Environmental Ethics - Climate Change Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Environmental Ethics - Climate Change - Essay Example This lack of action on climate change has the potential to turn this world into an inhabitable place for the future generations. Climate change can be considered as one of the most challenging issues in this era of development, and it has to be the moral responsibility of every individual and government to take action against climate change to make this earth a safer place for future generations. A recent report commissioned by the World Bank has stated that by the end of this century the world will become warmer by 4oC and to avoid this, stringent measures need to be taken immediately. The report has already observed the negative impacts of climate change on human health from events like rising sea level, draughts, heat waves etc (Climate Change Report....., 2013). Climate change Some of the sun’s heat that reaches the earth’s surface gets absorbed and the rest gets radiated back to the atmosphere in the form of infrared heat. However, 90% of the heat gets absorbed by the greenhouse gases like water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide etc and is radiated back to the earth’s surface thereby rising the temperature of the earth. Human activities are to a large extent responsible for the creation of these gases. The most common factor is burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil which increases the level of carbon dioxide (CO2). Some lesser contributory human factors for production of greenhouse gases are clearing of land for agriculture and industry. Today, human beings heavily rely on industrial activities, and these have â€Å"raised atmospheric carbon dioxide levels from 280 parts per million to 379 parts per million in the last 150 years.† The general belief among climate scientists is that greenhouse gases produced by human activities have a 90 percent contribution towards the rise of earth’s temperature in the past five decades (A Blanket around the earth, n.d.). The impacts of climate change are manifold. Ice ha s been melting at a rapid pace all over the world especially at the poles like mountain glaciers and ice sheets in West Antarctica and Greenland, and also Arctic sea ice. There has been an increase in rain and snowfall across the world, and sea level has risen considerably in the last century. Continuous global warming can cause increased rate of natural calamities like hurricanes and other storms, floods and draughts (Effects of global warming, 2007). Climate change is also affecting the economy and health of human beings. The increasing heat and heat waves can have extreme effects on health and can also cause deaths. Climate change also increases the probability of diseases that get transmitted by food, water and insects (An Introduction to climate change, 2011). Climate change is also having negative effects on global economy. According to a recent study, nearly 400,000 people are dying annually all over the world that puts a dent in the world economy by $1.2 trillion. This decre ases the world GDP by 1.6%. The effect is more common in developing countries whose main occupation is agriculture. Climate change can destroy crops and other agricultural products and this leads to massive deaths caused by poverty, malnutrition, hunger and other related diseases. Burning of fossil fuels causes air pollution that kills almost 4.5 million people per year. But the extreme impacts of economies will be caused by weather extremities like droughts, floods and hurricanes