Topic: Climate change- a desperate guessing game
Industrialization is the social and economic transformation of human society from agrarian to industrial. By far, the biggest negative effect of industrialization is on the environment. Pollution is the most common by-product of industrialization. However, the degradation of ecological systems, global warming, greenhouse gas emissions, and the adverse effect on human health have garnered widespread concern. Because many industrialized companies are often not forced to pay damages for the environmental harm they cause, they tend to impose a major negative externality on human society in the form of deforestation, extinction of species, widespread pollution, and excessive waste. Climate change is the most significant challenge to achieving sustainable development, and it threatens to drag millions of people into grinding poverty. At the same time, we have never had better know-how and solutions available to avert the crisis and create opportunities for a better life for people all over the world .Climate change is not just a long-term issue. It is happening today, and it entails uncertainties for policy makers trying to shape the future.
Policy makers all over the world are facing similar challenges. While we certainly know that the climate will change, there is great uncertainty as to what the local or regional impacts will be and what will be the impacts on societies and economies. Coupled with this is often great disagreement among policy makers about underlying assumptions and priorities for action. Many decisions to be made today have long-term consequences and are sensitive to climate conditions – water, energy, agriculture, fisheries and forests, and disasters risk management. We simply can’t afford to get it wrong.
Fresh fears of accelerating damage to the planet’s ice sheets and sea level rise have been fuelled by confirmation from the UN’s weather agency that the Antarctic likely saw a new temperature record of more than 18°C on Thursday. The WMO experts are expected to examine the meteorological conditions surrounding the event, particularly whether it is associated with a weather phenomenon known as "foehn". A common feature of life in Alpine regions, episodes of foehn often involve high winds at altitude and the rapid warming of air as it heads down slopes or peaks, driven by significant air pressure differences. In a key report last September from the highly respected UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), researchers warned that hundreds of millions of people are at risk from melting ice in the planet’s Polar Regions, linked to sea level rise.
To exemplify more a previously unknown strain of corona virus has dominated headlines in recent weeks, and alarmed public health officials with its rapid spread and virulent nature. The Wuhan virus is a global health emergency and not yet an official pandemic. It has global economic consequences that are becoming clear every passing day. Hyundai’s car plant in South Korea cannot produce cars for want of parts to come from China. India faces a shortage of active pharmaceutical ingredients, which are mostly imported from China. The world faces a shortage of face masks. Oil prices have been pushed down by the prospect of a slump in the wake of the viral outbreak. But it’s really no surprise to the scientists who study infectious disease: it’s just one of several pathogens that have the potential to reach calamitous status. For decades, scientists have recognized that climate change would lead to a range of public health consequences.
The situation is dire. Climate change has become a climate crisis. And it's people living in poverty who have the most to lose. For those on the frontlines of the crisis, the struggle to earn a living, feed their families and create safe and stable homes is made more difficult every day. The climate crisis discriminates, but the efforts to fight it cannot. And though the work to protect the global environment is essential, so are efforts to protect people around the world. Solutions that help vulnerable communities are often overlooked.
We know more today than we did in our past, but there’s still a lot we don’t know. When Arctic permafrost melts, what pathogens that have been buried for millennia will be released into the atmosphere—and can we combat them? What will the loss of entire communities, countries and ways of life do to the human psyche? How far will disease-carrying mosquitoes currently isolated to the tropics roam as their range shifts? Humanity has been adapting to all kinds of conditions, especially climatic conditions, for millennia and has done so with relative success so far. Human societies will continue to do so in response to potential adverse impacts of climate change as well. However, the level of such adverse impacts can be reduced considerably by pro-active or planned adaptation.