Economic progress and the environment - Admission/Application Essay Example

Economic progress and the environmentThe question that perturbs me is that why are the climate related disasters increasing ever since the dawn of industrialization? Is economic progress more important than the environment? The people involved, directly or indirectly in industrial activities argue that they take appropriate measures to protect the environment even if it has to be on the cost of their economic benefits. If environment is their major concern, why is that their net profits are increasing along with the climatic issues?

The rise in the climatic disasters and the resulting losses of lives and money in the past two decades is up to an alarming level. According to the Report from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), in the last decade, 2.4 billion people got affected by such disasters as compared to 1.7 billion in the previous decade and there has been a tenfold increase in the cost of responding to these disasters from 1992 to 2008. The abrupt increase in the climate related disasters from 50 to 70 percent calls for an immediate attention and strong concerted action.

Unpredicted heavy rain falls, rise in the sea level, rainstorms, floods and droughts are the results of the constant changes in the climate.The changes in the climate owe to the trapped heat in the atmosphere. The process of heat trapping is propagated by the heat-trapping gases often called the green house gases. Some of the energy from the sun is absorbed by the earth and the rest is re-emitted. The greenhouse gases trap the re-emitted energy in the atmosphere maintaining the earth’s temperature.

Undue interference in the level of these atmospheric gases is amplifying the greenhouse effect to dangerous environmental levels by increasing the earth’s temperature. Carbon dioxide is the most anthropogenic of the green house gases and the rise in its amount to an inappropriate level is amenable to man-made mitigation efforts. The carbon emissions are increasing at the rate of 3.5 percent per year since 2000 due to China and India’s increasing use of coal power. Carbon dioxide has the highest positive Radioactive Forcing value and takes the longest time to leave the earth’s atmosphere compared to methane, water vapor and nitrous oxides.

This distinction provides the clearest possible rationale for reducing our carbon dioxide emissions without any delay.Carbon dioxide, being the most potent man-made global warming gas, needs to be reduced to the necessary level in the earth’s atmosphere. This need is prior to any economic progress since the future generations would suffer irrevocably if the emissions continue to rise. Use of renewable sources of fuels for the power plants and the use of green building technologies would be a smarter approach by the industries.

Plants sequester CO2 from the environment; hence planting a tree for every tree removed by the concerned people should be made a law. Another research proposes that if the upper atmosphere is populated with particles mimicking volcanic ash, this would reflect the sunlight and cool the earth.