The brilliancy of human beings well equipped with technology in modernising the world, to speak truly, though apparently a paradox, is vanishing the world bit by bit by leading to global warming. Theoretically, global warming refers to the increase in average temperature of Earth caused by greenhouse gases mainly CO2 gas. In fact, since 1900, planet Earth has warmed up by around 0.8 degrees centigrade and this figure is estimated to double for the following centuries. (Woodford 2006) All these will definitely cause inevitable effects on climate changes which will bring devastating consequences to the world and therefore, possible strategies must be undertaken to overcome the anthropogenic global warming.
Firstly, the most significant effects of global warming on climate changes will be the tremendous increase in sea level. Increase in global temperature will melt the glaciers and ice sheets as well as expand water volume, leading to rise in sea level. This is supported by Lonnie Thompson who studies glacier says that there will be no more snow in Kilimanjaro within a decade. (An Inconvenient Truth 2007) According to Chris Woodford (2006), the world's sea levels are currently rising at 3cm per decade and it is estimated to reach 1 m by 2100. Consequently, increasing sea level will lead to terrifying consequences such as erosion of coastlines and flash flood. (Riebeek 2007) Hurricanes, tornados and typhoons will likely increase in intensity due to warmer ocean surface temperatures. (An Inconvenient Truth 2007) Overall, rising sea level causes various dreadful consequences which may lead our mother earth to be permanently uninhabitable.
Global warming also influences the biosphere - interactions between Earth and living creatures. Warmer temperatures have shifted the growing season in many parts of the globe and this causes animals that cannot migrate or adapt to face extinction. (Riebeek 2007) Expanding of tropical temperature zones leads to the outbreak of various infectious diseases such as malaria and SARS. Due to hot weather, pine beetles fail to be killed and this has sacrificed thousands hectares of pine trees. More intense rains and rising sea levels create calamitous impacts on human population. On some predictions, climate change flooding could make around 100-200 million people permanently homeless by 2100. (Woodford 2006) Significantly, the world will be walking more steps further to its end if this issue is left unsolved in such deteriorating situation.
To prevent the destructive consequences from taking place, efficacious measures should be taken into consideration. Each of us is the causes of economy, with the thing we buy, electricity we use, cars we drive, and we can make choices to bring our individual carbon emission to zero. The solutions are in our hands. (An Inconvenient Truth 2007) You could bicycle, walk, or take the bus instead of using car, open your windows instead of using the air-con, and drive with better fuel economy in mind. (Woodford 2006) To achieve stabilization and reconstruction of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system, many countries has now joined the Kyoto Protocol, contributing by reducing the amount of carbon dioxide emissions.
As a conclusion, global warming is endangering the earth, putting our life at risk and causing the extinction of living creatures. As part of the world, should we acknowledge the existence of global warming by just nodding or waiting for tomorrow to deal with it? No! It is absolutely a no as we should bear in mind that it is our responsibility and as human beings, we have the righteousness to conserve and preserve the globe. Rather than contributing knowledge into vaporising the world through modernisation, we, human beings should do our best to achieve the optimisation, so let’s put your knowledge into action (An Inconvenient Truth 2007) for a better tomorrow.
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