Global Warming

Global Warming has a tremendous impact on the human health and environment.  The name Greenhouse Effect refers to an increase in the Earth’s temperature, due to greenhouse gases that accumulate in the earth and cannot be released into space.  Carbon dioxide is the main gas that affects the atmosphere, and it is followed by water vapor, methane, and others but these types of gases are increasing the temperature of planet earth. As a result of increasing of Earth’s temperature, the atmosphere and the weather is changing and it affects the human health in the society and the environment.

Human health will be negatively affected by the global warming because of the rise of the Earth’s temperature, changes in the global climate and air pollution. The rising average temperature in the earth’s atmosphere is believed to increase many infectious diseases in humans and animals since infectious parasites grow and flourish in hot environments and climates. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), they predict that in developing countries like Africa, the population of mosquitoes will increase and thus, the risk of malaria, and also dengue and other infections borne by the same vector, will increase (Kasotia, 2007).  Climate change is also responsible for 300,000 deaths per year throughout the world while 90 percent of these deaths are caused by environmental degradation fueled by a warming climate which “exacerbates the threats of malnutrition, diarrhea, and malaria” (Global Humanitarian Forum, 2009). These do not yet include changes in the global climate that bring in storms, floods, and other natural disasters that cause high death tolls.  There were obvious signs of climate changing, from fires in Mexico, in 1998, to torrential rain in Venezuela, in 1999, and killer heat waves that happened in Europe, July and August of 2003.  Chicago was one of the cities affected by the five day heat wave in July of 1995 with temperatures of 106 Fahrenheit and 525 deaths (Wang & Chameides 2005, 3-4).  Another health hazard that is a by-product of accelerated global warming is the occurrence of “smog” or ground-level ozone.  Smog can cause damage to lung tissue puts those with asthma and other chronic lung diseases at an increased risk of exacerbations (IPCC, 2007).

As for its effects on the environment, global warming impacts the ecosystem and biodiversity because the climate change damages fauna and vegetation, ecosystem resources and increase the variation among living organisms on the earth. According to studies from Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 20-30 percent of the world’s species are going to face extinction if the amount of atmospheric temperature will increase 2-3 °C(IPCC, 2007). In the article Arctic meltdown: the economic and security implications of global warming, the author revealed that the way the Arctic was melting had a devastating impact, for the ecosystem and that around the Artic there were several endangered species like polar bears and fishes that could face extinction.  In addition, the author discusses the economic implication of global warming because of undisclosed natural resources, oil and gas deposits, that the Arctic held in its waters (Borgeson). Furthermore, climate change can, in fact, affect biodiversity, because the number of certain species, plants, insects and organisms will increase. Is this a good thing? It depends on how this form of species and vegetation affect the ecosystem.

Climate change does affect the human health and environment since the present belief that the accelerated warming of the earth’s atmosphere has increased the number of infectious lung diseases that can lead to death.  Not only that, its impact on the environment is lies in the difficulty of the diverse flora and fauna in prospering because they do not have the time to adapt.  This leaves thousands of species at the doorstep of extinction (Montaigne, 2004).  Measures have to put in place to increase the sustainability of the planet or we will find ourselves facing the much feared eventuality where the earth can no longer give us life and generations after us are left homeless.