Essay on Global Warming Cons

To what extent is global warming affecting today’s world?

Within recent years, climate change has become an important topic of discussion. More specifically, global warming. Global warming is the long-term heating of Earth’s climate system due to human activities, primarily fossil fuel burning, which increases heat-trapping greenhouse gas levels in Earth’s atmosphere. The consequences of global warming affect our planet in many ways. Environmentally speaking, the temperature of Earth has risen 2 degrees. According to NASA, “Glaciers have shrunk, ice on rivers and lakes is breaking up earlier, plant and animal ranges have shifted, and trees are flowering sooner.” However, this isn’t only affecting us environmentally. Economically speaking, global warming has caused damage to property, lost productivity, and mass migration, and it will leave us drowning in coping costs. Despite all of this evidence, there are still people who deny any sort of climate change and the consequences it has brought. That raises the question, how much is global warming really affecting us?

Global warming is causing damage to wildlife all over the world. Plants and animals are being moved to places they had never occupied before or being forced to accommodate to the changing environment. Animals in the arctic are moving and behaving in ways that could disrupt entire ecosystems.“The Arctic is showing more extreme indications of climate change,” said Gil Bohrer, a professor and environmental engineer at Ohio State University in Columbus. With the melting of glaciers, sea ice, and change in precipitation, animals in these regions are forced to adapt. “Arctic animals are responding to these changes, they’re responding quickly, and that response is not equal.”, said Bohrer. NASA held a study in which they observed the caribou population in the Arctic, and how they are responding to climate change. Caribou are known to plan their mating schedule around the environment; they mate in the fall and raise their young in the spring. In this study, they concluded that caribou “were having offspring earlier to coincide with the changes in their environment, suggesting that these populations are adapting to climate change.” With the starting to have offspring earlier in the year, this means they won’t be raising them during the springtime when food and resources are usually the most abundant. This can lead to a decrease in the population due to the offspring not surviving and would trigger a domino effect within their ecosystem. Other species that rely on the caribou population will be harmed as well. This is just one example of how one species can be affected and ultimately cause harm to the whole ecosystem. This is happening at larger scales all around the world, and it’s harming our wildlife population as a whole. This shows how much of a slippery slope global warming is when it comes to our environment.

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Habitats are becoming unlivable and dangerous for some species due to the rise in temperature. Snowshoe Hares, for example, are one of many species already being affected, according to the U.S. Department of the Interior. This rabbit has evolved to have white fur during the winter months in order to blend in with the snow around it. Due to the rising temperatures, snow is melting earlier than it should. These rabbits are left exposed and vulnerable to predators. Since they have no protection anymore, they have a higher risk of being hunted and declining the population of the species. Snowshoe Hares have an important role in forest ecosystems, and a decline in population would disrupt the balance of the ecosystem and cause damage to other species who live here. The rising temperatures are slowly ruining these animals’ homes, giving them no choice but to adapt, relocate, or die. What we see here with this species is just the tip of the iceberg of what we’re dealing with when it comes to global warming harming ecosystems and destroying habitats.

However, it’s not only the wildlife that is being affected by global warming. Humans are facing the consequences as well. With the planet’s temperature rising, droughts and floods are starting to become a problem. Droughts are described as prolonged periods of dry weather caused by a lack of precipitation that results in a serious water shortage for some activity, population, or ecological system. Due to the temperature changes caused by global warming, the rate of evaporation has increased, which leads to an increase in water available for rainfall. The cycle of evaporation and precipitation has become unbalanced, pouring heavy rains over one region and then an intense drought in another. Over the period from 2000 through 2015, roughly 20 to 70 percent of the U.S. land area experienced conditions that were at least abnormally dry at any given time. In 2012, more than half of the U.S. land area was covered by drought. Droughts can have a detrimental effect on our environment. They cause damage to agriculture and can trigger water shortages. Farms don’t have the necessary resources and environment to grow crops and raise animals. The depletion of water availability in soils causes significant declines in crops and livestock production. In addition, surface and groundwater supplies may decline during drought, affecting water availability and increasing costs to access water for crop or forage irrigation and watering livestock. Droughts are also known to cause health problems to those in affected regions, Disease is not uncommon. Viruses, protozoa, and bacteria can pollute both groundwater and surface water when rainfall decreases. Mosquitos are known to breed in stagnant water, and they are also known to carry diseases like West Nile Virus and Zika. Lack of precipitation and increase in temperature brought on by drought can turn these regions into breeding grounds for pests and diseases, which can affect crops, wildlife, and even humans.

Flooding is also a common event caused by global warming. As mentioned before, the evaporation precipitation cycle has become unbalanced due to global warming. There’s more available water in the atmosphere due to the increase in evaporation. This leads to heavy rainfall becoming more common, and stronger storms becoming more frequent. This means that hurricanes are also more frequent. In the Atlantic basin, an 80 percent increase in the frequency of category 4 and 5 hurricanes (the most destructive) is expected over the next 80 years. This sudden influx in rainfall paired with frequent hurricanes practically guarantees to flood. These floods will have long-standing consequences both environmentally and economically. Regions will be destroyed and become inhabitable, organisms will be killed, and the coping costs will be huge. According to the National Flood Insurance Program, an average of $2.9 billion was spent per year between 2007 - 2017 in order to cover flood-related losses. Unless the climate returns to normal, this cycle of land being destroyed and then paying billions of dollars to try and cover the losses will never end, and it will cripple our economy and environment for years to come.

Global warming is not only affecting our environment but also our economy. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) concludes that hundreds of millions of people will be affected by climate change. With many regions being challenged by the changing climate, people are being forced to migrate. There will be a new economic sector built around the issues of migration, including managing migration, transportation, construction, and so on. Habitable countries will have to prepare for an influx of immigrants, and unhabitable regions will become impoverished due to the lack of immigration and productivity. According to research done between 1960 and 2000 for 116 countries by the World Economic Forum, they found that “increasing temperatures are associated with lower emigration and urbanization rates in very poor countries. In contrast, in middle-income countries, they are associated with positive changes in emigration and urbanization rates.” Global warming may have a positive effect on the immigration and tourism industries in the countries where people find refuge. However, it seems to negatively affect the regions that these people are migrating from. Middle-income countries will end up increasing their population and boosting their economy and income per person. Low-income countries will decrease in population, productivity, and income per person. The rich will become richer and the poor will become poorer. These effects could contribute to the divergence of income between poor and middle-income countries

Temperature increases brought on by global warming are shown to affect our productivity. If temperatures rise by 4.5? C by 2090, 9,300 more people will die in American cities due to the rising heat. The annual losses associated with extreme temperature-related deaths alone are projected to be $140 billion. Heat exposure will lead to a decrease in labor across all industries, which will have a direct effect on the economy from both a local and global perspective. By 2090, two billion hours of labor will be lost per year if temperatures remain so extreme. According to a 2014 Rhodium Group study, productivity in the Southeast and Southern Great Plains regions is expected to decline by 3 percent, and some counties of Texas and Florida could lose more than 6 percent of labor hours each year by 2100. The largest climate change-related economic losses in the U.S. will be from lost labor productivity.

It can be concluded that global warming has a significant impact on today’s world from both an economic and environmental perspective. From an environmental perspective, global warming has caused damage to wildlife all across the world. Plants and animals are being forced to accommodate to the ever-changing climate; species migrating to lands they had never occupied before, having offspring at different times of the year than usual, and trying to survive without the protection that the stable weather conditions would provide them with, like how Snowshoe hares are with the snow, or rather the lack thereof. Global warming is also causing damage to human-populated regions by bringing on things such as droughts and floods. From an economic perspective, global warming has affected migration patterns and productivity within countries. An increase in temperature will lead to an influx of immigrants and tourists migrating to habitable, middle-income countries that can withstand these changes. This will ultimately lead to an increase in population, and income per person, and will guarantee a boost in the economy. In this case, global warming positively affects today’s world. However, an increase in temperature will lead to negative effects in lower-income countries. People will migrate from these regions that have become unlivable due to the effects of global warming, leaving them with a decrease in population, productivity, and income per person. These regions are left to plunge into poverty, Wealthier countries who are prepared to withstand more will benefit from the consequences of global warming, while poorer countries won’t be as fortunate. The rising temperatures are shown to have an effect on human productivity as well. Heat exposure will lead to a decrease in labor across all industries, two billion hours of labor are expected to be lost by 2900. The largest climate change-related economic losses in the U.S. will be from lost labor productivity. On that note, I believe that my research question, “How does global warming affect today’s world?”, can be answered with this: global warming is shown to bring both negative and positive consequences to the world, however, most of the consequences seem to negatively affect our planet and the things that live on it. Further research must be done to identify and study the serious, long-term effects that global warming will have on the world.

Works Cited

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