...that may not be politically correct. Aside from chicken little, this phrase reminds me of the state of the environment around us - Will the sky ACTUALLY fall?? - Ok, that may still be dramatic, but there is a constant discussion geared towards the state of our climates around the world and if they are changing. In other words, does global warming exist?
Let's the great debate begin!
To start off, is the climate actually changing or is it just a natural pattern that we have progressively noticed? In the United Nations Climate Change Information Kit, climate change is confirmed by the observation of how the earth deals with greenhouse gases. The earth will adjust to be able to balance the energy. The more greenhouses emitted into the environment, the more the earth will adjust and change to maintain balance, and thus the environment will be affected in, sometimes, drastic ways that we can notice.
It doesn't help that human activity has not helped the situation. In fact, the increase of greenhouse gases can be pin pointed to humans. According to the EPA's Climate Indicator handbook, the US by itself is responsible for a 14 percent increase of greenhouse gas emissions caused by human activities. This increase was recorded from 1990 to 2008. The major human activity that feeds the issue at hand is the increase of energy use, via electricity. This use of energy releases these emissions that aid towards the climate changes we have today.
Climate change not only is the cause of the irregular weather, but also many other things in our world. According to NAS, or the National Academics of Science Climate Change Information Site, I was able to find a statement geared towards a more rapid response towards climate change. In it, it gave concern towards not only the melting Arctic sea ice, but with that, the rapid sea level increase. Reading further into UNFFCC information kit will reveal that with climate change, the most affected areas will be sensitive areas - or places that are characterized as places that will have difficulty to adapt. Adding onto that aspect, the people in developing countries are affected harshly by climate change, that would greatly damage their economy and society.
Even with these broadly accepted conclusions, there will still be those who argue against climate change and it being an actual issue. The Heartland Institute published an article titled Global Warming: Not a Crisis. Within the article, Heartland expresses its issues, or concerns, involving global warming. Their concern is how much weight of global warming belongs to human activity and how much of it is a natural occurrence. Also they question if global warming itself is an actually "bad" thing or does it come with benefits. I can understand the doubts towards the topic of climate change alot better now that I got a chance to look at this article.
But, for imagination's sake - try to picture the world's state 50 years from now. Imagine its climate if we continued our normal energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. Would it still be the same? I doubt that. Because the earth is always working on balancing energy which causes noticable climate changes, the more continuance use and amount of energy for human activity will probably raise greenhouse emissions significantly. Though I think the earth will still be able to keep itself stabalized as a whole, I believe there will be many places, mostly sensitive areas, that will be great affected and maybe even disappear! It is 50 years from now after all! We ought to be proactive in our energy usage and other areas that feed into climate change. What are your thoughts on the world 50 years from now?
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