The signs are obvious. Strange and unprecedented things are happening. The tsunami in the Indian Ocean. Hurricane Katrina, severe floods and heatwaves. Are these mere coincidences? Or a sign of global warming?

Take a look around, the polar icecaps are melting. Storms and hurricanes are increasing in intensity. Spring comes much earlier. It doesn’t matter whether you’re Asian, African or American, a polar bear, pandas or lizard – all the organisms on earth are starting to feel the effects of the changes in climate.

And there are more startling facts. In the first few years of this millennium, the average temperature in the Artic – including parts of Canada, Russia and Alaska – have risen to twice the global average.[1] The Artic region may experience its first ice-free summer by 2040. You can now easily count the 27 glaciers in Montana’s Glacier National Park, which numbered 150 a century ago. The renowned snow on Tanzania’s Mount Kilimanjaro is melting – and could possibly just live on in photographs by 2020. Coral reefs are rapidly dying off due to the rising temperature of oceans. More than a million species are on the verge of extinction.

Still not disturbed? Have you not noticed the recent escalation of extreme weather conditions? Tropical storms, wildfires, hurricanes, tsunamis, strong typhoons – all of which are caused in one way or another by the climate changes brought about by global warming.The melting of glaciers and polar ice caps could result in shortage of fresh running water. Droughts, fires and heatwaves – as well as hurricanes and floods – could become a commonplace event in the years to come.

Global warming is simply the phenomenon of rise in temperature felt worldwide. It is caused by the “greenhouse effect” or the increased inability of atmospheric gases to release heat back to space. This has in turn caused the planet to become much too warm.

The sad truth is – global warming is caused by us. Scientists have reached a consensus concluding that most of the planetary climate changes that we are experiencing today are anthropogenic, or human-caused. Industrialization and deforestation have caused rampant pollution, which we have blatantly disregarded for centuries. Since the Industrial Revolution of the 1800s, man has been exploiting the earth’s reserve of fossil fuel indiscriminately, thus releasing a harmful amount of gas into the air. We are emitting to the atmosphere more carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and greenhouse gases than the plants and seas can absorb – thus trapping most of the heat on the earth’s surface.

Global Warming and You

NASA climatologists report that 2005 was the hottest year in a century. It was also the year of Hurricane Katrina, the disastrous storm that tore the city of New Orleans. The Center for Health and Global Environment at Harvard Medical School also reported an increase in the number of Americans who suffer from allergies and asthma, whose symptoms could be triggered by allergens brought about by global warming. Thus, the effects of this disastrous phenomenon are not only felt by a region or a group of people. All of us are affected. Now – more than ever – we are feeling the effects of global warming. Thus, now is also the time to do something about it.

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This entry was posted on Friday, August 15th, 2008 at 11:40 am and is filed under Articles, Economics & Environment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.