Is Global Warming the final warning

Global warming or Warning

Global warming isn’t something new. Our planet has been experiencing it for thousands of years. Butthe levels at which it has reached today is alarming.Greenhouse gases (GHGs) – apart from being the major drivers of global warming – play a vital role in regulating the Earth’s surface temperature. The present average surface temperature of Earth is 15°C. In the absence of Greenhouse gases, the figure would be -18°C. How about living with such average temperatures? 

It’s not the presence of GHGs which concerns us, rather the excess of it. Since the Industrial revolution the atmospheric concentration of Greenhouse gases had accelerated.The single largest human contribution to global warming is the combustion of fossil fuels, which results in the release of carbon dioxide. In addition to carbon dioxide, methane, water vapor and nitrous oxidetogether constitutethe primary Greenhouse gases.A change in the way land is used also contributes to global warming.

Let’s get ready

Global warming brings with it rising sea levels, regional changes in precipitation and more frequent extreme weather events. Rising sea levels will soon force us to abandon our coastal cities. Regional changes in precipitation are already affecting agriculture and had caused crop failure multiple times.Other effects of global warming include widespread melting of snow and land ice, expansion of deserts and ocean acidification – all of which could end humanity in a matter of few days.As ecosystems change many species will go extinct.

Recently, a groupof scientists named Climate change an “emergency”, with economic growth and population growth being the top contributors to increasing CO₂emissions.

Let’s stop lying

In the recent past, Scientists were funded by oil companies to disagree with the scientific consensus and provided their own projections of the economic cost of stricter controls. Global oil companies disagree that climate change exists and that it is caused by fossil fuel burning. Some companies have even opted for a carbon tax in exchange for immunity from lawsuits which seek Climate change compensation.

And let’s do something

Public school students in Italy will soon be requiredto study Climate change and sustainabilityin every grade. Schools are doing regular beach clean ups, collecting a great deal of plastic and also learning about waste disposal systems.

Replacing plastic bags with paper bags may look like the blueprint of saving our planet, but it’s anything apart from that. The manufacturing process of a paper bag leaves a greater carbon footprint than a non-biodegradable plastic bag does in its lifetime. Let’s not do something, rather everything possible and even that which seems impossible. We have only one Earth.