Climate Change Caused by Global Warming - Book Report/Review Example

Global warming is one of the greatest threats to civilization in recent memory. There is a strong connection between a changing climate and the stability of civilizations in the ancient world. Pharaohs in Egypt, Moche Lords and Viking settlers all saw their civilizations and cultures vitally altered or destroyed by changing climatic conditions (Fagan, 1999). For this reason alone, the debates and political wrangling concerning global climate change need to take on an atmosphere of greater urgency. We are confronted with a changing climatic system that had felled civilizations in the past. We are foolish if we think we are too powerful or technologically advanced to withstand the changes brought on by a rapidly warming climate. Understanding the causes of climate change and the effects it will have on the ecological and economic systems currently enjoyed by humans is vital. Understanding the possible causes of global climate change is essential to being an informed participant in the current global debate surround how climate change should be addressed. Being an informed participant is important because very soon, decisions will be made that will be very costly to us all in the long as well as the short run. Currently, earth is warming at a very rapid rate. Climate change can refer to the heating or cooling of the earth. The underlying causes of climate change are a key element in the debate. Two different ideas have been presented. One idea states that human made, or anthropogenic forces are causing the climate to change. Humans are consuming fossil fuels, tilling the soil and clearing forests all of the time. These activities release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. These types of gasses trap radiation from the sun and hold it in the earth’s atmosphere instead of letting it reradiate back into space. Carbon dioxide acts like a blanket. It keeps the earth’s heat in. If too much heat gets trapped, then earth will warm too much. Many scientists believe that this is the cause of our current heating trend. Others are not so sure. Paleoclimatologists have known for many years that earth’s climate has been going through cyclical changes for millions of years. Ice sheets and glaciers grow and recede and atmospheric chemistry changes, revealing times when the earth was much colder than now and much warmer. A mathematician named Milutin Milankovitch predicted that earth’s climate followed a series of cycles that cause changes in climate due to changes in the earth’s degree of axial tilt, distance from the sun and orbital pattern in the solar system (Changing, 1994). More recent studies have confirmed that much of what Milankovitch predicted was true. So some people believe that our current warming climate is actually the result of natural phenomena and there is nothing people can do to change it. What will a changing climate do to our ecological and economic systems? This is a question that is not easy to answer. For many decades, scientists have been constructing computer models that show how weather patterns, ecology, human health and economic systems could be disruptive. Most of them predict dire consequences if the earth heats by as little as 3oC. Many environmentalists and scientists feel that a 6oC increase in global warming will be the beginning of the worst of the consequences. One of these consequences is the change that will be made in weather patters. Of special interest is the potential increase in severe weather that can damage crops, buildings and transportation infrastructure. Many computer models predict that warmer ocean water may lead to more hurricanes and typhoons. Storms like the hurricane Katrina that struck the city of New Orleans in the United States and the recent typhoons that struck the Philippines and Indonesia have killed many and cost billions of dollars in destruction. Other changes in weather may be more subtle but just as deadly and damaging. It is predicted that global warming will cause areas that are already arid to get even drier. This will greatly affect people that live through subsistence herding and farming in many places such as Africa’s Sahel region. Desertification of currently productive lands will force people to move, creating waves of ecological refugees on many continents. The opposite is true for the wet tropics. Some scientists believe that these places could actually become even wetter, causing flooding and a depletion of nutrients in the soil. Aside from weather, a warming climate may be very unhealthy for humans. Many diseases that have no real cure are kept in check by current climate and geographic systems. For example, the range for diseases such as Ebola, Dengue Fever and Malaria are isolated to areas that are generally warm and wet for most of the year (Meade, Florin and Gesler, 1988). Doctors and climatologists suggest that as warm, wet areas of the globe change and shift, these diseases will move into new areas of the human population. This will be especially destructive because these human populations will have no immunity built up against the new diseases. Epidemics of disease that are currently kept in check by our current climate is a possible outcome of global warming. Of special concern is malaria. Millions of people are stricken with this disease already. Expanding the range in which people can be affected will reduce any chances of eliminating this disease or mitigating the impact it has on human health. Ecologists have warned that a warming climate may push many species into extinction. Already, the range many animals have to live in is being destroyed by human activities such as sprawling residential development and pollution. But climate change is creating a special problem in even ecosystems that are remote and not obviously affected by humans. One of these is found in the Rocky Mountains. Several small mammals in these high altitudes migrate vertically with changing seasons. They cannot live nor reproduce in warm weather because their physiology is best suited for cold weather. They would migrate down slope in the winter to escape the coldest weather and then retreat upslope in the summer to stay cool. The summer snow pack in many of these mountains is disappearing or has disappeared. These species can no longer reproduce so their numbers are dropping. The biggest question facing the dilemma of climate change is whether we can do anything about it. Scientists that believe the warming is caused by carbon dioxide emissions feel that if we stop releasing so much carbon dioxide now, we may be able to release the damage. This will be expensive because we will need to develop alternatives to using fossil fuels to power our cars, trucks and electrical generating stations. We will then need to create carbon sinks to lock up all of the carbon dioxide that has been released. An example of a carbon sink is a forest. Trees sequester the carbon dioxide and trap it, possible for hundreds to years. There are many unanswered questions surrounding climate change. What is causing it? Can it be stopped or reversed? If so, how much will these efforts cost? While the answers to these questions are difficult to find, finding them is important because climate change is the greatest threat to civilization we have had for many years. Bibliography Changing global environment. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1994. Print Fagan, Brian M. Floods, famines, and emperors El Niño and the fate of civilizations. New York: Basic Books, 1999. Print. Meade, Melinda S. Medical geography. New York: Guilford, 1988. Print. Read More