GLOBAL WARMING IS FACT NOT FICTION!

Humankind may completely lose control!

The Great Barrier Reef is losing its corals. Photo from the Australian Institute of Marine Science.

Every two seconds a new child is born. Within 12 months there will be another 7.5m people on this planet making a total of around 6.7bn. We are using the eco-systems of three planets, our natural resources are running out and global warming is causing the Earth is heat up at an unprecedented rate!

Humankind is fast assembling its own demise. Indeed, to a greater or lesser degree, we are all responsible for global warming in the way we conduct our lives and the levels of greenhouses gases we generate, of which the most prolific is carbon dioxide (CO2). This gas emanates from the spectrum of energies we use in our everyday lives and, consequently, forms our individual carbon footprints.

The carbon footprints of people in the western world where life is dependent on complex systems of home heating, manufacturing and transportation are infinitely greater than those of people in the third world, where lifestyles are far less demanding on Earth’s natural resources.

Back in 1992 the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC or FCCC) held the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro to establish a treaty as the basis for all nations, north, south, east and west, to set in motion procedures aimed at reducing greenhouse gases in order to control global warming.

The Larsen Ice Shelf in the Antarctic breaks up under increasing temperatures. Photo from NASA’s Earth Observatory.

No mandatory limits were set. But over the years since 1992 several controversial targets have been established and solutions suggested - such as carbon trading - to bring global warming under control, otherwise future generations will face intolerable hardships.

The world will “shrink” because of the impossibility for human beings to exist in certain areas of the globe due to high temperatures and significantly reducing land mass caused by melting ice caps and rising sea levels. As a consequence, people living in these are will be forced to leave their homes and livelihoods and migrate to other parts of the Earth.

PATTERNS EMERGING

For several years IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has been identifying a number of severe weather occurrences as the direct effect of global warming. They include glacier retreat, ice shelf disruption such as the Larsen Ice Shelf, rise in sea levels, changes in rainfall patterns, increased intensity and incidences of hurricanes.

Scientists have confirmed that when climatic changes take place due to global warming they work negatively with man-made problems such as nuclear technology and industrialisation, and as a results huge disasters occur.

The Tanglang-la pass into Tibet is over 17,000ft high where icicles as long as swords usually hang from the cliff faces – but no longer! Also rivers from in the Himalayas providing billions of people with water are drying up. Photo by Christine Cooper.

For instance, there was Hurricane Katrina which devastated New Orleans in 2005 and Hurricane Mitch that hit Central America in October 1998, sweeping away entire villages, flattening the centre of the Honduran capital and killing 1500 people in Haiti. Then there was the extreme heat wave in France in August 2003 that claimed nearly 15,000 lives and the typhoon that tore through Japan in October 2004 killing nearly 100 people.

Farmers of eastern Australia are besieged by bush fires and the worst drought in 100 years, plus they have suffered great swarms of locusts.

Experts observing climate changes and supporting climate solutions, known as “climate witnesses” , have explained that changing weather patterns are drastically affecting nature and life, from the Himalayas to the South Pacific.

For instance, the mangrove species along India's border with Bangladesh are dying out and the swamps are under constant threat of flooding from heavy rains. The rising sea levels have washed away huge tracts of land and made others too salty for rice cultivation. Fresh water supplies have also dwindled to alarming levels.

Udu, a fishing village in Fiji, is reeling under the effects of scanty rainfall, eroding coastlines and diminishing fishing catches. Potable water has become scarce.

Melting glacier runoffs high in the Himalayas are flooding the villages of Nepal. New lakes are being formed and the existing ones are expanding.

The glaciers in the Alps are receding at an unprecedented rate. Photo by Christine Cooper.

These are just a few examples and future predictions do not paint a rosy picture. They include a rise in sea level of 110 to 770 mm (0.36 to 2.5 feet) by the end of this century, resulting in further decreases in agricultural yields, possible slowing down of thermohaline circulation (the oceans’ paths determined by temperature and salt), reductions in the ozone layer, lowering of ocean pH, extreme climatic changes and the spread of diseases such as malaria and dengue fever.

Some small island nations like the Maldives face complete annihilation within 30 years. And in Greenland, Canada and Alaska the permafrost is already melting and causing people’s homes to slip and collapse.

Low lying countries, such as the Netherlands, face immense problems and vast expense to erect barriers against rising seas. And in Britain property worth millions of pounds is now at risk from river or coastal flooding. Destruction of habitats such as coral reefs and alpine meadows could drive many plant and animal species to extinction by the year 2050!

SLOW DEATH FOR CORAL REEFS

No snow in the Himalayas is an ominous sign of global warming. Photo by Christine Cooper.

A poll initiated by an Australian environmentalist suggested that 86.5% of people in 14 countries believed that governments should do more to combat global warming. This was one of the key conclusions from the first annual World Environment Review by the global market intelligence solutions provider GMI (Global Market Insite, Inc.) The findings were released to coincide with the 2007 G8 summit in Germany.

To underline the serious international nature of global warming, three out of four people questioned felt that the seasons were not arriving at the same time of year any more!

79.5% of people suggested that Governments should make it easier for them to buy renewable electricity and a further 90% felt that all electricity should contain a minimum 25% of power generated from renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar power.

62% of Chinese and 63% of Indians said it would be appropriate for developed countries to demand restrictions on carbon emissions from China, India and other emerging economies.

Germans and Britons both thought that the biggest threat to the world’s climate was the US Government policy on climate change. Many other countries identified the destruction of the rain forests and old growth forests as the biggest issue – India, the Netherlands and Brazil, expressed the biggest concerns with 40%, 34% and 33% respectively.

Photo from Jane’s Oceana Web Page showing the Funafuti Lagoon, Tuvalu where even a minor rise in sea levels would cause major problems. The Polynesian country of Tuvalu consists of nine islands located in the central western Pacific Ocean. Each of these islands is both unique and individual in its origin, its myths and legends and culture.

WORLD POPULATION

So far as the world’s burgeoning population is concerned, it is said that if global development priorities are not reassessed to account for massive urban poverty, well over half of the 1.1 billion people projected to join the world’s population between now and 2030 may live in under-serviced slums.

Additionally, while cities cover only 0.4% of the Earth’s surface, they generate the bulk of the planet’s carbon emissions, making them key to alleviating the climate crisis.

As recently as a century ago the vast majority of the world’s people lived in rural areas, but by sometime next year (2008) more than half of all people will live in urban areas. Over 60 million people—roughly the population of France—are now added to the planet’s fast-expanding cities and suburbs each year, mostly in low-income urban settlements in developing countries.

Unplanned and chaotic urbanisation is taking a huge toll on human health and the quality of the environment, contributing to social, ecological, and economic instability in many countries. Of the 3 billion urban dwellers today, 1 billion live in “slums” defined as areas where people cannot secure key necessities such as clean water, a nearby toilet, or durable housing. An estimated 1.6 million urban residents die each year due to lack of clean water and sanitation as a result.

A graph showing the rise of global temperature over the past 1000 years.

Global warming is all set to further exacerbate these conditions as the dependence on these areas is greatly emphasised due the migration of people from the world’s regions which are under geographical threat due to unprecedented climatic changes.

There are many sceptics who are highly doubtful about the development of global warming and would rather consider it as a natural progression in the Earth’s evolution. But the greater majority of scientists agree that global warming is by far the greatest threat to humankind that has ever emerged and it is unraveling at such a pace that we may completely lose control!

References

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change – www.unfccc.int/

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – www.ipcc.ch/

Australian Institute of Marine Sciences - www.aims.gov.au

Global Market Insite Inc - www.gmi-mr.com/

The Discovery of Global Warming - www.aip.org/history/climate/20ctrend.htm

NASA Earth Observatory – www.earthobservatory.nasa.gov

Jane’s Oceana Web Page - www.janeresture.com/oceania_warming1/index.htm