The Negative Environmental Effects of Global Warming and New Technology - Essay Example

? The Negative Environmental Effects of Global Warming and New Technology According to a report from Stanford University, the U.S. National Research Council declared in 2006 that “the Earth is the hottest it has been in at least 400 years” (“Global Warming,” Stanford). Moreover, according to the same report, the global temperature has increased by 0.3°C to 0.6°C, which is in fact the “largest” increase in surface temperature in 1,000 years (“Global Warming,” Stanford). The greenhouse gases that cause global warming include carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, chlorofluorocarbons, and water vapor, but among these, carbon dioxide is the most pollutant and the one that is mainly responsible for the occurrence of global warming in the world (Collins). These gases, especially carbon dioxide, or CO2, trap the heat coming from the sun, and keep this heat on earth. This heat eventually builds up and becomes a phenomenon known as global warming. According to data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the effects of global warming are already happening – sea levels rising, glaciers shrinking, growing seasons lengthening, ice on lakes and rivers freezing, and the permafrost thawing (“Basic Information,” EPA). Moreover, technology, especially in the field of IT, also contributes to global warming. If, therefore, the harm caused by global warming and new technology is left unchecked, all of earth’s ecosystems will eventually be destroyed. Global warming can indeed cause significant changes in global temperatures which can actually cause many other negative environmental effects. According to GlobalIssues.org, due to the ever increasing amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, the earth is getting warmer and warmer every decade, and that the 1900s is the world’s warmest century in 1,000 years (“What are the Impacts”). It is basically this rapid increase in temperature that is expected to give rise to other problems in the environment. Moreover, “even just a 2°C increase can have impacts around the world to biodiversity, agriculture, the oceans and others [however] some delegates are skeptical that temperature rises can be contained to a 2°C rise” (“What are the Impacts”). According to NASA, the temperatures of the earth could rise “between 2°C to 6°C by the end of the 21st century” (Przyborski, NASA). Nevertheless, we cannot even tolerate a 4°C, according to the UK Met Office, which is the national weather service of the United Kingdom (“What are the Impacts”). In fact, according to the UK Met Office, this rapid change in the temperature due to the increasing amount of CO2 in the air will eventually lead to a decrease in the agricultural yields of all major cereal crops and this will also cause a significant reduction of the Himalayas glaciers, but this is not all (“What are the Impacts”). Since the increase in temperatures of the world will naturally heat up the oceans, particularly the Arctic regions, what is expected is not only the gradual disappearance of the Himalayas glaciers but also more hurricanes and drought, long periods of intense rain or extremely dry heat, and freezing weather especially in Northern Europe (“What are the Impacts”). Global warming may therefore affect the ocean currents and with the extreme amount of heat emanating from the oceans, the currents that bring hot air to Northern Europe may then be disrupted. In fact, the world’s oceans are rapidly “approaching 27°C” every summer and this phenomenon alone contributes greatly to the occurrence of strong storms and hurricanes (“What are the Impacts”). The heating up of the oceans, which bring about these storms and hurricanes, are actually caused by the greenhouse gases trapping huge amounts of solar energy, and when this trapped solar energy needs to be dissipated, what results is higher winds and more intense precipitation, which both define a storm and a hurricane (“What are the Impacts”). In fact, in a period of just 30 years, the occurrence of categories 4 and 5 hurricanes “has nearly doubled” (Trimarchi). Nevertheless, aside from bringing about storms and hurricanes, global warming can reduce glaciers to a great extent. Shrinking glaciers, in particular, such as those in Montana’s Glacier National Park have been reduced from formerly 150 glaciers to only 35 at present (Trimarchi). More important than this, however, is the reduction of the Himalayas glaciers, from which around 500 million people in the Ganges area obtain their drinking and irrigation water. Still, global warming may cause the disappearance of other glaciers like the Chacaltaya Mountain glacier in Bolivia, which is famous among skiers (Trimarchi). Aside from the disappearance of glaciers, heat waves are also among the negative weather changes brought about by global warming. According to reports from MSNBC, when the extremely high-temperature heat wave struck Europe in 2003, around 35,000 people perished because of heat stroke especially in France and the neighboring countries of Italy, Germany, Cyprus, Spain and the Netherlands. During this time several crops like wheat and grapes were affected with temperatures that rose above 40°C and which were the hottest in Europe in the last 500 years (Trimarchi). At present, the rate at which heat waves occur is already around “two to four times more often” than before, and are expected to be even “100 times more likely over the next 40 years” (Trimarchi). This heat wave brings about the destruction not only of ecosystems and forests through wildfires and temperature imbalances, but also the destruction of people’s lives (Trimarchi). Aside from heat waves, an overall abnormal increase in the amount of precipitation is also one of the effects of global warming. The increase in precipitation is triggered by warm ocean waters. Areas with warm waters increase the strength of hurricanes and this made scientists conclude that “an increase in ocean and atmospheric temperatures [bring about a corresponding increase in] the rate of violent storms” (Trimarchi). In fact, due to increases in precipitation, floods and storms have plagued many parts of the world, including the United States and Great Britain. The flooding and extreme storms did not only destroy natural habitats of animals and other natural and man-made ecosystems but also caused billions of dollars in damage of property, not counting the number of human fatalities (Trimachi). The number of hurricanes that occur every decade has actually increased from only 3.5 hurricanes per year between 1905 and 1930, to 5.1 between 1931 to 1994, to 8.4 between 1995 and 2005 (Trimachi). This gradual and steady increase in the number of occurring hurricanes every decade is an indication of the possible further increase in the amount of precipitation in the coming decades. Moreover, if the intensity of the precipitation and the strength of storms also increase with the number of occurrence, the world may soon find itself in a very critical situation. Aside from the huge increase in precipitation in some areas of the world, drought, or a long period of dry spell, also happens in other areas as an effect of global warming. In fact, according to the Scientific American, if the climates continue to warm up due to the increasing amount of heat trapped by greenhouse gases, the incidence of drought may increase up to around 66% (Trimarchi). Moreover, drought will reduce the water supply of a particular geographical area to a minimum, thus causing death of animals and plants and a corresponding loss of biodiversity. There is also a significant reduction in the quality of agricultural conditions. The resulting picture is a shortage of food supply and production, which does not only cause the deaths of various domesticated animals but also the starvation of huge populations of people , who are the most populous mammal inhabitants of the earth (Trimarchi). With threats to starvation, there comes an increase in the occurrence of pests and diseases.\ Increase in sea levels are also one of the consequences of global warming. Based on the Scientific American, “sea levels could be more than 20 feet [or] 6 meters higher in 2100 than they are today” (Trimarchi). This rise in the sea level is brought about by the melting ice shelves, such as Greenland’s ice cap which melted and increased the flow of the Colorado River six times as fast. If the sea levels continue to rise, the places of the world which will be mostly in danger would be the low-lying geographical areas like New York City’s Lower Manhattan, Miami, and Bangladesh (Trimarchi). The rising sea levels will eventually destroy the flora and fauna that cannot thrive in seawater. Moreover, increasing levels of seawater will also most likely penetrate freshwater areas and may cause the destruction of most freshwater ecosystems and lower biodiversity as well. According to the World Health Organization, as temperatures increase, various microorganisms and insects find it easy to survive and multiply, especially “mosquitoes, ticks, mice and other disease-carrying creatures” (Trimarchi). These creatures bring about a host of diseases such as Lyme Disease, West Nile Virus, dengue and many others (Trimarchi). Moreover, there is also a possibility of the rapid reproduction of various other pests that infest and eventually destroy agricultural areas and natural ecosystems. If this is possible, then the ecosystems of the world would eventually be wiped out, thus causing significant losses in biodiversity. The increasing incidence of allergy, heart and respiratory diseases and malaria, which are diseases brought about by changes in climate, and asthma, which is caused by the increase in smog in the atmosphere may eventually bring about a significant increase in the number of deaths of the human population, which is the largest group of inhabitants on this planet. The aforementioned effects will sooner or later bring about perhaps the worst effect of global warming on the planet, which is the gradual and eventual destruction of the ecosystem. Constantly changing conditions of the climate, as well as dramatic increases in the temperature of the land, waters, and air caused by global warming, all lead to the destruction of natural and man-made ecosystems. These ecosystems include the tundra ecosystems in the cold areas of the world as well as the tropical rainforests and savannahs (Trimarchi). Several factors that may hasten the destruction of natural habitats of plants and animals include floods, droughts, acidification of oceans, wildfires, as well as the natural collapse of ecosystems due to a temperature imbalance caused about by abnormal increases in heat (Trimarchi). Wildfires in 2006 alone numbered around 100,000 and caused the destruction of a total of around 10 million acres of land in many places of the world (“The Consequences,” NRDC). In the tundra ecosystems of the world, the reduction of glaciers and the melting of ice are two of the main concerns. The melting of the ice in the polar regions actually poses harm to the Polar Bear population, which have some members of their species drown because “they have to reach longer distances to reach ice floes” (“The Consequences,” NRDC). According to the New York Times, it is the “thinner fresh-formed ice” that is most vulnerable to melting once the heat increases, and this is not particularly good even to the other inhabitants of the tundra ecosystems, and this so-called ice retreat has even extended to the icy regions of Denmark, Russia and Canada (Revkin, The New York Times). Freshwater ecosystems are another victim of global warming. According to a report by the New York Times, coral bleaching, or the corals’ expulsion of their symbiotic algae due to the stress caused by warm, acidic or polluted waters surrounding them, occurred in 1998 and 2010, where 16% of the world’s coral reefs died because of global warming (Foster, The New York Times). Corals are considered spawning grounds of fishes, mollusks, and small crustaceans, which are not only commercially beneficial to humans but also important to larger predators that feed on them. The destruction of coral ecosystems will therefore disrupt the overall food chain and the ecosystem to which it belongs. Among the coral species mostly affected by and most vulnerable to warm waters caused by global warming include the Acropora, or the staghorn and elkhorn corals, as well as the Pocillopora, or the cauliflower and brush corals (Foster, The New York Times). Apart from global warming, another thing that has negative effects on the environment is technology. According to leading environmentalist David Suzuki, the IT industry, which includes all the companies selling gadgets, software and hardware, “has a huge negative impact on the environment” (Jackson). Moreover, according to Suzuki, the IT technology creates this negative impact in a number of ways. First, IT products create a huge demand for energy and thus will demand an increase in the use of fossil fuels, which increase the supply of the greenhouse gas CO2 in the atmosphere. Second, IT products are also produced rapidly and thus the waste products that arise out of their manufacturing processes may emit huge volumes of greenhouse gases, which will trap solar heat and thus cause global warming. Third, according to Suzuki, IT vendors unconsciously produce products which are disposable and are therefore most likely thrown out into the environment because they are either too difficult or too expensive to fix. Lastly, the most recent IT products do not anymore require fixing or installation for their upgrades and instead need only a new purchase, thus creating voluminous non-biodegradable waste, which are either too hard or simply impossible to recycle (Jackson). If, therefore, IT companies will continue to prioritize profit over environmental safety, chances are that sooner or later, we will all be able to witness to the huge environmental damage that our IT products have brought us. Nevertheless, the idea of reinventing technology is always an option and that, apart from human vigilance on the matter of global warming and the use of environmentally harmful technology, there is still hope. In the field of IT technology, the latest inventions include products which “cut back on their carbon footprint as well as increase profits” (Jackson). These products will hopefully eventually replace products that demand high energy from carbon-producing fossil fuels. Moreover, the Science for Environment Policy reported the invention of “metal oxide nanocatalysts [that] are being developed for the prevention of pollution due to industrial emissions” (“Positive and Negative”). Moreover, according to the report, “titanium dioxide nanoparticles can be exploited to create self-cleaning surfaces that reduce existing pollution” (“Positive and Negative”). This means that while some new products of IT technology help prevent negative environmental effects by reducing the products’ demand for carbon use, nanotechnology products are being developed in order to specifically reduce pollution directly as well as help in the alleviation of global warming. Top of Form Bottom of Form Works Cited “Basic Information.” 2011. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 18 Mar 2012. Collins, Jocelyn. “Global Warming.” 2001. Enviro Facts. 18 Mar 2012. Foster, Joanna M. “Can Corals Toughen Up After a Warming Crisis?” 2012. The New York Times. 18 Mar 2011. Global Warming. 2008. Stanford University. 18 Mar 2012. Jackson, Brian. “IT has a huge negative impact on the environment, Suzuki says.” 2008. IT World Canada. 19 Mar 2012. “Positive and Negative Effects of Nanotechnology on the Environment.” 2007. Science for Environment Policy. 18 Mar 2012. Przyborski, Paul. “Global Warming.” 2011. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. 18 Mar 2012. Revkin, Andrew C. “Arctic Melt Unnerves the Experts.” 2007. The New York Times. 18 Mar 2012. “The Consequences of Global Warming.” 2008. Natural Resources Defense Council. 18 Mar 2012. Trimarchi, Maria. “The Top 10 Worst Effects of Global Warming.” 2012. Discovery. 18 Mar 2012. “What are the Impacts of Global Warming?” 2012. GlobalIssues.org. 18 Mar 2012. Read More