By Kartel Onyekachi Chidiagba
“Global warming presents the greatest test we humans have yet faced…..if we are to meet that challenge successfully, we need to move quickly and decisively and with a maturity we have rarely shown as a society or as species” – National Geographic magazine, October edition.
“Global warming” refers to an overall increase in temperature in earth’s atmosphere and oceans. It has been predicted that with the present trend in rising temperature escalating, a catastrophic consequences awaits our climate and environment. To millions of people living in cities, well above sea levels, the issue of fears of being overuned and displaced by floods could be a laughable topic but not to a group of islands like Tuvalu, that is no more than four meters above sea level whose inhabitants have already started evacuating in anticipation of a catastrophic flood disaster. This is a place where quite thousands have already fled and with more preparing for the same fate. Equally, cities like a large portion of Netherlands, Florida, Shanghai, Calcutta, and Bangladesh, Lagos etc just to mention but a few are equally on the danger list.
Actually, no one could say to be unaffected by this global trend. Rising temperatures have of recent intensified storms, floods, and droughts. The recent of which is Gustav, Ike that over-runned some the parts of U.S and the Caribbean islands such Cuba. In the Himalayas, the uncontrolled sudden disappearance of glaciers: from areas that feed seven river systems could cause shortages of fresh water for 40 percent of the world’s population. The risk of thousands of animal species, including Polar bears, whose hunting grounds are largely on the ice. At present, many bears are reportedly losing weight at an alarming rate with a looming death due to starvation.
The reality of the global threat posed by global warming as in the rising of temperature has lead to the speed of diseases from disease-carrying organisms such as mosquitoes, ticks, fungi to spread further without hindrance. No wonder the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists glared that “the dangers posed by climate changes are nearly as those posed by nuclear weapons…the effects maybe less dramatic in the short term…..but over the next three to four decades climate change could cause irremediable harm to the habitats upon which human societies depend for survival.”
The actual culprit as to the causes of global warming had long been a heated and complicated debate among scientist. However, which ever way one looks at it, human factor or activities and the complex nature of the physical processes that underlies global climate systems are duly responsible. Surprisingly, so many skeptics still doubt the existence of temperature rise alias global warming, but evidence abounds all around us of the constant and uncontrolled changes that we all witness in climatic temperature variations.
Among the major reasons behind these changes had been attributed to the intensification of the greenhouse effects, a natural phenomenal vital for life on earth. Let’s understand this phenomenal, when energy from the Sun reaches the earth, about 70 percent is absorbed; heating air, land, and sea. This in effect reduces the possibility of the earth’s surface temperature from hitting the minus 18 degree Celsius mark. The absorbed heat eventually is released back into space as infrared radiation, thus preventing the earth from overheating. However, when pollutants change the composition of atmosphere most of these heats are trapped and thus increasing the earth’s temperatures.
Carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane and water vapor as among the gases that contributes to the effect of the greenhouse effect. Since the outbreak of the industrial revolution some 250 years ago, the atmospheric concentration of these gases has been on the rise. Also the increased use of fossil fuels, such as coal, and oil and the alarming rate at which most cities are exploding with over population have helped influence climatic changes. There has equally been assertion of the substantial temperatures that the earth had undergone in past due to energy fluctuations. Possibly, because of the sunspot and flares, this correlates with fluctuations in solar energy outputs. Additionally, earth’s orbit moves in cycles that took thousand of years and that too affects our planet’s distances to the sun. There is also the influence of volcanic dust and changes in oceanic currents.
Many thoughts have been articulated as a way of curtailing if not solving entirely the fears and the realities associated with global warming. However, all have failed short of a long term solution as such would mean promptly addressing the root causes of the earth’s problems ý humans greed, self-interest, ignorance, inept government, and apathy. Some seemed safe with nuclear power as a way to curtail the now record high energy consumption worldwide. Since the burning of coal and oil produces greenhouse gases, some government are taking a closer look at it as a source of cleaner and environmentally friendly energy. However, its present challenges are quite overwhelming. For example, it requires up to 10 billion meters of water annually to cool the reactors of one of the worlds most nuclear-reliant countries, France. These waters when expelled from the reactors into rivers threaten to raise their temperatures to an environmentally damaging level.
There’s no doubt that more environmentally friendly technologies, such as solar, wind, wave, oceanic thermal are needed as pure sources of energy. Mandatory limits or outright ban on the use of fossil fuels if possible should equally be placed. High leveled emphases and enlightenment should be in the pipeline to discourage unnecessary, greedy and indiscriminate deforestation especially among developing countries as well as a reduction of industrial pollution in developed countries. Above all, the best solution lies in the reduction of human activities.