Human Activities for the Increasing Threat of Global Warming - Research Paper Example

Since late 19th Century, carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, as pointed out by scientists, emerged as new threats for global environment. Carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases, including, methane, water vapor and choloroflurocarbons are main factors that prevent earth’s heat from being transmitted to the atmosphere. Consequently, it makes the earth warmer and turns it in a hostile place for growth of life. Seeds of the global warming were sown since inception of the Industrial Revolution. To fulfill their industrial requirements, human beings have been burning huge amount of fossil fuel and other earthly resources that led to increase in huge amount of polluting elements to the atmosphere. The whole situation has reached to such an extent that the scientists fear by 2050 total amount of carbon dioxide will be doubled than that of 1850. Observing the fierce effect of global warming, environmentalists, scientists, even politicians across the world have expressed their deep concern over this environmental issue and they have unanimously proposed that if the society does not act immediately on forestalling global warming, it will lead to the destruction of the world and its resources. This sense of growing concern about global warming has introduced various novel ways to stop it. Proposals have also been made to come up with different innovative ways that would diminish the rate of carbon dioxide addition to the atmosphere. The Scientific American (Feb 2000) issue published an essay named “Capturing Greenhouse gases”, where the authors have laid down various innovative procedures that would decrease the emission of carbon dioxide to a considerable amount. In his “ Global Warming and the USA” Fred Krupp, the President of Environmental Defense, has expressed his deep concern over increasing rate of global warming all over the world and at the same time he showed his urge over inventing various methods that would be completely market based. All these approaches and proposals received stronger foundation when in June 2002 the EPA or Environmental Protection Agency published their U.S Climate Action Report.(http:// www.epa.gov.globalwarming/publications/car/index.html) In this report, this agency clearly declared that arbitrary human activities are mainly responsible for this increasing threat of global warming, though contemporary U.S President George W. Bush waved it off declaring it as a “put out by the bureaucracy”. It is quite astonishing to see the U.S President’s approach to such a sensitive issue, whereas clear evidences of global warming over the global warming kept on worrying the scientists. Such evidences can be cited in essays like, “Meltdown in the North” [Scientific American, Oct, 2003] or “Modern Global Climate Change” [Science, Dec5, 2003]. Reluctance of the U.S government regarding the serious issue of global warming is not something new. In 1992, The U.N Conference on Environment and Development, Rio de Janeiro, global warming issue received highest response from representatives across the world. Repeated appeals have been made to the statesmen of all countries as well as citizens in order to avoid all sorts of activities that would reduce addition of less carbon dioxide to the environment but the U.S government paid a deaf ear to such appeals and completely denied from establishing any kind of deadline or norms of restriction that would stop the common men from adding extra carbon dioxide to the global climate. The signatory nations of U.N. Conference on Environment and Development again met in Kyoto, Japan and proposals have been made to restrict the limit of carbon dioxide for the industry based nations. This time The US government agreed to lower the emission of greenhouse gases to 7%. In November, 1998, these nations again met in Buenos Aires with the intention to sort out certain practical parameters related to global warming. But this time no positive initiative was found from the developing and developed nations. Christopher Flavin observed in his “Last Tango in Buenos Aires” that most of the developing nations, where carbon emission in increasing at a drastic rate and political oppositions in the developed nations, remained rigid over this point that carbon dioxide emission rate cannot be reduced to the rate as proposed by the signatory nations under U.N Environment and Development. Though blames have been put on to the “…big oil and big coal [which] have relentlessly obstructed the best-faith efforts of government negotiators”, but no fruitful results did appear. Biggest contradictory reactions came, especially from the industrial sector, such as, in May 2003, the Exxon Mobil rejected the issue of global warming and straightway expressed its opinion against development of renewable energy. These sorts of opposition were further encouraged by those critics, who went on debated over the uncertainties of data and emphasized over effects on global economy. Some critics also went to the extent of commenting that climate change was not happening in the fierce rate as it had been projected and there several other factors also could have come up that would prove to be beneficial for the human civilization. Not only the corporate sector, but there are several other scientists and scholars all over the world as well, who deny the inevitability of the global warming. Richard Lindzen, professor of meteorology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology has come up with this original research work that claims atmospheric water vapor will act through formation of clouds and will finally lead to the prevention of excessive global warming. This hypothesis has not received any such support from the scientific community all over the world but this hypothesis has made the U.S government happy to some extent. Smile upon the faces of U.S presidency and Senate members grew wider when Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas, the two astronomers at Harvard-Smlthsonian Centre for Astrophysics jointly wrote their paper claming that the common scientific presumption about change of climate in the world was wrong. In their paper they tried to prove that the factor of climate change is completely human induced and the plant was never hotter than before. Contradiction if this fact that global warming is becoming an increasing threat for the human civilization has also been echoed in the papers and research workings of Julian Morris and Bjorn Lomborg. However, all these denials cannot change the fact that global warming is happening at a drastic rate and if immediate actions cannot be taken to stop it then it will lead the whole world to destruction. How this global warming will slowly affect the earth? While answering this question, environmentalists and scientists draw a fierce picture. More we emit carbon dioxide more the climate of the world becomes warmer. Consequently, the warm climate will extract soil juice, making it drier. Forest fires will recur more frequently, which will lead to destruction of huge amount of trees and species that play most crucial role in maintaining ecological balance. Global warming will also unleash huge methane resources trapped in seabed and it will worsen the situation. There will be a “run-away greenhouse effect” (Leggett). Cumulatively all these aspects will lead to increase of global temperature to that level, which will cause melting of polar ice and water levels in seas, will rise to several feet overflowing a major part of the land. Scientists did portray this picture almost a decade back and now we are already receiving information about melting of polar ice caps and rise of sea levels overflowing the coast areas all over the world. Citizens all over the world can take certain precautions to fight against the global warming and if immediate measure can be taken then it is possible that we can bring down this rate to a considerable level. But all these steps will be to check the growing pace of global warming but it all these efforts will not be able to bring any permanent solution to this problem. To receive a permanent solution to this threat we have to know certain ecological factors and their correlations. It will help us to understand easily about those ecological factors that are boosting global warming and at the same time we will be able to control our actions also, so that the chain of correlation is not broken. Human Population: According to the U.S Census Bureau, total pollution of the world is more than 6.5 billion and it is growing at 1.14% per annum rate. It implies that every year 74.6 million more people have been added to the total population of the world. If we see the birth and death rate proportion, on the average basis per second four or five children are born and at the same time two grown up men die. These statistics have also lead to this belief that over population will cause damage to this earth, limiting to depreciation of earthly resources and leading to ecological degradation. Increase in the rate of human population will lead to destruction of forests and ecological resources. More human beings mean arbitrary use of more resources and addition in the total pollution level of the earth. It has also been scientifically proved that human activities cause most damage to the ecological balance and on all those species that play crucial role in holding it. But there is also other opinion about increase in human population that focuses on brighter aspect. According to the other system of belief, the human brain can explore various other ways that will expand carrying capacity of the world and show us ways to overcome any kind of problems. But the common fear seems to be prevailing and it has been observed that increase in human population has often breached the harmonious ecological balance. Time has come when human beings have to take initiatives about controlling their actions, because the question of existence of life on this earth is becoming more and more serious. Species Population: During the initial stage of human civilization, number of human beings was limited, whereas variation of species was abundant. With the passage of time, with change of climate, weather and various other factors, including human activism, various species failed to adopt and other expired. Still species that survive all over the world are of wide variety and play very important role in maintaining ecological balance. The species diversity can most frequently be observed in the equatorial region and more you approach the polar places, more the rate of diversity falls. One example will give us the idea. According to a recent study, it has been shown that total 56 species of breeding birds can be found in Greenland, while in Columbia that is almost one fifth of the total area of Greenland, there are only 1395 species. Main reason for such diversity is that tropical areas offer perfect temperature, abundant rainfall and all other related aspects to those species that are highly beneficial for their productivity. On the other hand, in Polar Regions the climate is rough, non abundance of food and short growing season that restrict the growth of the species. Interestingly, it is quite amazing to observe humane behavior among those species in terms of community structure and distribution of those individuals in communities by various ways. This interdependence among species, just like human beings, is the main reason for ecological balance in the world. Most of the species depend on each other for various biological activities, including mutual protection and assistance, access to resources of the environment and reproduction. Interaction and Communities: Coexistence between the species and lead to formation of their own communities and interaction. This sort of mutual coexistence is most explicitly observed among the animals but among insects as well as plants we find same type of mutual dependence, if we observe minutely. It has found that in a uniform environment species distributed randomly and they live up to the available resources. On the other hand, when it comes to an environment such as forests, individuals of the species are distributed vertically. This behavior is most conspicuously observed among the microbes, plants and animals. The environmental system, food and agriculture and conservation of environment all these aspects are very much dependent on these factors. Mutual dependence between man, animals and other organisms of the environment is maintaining the balance between the total ecosystems. Interaction and formation of communities between the organisms in a particular environment is the greatest evidence of such dependence. Life cycle of the species, balance in the food chain, utilization of environmental resources and mutual protection, according to the demand of the situation, all these factors develop the whole environmental system. Humans, tough they are at the top of environmental system, are largely dependent on the other species for their existence. One of the main resources of the survival of mankind comes from food and agriculture. If people are not becoming aware about their reckless actions, then the chain of interdependence will break and there is a high probability that resource for food will cease for mankind. Though awareness programs have been initiated worldwide, but there is no such remarkable behavioral change from the mankind has yet been observed. Keeping in mind all these issues and growing threat over the survival of the mankind, scientists are emphasizing over the factor of environmental conservation. Attempts have been initiated to educate people about conservation of the environmental factors. For the sake of self oriented benefits and personal reasons if we keep on exploiting environmental resources and break the chain of interdependence among species and various layers of ecology, we will only accelerate our destruction. Man, since the beginning of civilization, for their personal comfort and benefit has exploited the nature and natural elements. Global warming is the worst form of such exploitation. This factor shall immediately be considered by all as a threat of gravest degree for the mankind and the society must act immediately, keeping aside differentiating factors like class, creed and difference in opinion. It is quite disheartening to see sometimes that irrespective of knowing everything the whole human race is still so indifferent about this serious issue. Several social scientists have explained that morality of men has become weak and for this reason they fail to stand up against anything, even though that is a matter of threat for their lives. But, this kind of inactivity or passive approach cannot be cited an example of moral failure. Reason is quite simple- each human being is thinking that the other person will take the initiative to solve this problem. Factors related to global warming hovered in the minds of the scientist long time back and it is also true, in comparison to that period, lot more people have expressed their opinion in this field, further more number of people have joined various NGOs or committees, apparently, with a wish to battle against this global threat. Hence, more number of people has entered this scene other people have stated feeling themselves less responsible. Escaping from their duties is a common tendency of people and they love to cherish this luxury that someone else would do the task on their behalf. This act of awaiting others is not making us efficient and at the same time we end up discouraging all those people, who really wish to fight for this cause. It is quite tragic to see that our humane virtues have become such crippling that we cannot even see our doom. There are also psychological reasons too for such inactivity of human beings. We cannot imagine what can be the effects of a warm climate. This is a common tendency of the humans that they always act over their taught concept. Our taught concept does not allow us to imagine the horrid consequences of the global warming because historically we have never experienced such things. Our intellectual faculty allows us to accept the horrid consequences of global warming whereas we emotionally reject these thoughts. Every single day is passing we are approaching nearer to destruction. If we do not act immediately to forestall the consequence of global warming, in the longer run we will put our children as well as the future generation into great trouble. The following generation will be permanently condemned to the effects of ecological collapse and extreme weather. It is not that we do not know or understand all these factors but true initiative is seriously lacking and with the passage of time it is becoming increasingly dangerous. British Prime Minister Tony Blair stated in the second Earth Summit that, “We all know that if climate change is not stopped, all parts of the world will suffer. Some will even be destroyed. It remains unquestionably the most urgent environmental challenge.” (Johannesburg 2002). But when it comes to the actions of his government, we do not see reflection of this statement. The government in UK is going on expanding the traffic, airports and developing supply of oil overseas. Just few days back, Blair took certain initiatives to hand over the second largest reserves of oil in the whole world to Sir John Houghton. This personality is one of the most famous names among the climate scientists and at the same time quite known for his climate denial approaches. One of his famous statements in the Guardian explains his approach, “I have no hesitation in describing [climate change] as a ‘weapon of mass destruction.” Inactive approach of the prime minister is also reflected in the behavior of the British citizens. It has been observed through an opinion poll that over 85% of the British people say that they are concerned about drastic change in climate but they are literarily not taking any initiative on their part to prevent this global warming. After this opinion poll also consumption of domestic energy is increasing at 2% rate in the country. People are using more vehicles and fuel consumption has also increased to a remarkable rate. It is sometimes quite strange to see that those scholars, who have completely devoted themselves in the study of future, have failed to see those factors before their eyes. In the Our Final Century, the author Martin Rees has reflected over various things, such as bio warfare, rampaging of nanobots and genetic exploitation. He also mentioned about climate change but this very subject has not been dealt with the seriousness in comparison to the others. In his famous treatise over global agriculture, Colin Tudge, tried to deal with various problems ranging to global dimension but when it comes to a serious issue like global warming, he just adopts metaphorical approach. Before concluding it can be said that though we have wasted many precious time with the plan to fight against global warming but it is not very late yet. If proper initiation can be taken with proper awareness then this threat can still be overcome. Now, it is of highest demand that people from all class of the society come up immediately and take all necessary steps for forestalling global warming. Read More