Global Warming

Learn about the causes and effects global warming and climate change. Social, biological and physical impacts of climate change, as well as raising awareness for carbon emissions and greenhouse gases.

Global warming - which is caused mainly by carbon emissions and greenhouse gases - is a problem. This has been forced into the minds of global citizens for the past generation. Why it is a problem is a largely unanswered question. The short answer is that global warming will probably make life harder, not easier, for most people. Of course the validity of this statement varies depending on where one is living and which economic class one falls into.

The Relationship of Global Warming and Climate Change

Global warming is a mode of climate change that is affecting our planet. A climate change can be defined as a change in the state of the climate identifiable via changes in the variability of its properties that persist over times. Climate change can be a result of natural causes or human activity. NASA has observed that the larger the change inclimate (the greater the variability of its properties), the more negative the consequences will be. These consequences come as a result of the fact that the current economic, social, biologic and political infrastructures that exist on planet Earth are all constructed according to the specific climate of the time of the infrastructure's inception.

Effects and Impacts of Global Warming

People in temperate zones may benefit from milder winters and expanding crop production while people in other areas will suffer from increased heat waves,coastal erosion, rising sea levels, and droughts. The products that sustain people (food) may be unable to adapt to local or regional climate changes. Temperature also invites a larger range for diseasesto expand into. Intensified heat waves or rising sea levels affects the livelihood of millions by altering the norms of their constructed culture. Heavy rains will change crop seasons and therefore change shipping routes and market prices.

Environmentalgraffiti.com has identified the five most deadly effects of global warming. The spread of diseases like malaria due to warmer climates,warmer waters and thus more hurricanes, increased probability of droughts, economic consequences, and the melting of the polar ices caps comprise the list.

These are some serious problems, the specifics of which are increasingly complicated as their interconnectedness to the functioning world is spelled out. To summarize, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has stated: "Taken as a whole, the range of published evidence indicates that the net damage costs of climate change are likely to be significant and to increase over time."

Read on about the effects of global warming and climate change:

• social effects and impacts of global warming
• biological effects and impacts of global warming
• physical effects and impacts of global warming

Raising Awareness for Global Warming and Climate Change

A project supported by Environmental Defense Fund, a Washington D.C. (United States) based awareness initiative, suggests that people who live in industrial countries are not aware of the effect of global warming in their everyday lives. They know what global warming is when they are asked, but they are not taking action to address the issue. They are not taking action because they either do not wish to, or are not sure of what action they should take. This is the essential issue with raising awareness, it is generally intended to incite discussion, but solid feasible solutions are lacking. They will come.

These problems that we are facing unite us as a species and are forcing the global infrastructure to accommodate discussions like the one about global warming. There is no obvious answer because the effect of global warming has such a wide impact zone. It cannot be addressed economically or socially, but rather generally.

If a generalist attitude is maintained and more data is dutifully gathered and awareness is raised, practices will evolve that will solve the climate change challenge. Although not apparent at the moment, global warming will be ingrained into our daily lives and we will learn to live with it and the knowledge of its potential effects. Most importantly, we will learn to live in such a way that actively negates its effect.

All of this information is daunting and crucial to figuring out our future. The future must be cleaner and more sustainable without sacrificing efficiency. This is a tall order that can only be met by collective innovation. There must be innovation because these new problems require new, unheard of solutions, and it must be collective because these new problems impact us all, and have the potential to do so in extremely transformative ways. In order to preserve our way of life, some sacrifices may have to be made, but if conceived in the right spirit of collective innovation, the solutions to the problem of global warming will create a cleaner future for all.

Resources

• Climate Change (US Environmental Protection Agency)
• Global Warming (Natural Resources Defense Council)
• Global Warming (Union of Concerned Scientists)
• Global Warming Report (National Academy of Sciences)
• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
• Global Warming (Wikipedia)

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