Short answer: Yes. Even a seemingly slight average temperature rise is enough to cause a dramatic transformation of our planet.
Eight degrees Fahrenheit – it may not sound like much, perhaps the difference between wearing a sweater and not wearing one on an early‐spring day. But for the world in which we live, which climate experts project will be at least 8 °F warmer by 2100 should global emissions continue on their current path, this small rise will have grave consequences, ones that are already becoming apparent, for every ecosystem and living thing – including us.
According to the National Climate Assessment, human influences are the number one cause of global warming, especially the carbon pollution we cause by burning fossil fuels and the pollution‐capturing we prevent by destroying forests. The carbon dioxide, methane, soot, and other pollutants we release into the atmosphere act like a blanket, trapping the sun’s heat and causing the planet to warm. Evidence shows that the years 2000–2009 was hotter than any other decade in at least the past 1300 years. This warming is altering the Earth’s climate system, including its land, atmosphere, oceans, and ice, in far‐reaching ways.
More Frequent and Severe Weather
Higher temperatures are worsening many types of disasters, including storms, heat waves, floods, droughts, and wildfire. A warmer climate creates an atmosphere that can collect, retain, and drop more water, changing weather patterns in such a way that wet areas become wetter and dry areas drier. “Extreme weather events are costing more and more,” according to the NRDC’s Clean Power Plan initiative (2015). “The number of billion‐dollar weather disasters is expected to rise.”
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in 2015 there were 10 weather and climate disaster events in the United States – including severe storms, floods, drought, and wildfires – that caused at least $1 billion in losses. For context, each year from 1980 to 2015 averaged $5.2 billion in disasters (adjusted for inflation). If you zero in on the years between 2011 and 2015, you see an annual average cost of $10.8 billion.
The increasing number of droughts, intense storms, and floods we’re seeing as our warming atmosphere holds – and then dumps – more moisture poses risks to public health and safety, too. Prolonged dry spells mean more than just scorched lawns. Drought conditions jeopardize access to clean drinking water, fuel out‐of‐control wildfires, and result in windblown dust storms, extreme heat events, and flash flooding in the States. Elsewhere around the world, lack of water is a leading cause of death and serious disease. At the opposite end of the spectrum, heavier rains cause streams, rivers, and lakes to overflow, which damages life and property, contaminates drinking water, creates hazardous‐material spills, and promotes mold infestation and unhealthy air. A warmer, wetter world is also a boon for food‐borne and waterborne illnesses and disease‐carrying insects such as mosquitoes, fleas, and ticks.
Higher Death Rates
Today’s scientists point to climate change as “the biggest global health threat of the twenty‐first century.” It’s a threat that impacts all of us – especially children, the elderly, low‐income communities, and minorities – and in a variety of direct and indirect ways. As temperatures spike, so does the incidence of illness, emergency room visits, and death.
Dirtier Air
Rising temperatures also worsen air pollution by increasing ground level ozone, which is created when pollution from cars, factories, and other sources react to sunlight and heat. Ground‐level ozone is the main component of smog, and the hotter things get, the more of it we have. Dirtier air is linked to higher hospital admission rates and higher death rates for asthmatics. It worsens the health of people suffering from cardiac or pulmonary disease. And warmer temperatures also significantly increase airborne pollen, which is bad news for those who suffer from hay fever and other allergies.
Higher Wildlife Extinction Rates
As humans, we face a host of challenges, but we’re certainly not the only ones catching heat. As land and sea undergo rapid changes, the animals that inhabit them are doomed to disappear if they don’t adapt quickly enough. Some will make it, and some won’t. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 2014 assessment, many land, freshwater, and ocean species are shifting their geographic ranges to cooler climes or higher altitudes, in an attempt to escape warming. They’re changing seasonal behaviors and traditional migration patterns, too. And yet many still face “increased extinction risk due to climate change.” Indeed, a 2015 study showed that vertebrate species – animals with backbones, like fish, birds, mammals, amphibians, and reptiles – are disappearing 114 times faster than they should be, a phenomenon that has been linked to climate change, pollution, and deforestation.
More Acidic Oceans
The Earth’s marine ecosystems are under pressure as a result of climate change. Oceans are becoming more acidic, due in large part to their absorption of some of our excess emissions. As this acidification accelerates, it poses a serious threat to underwater life, particularly creatures with calcium carbonate shells or skeletons, including mollusks, crabs, and corals. This can have a huge impact on shellfisheries. Indeed, as of 2015, acidification is believed to have cost the Pacific Northwest oyster industry nearly $110 million. Coastal communities in 15 states that depend on the $1 billion nationwide annual harvest of oysters, clams, and other shelled mollusks face similar long‐term economic risks.
Higher Sea Levels
The polar regions are particularly vulnerable to a warming atmosphere. Average temperatures in the Arctic are rising twice as fast as they are elsewhere on Earth, and the world’s ice sheets are melting fast. This not only has grave consequences for the region’s people, wildlife, and plants; its most serious impact may be on rising sea levels. By 2100, it’s estimated our oceans will be one to four feet higher, threatening coastal systems and low‐lying areas, including entire island nations and the world’s largest cities, including New York, Los Angeles, and Miami as well as Mumbai, Sydney, and Rio de Janeiro.
Effects of Global Warming on Humans
Climate change has brought about possibly permanent alterations to Earth’s geological, biological, and ecological systems (NAP 2011).These changes have led to the emergence of a not so large‐scale environmental hazards to human health, such as extreme weather (MPR 2013), ozone depletion, increased danger of wildland fires, (Tang et al. 2014) loss of biodiversity (Sahney et al. 2010a), stresses to food‐producing systems, and the global spread of infectious diseases (McMichael et al. 2003). The WHO estimates that 160 000 deaths, since 1950, are directly attributable to climate change.
To date, a neglected aspect of the climate change debate, much less research has been conducted on the impacts of climate change on health, food supply, economic growth, migration, security, societal change, and public goods, such as drinking water, than on the geophysical changes related to global warming. Human impacts can be both negative and positive. Climatic changes in Siberia, for instance, are expected to improve food production and local economic activity, at least in the short to medium term. Numerous studies suggest, however, that the current and future impacts of climate change on human society are and will continue to be overwhelmingly negative.
The majority of the adverse effects of climate change are experienced by poor and low‐income communities around the world, who have much higher levels of vulnerability to environmental determinants of health, wealth, and other factors, and much lower levels of capacity available for coping with environmental change. A report on the global human impact of climate change published by the Global Humanitarian Forum in 2009 estimated more than 300 000 deaths and about $125 billion in economic losses each year and indicated that most climate change induced mortality is due to worsening floods and droughts in developing countries.
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