emitting countries like European nations, Australia, Canada, and US, as they are directly affected by the global warming and human rights, can give much relief. Litigation is started for implementing such law in some places, but still, there are many hurdles as well.
Conclusion
So it is concluded that disastrous natural events cannot easy to link with global warming, but the rise in intensity and frequency of such events and their occurrence all around the globe provide such strong bonding. Many of these recently observed natural events are considered to be unprecedented or worst since the last few centuries which clearly shows that shows that something unusual is happening to the earth. Global warming has some significant effects on several aspects of the life of human beings. It threatens human lives, economies, and traditional ways. The facts collected in this report proved that societies are making serious efforts for combating global warming. So now the time has come to stabilize the climate and reduce future damages. Severe action by several nations is needed so international legislation should set a necessary cap on emissions which could be the transformative step towards resolving the issue of global warming
References
Santamouris, M., Cartalis, C., Synnefa, A., & Kolokotsa, D. (2015). On the impact of urban heat island and global warming on the power demand and electricity consumption of buildings—A review. Energy and Buildings, 98, 119-124.
Desmet, K., & Rossi-Hansberg, E. (2015). On the spatial economic impact of global warming. Journal of Urban Economics, 88, 16-37.
Goyal, S. (2018). A Concise Study Over Impact of Global Warming on Freshwater Systems. Research & Reviews: Journal of Ecology, 7(1), 8-17.
Burke, M., Hsiang, S. M., & Miguel, E. (2015). Global non-linear effect of temperature on economic production. Nature, 527(7577), 235.
Brown, S. (2018). International relations in a changing global system: toward a theory of the world polity. Routledge.
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