An inconvenient truth is a film by Al Gore elaborating the very controversial issue of global warming. Al Gore as a politician and scientist explicitly enlightens the public about environmental pollution that causes global warming and hence the green house effect.
Human activities carried out on this planet are the main causes of the disastrous global warming, which has led to drought, hurricane, diseases, tornados, and floods among other life threatening disasters. Carbon emissions from industries, homes, and automobiles among others are the main sources of global warming. Moreover, deforestation trims the ‘carbon sink’ and hence leads to carbon dioxide concentration in the earth’s atmosphere.
Al Gore uses visual arts like charts and photographs of the earth, hurricane, and floods to mention but a few to explore his concept on the recent dramatic climate change. He asserts that there is increasing levels of carbon dioxide on the earth surface. The correlation between human activities that increasingly release Carbon on earth surface and lack of vegetation cover are the main contribution to the increase. In the last fourteen years, there has been a high level of carbon emission.
The main effect of increased carbon dioxide emission in the atmosphere is the high ice melting on different mountains. Due to the high temperatures caused by global warming, the Himalayas, Peru in South America, Italian Alps, and Patagonia among others have experienced significant ice melting in the recent past.
In addition, many rivers are drying up due to global warming. Therefore, in the near future, water will be scarce because all the water catchments are presently under destruction. Recently, there has been high level of floods in Asia and South America resulting from intense ice melting. Conventionally, ice melts and evaporates due to high temperatures leading to high level of rainfalls hence floods.
The recent occurrence of Hurricanes, tornados and typhoons is due to high temperatures in the oceans and other water bodies. Such hurricanes include, Ivan, Dennis, the infamous Tsunami, Emily, and Katrina, which recorded high number of deaths and tremendous loss of property.
However, the main cause of these hurricanes is the increase in temperatures at sea level. Due to global warming, there is an increase in the temperature of sea or ocean water beyond normal levels. Consequently, there is an increase in the velocity of wind, which increases its energy levels leading to disastrous hurricanes. Therefore, as the carbon dioxide emissions increase in the atmosphere, more catastrophic events are yet to hit the earth in the near future.
The green house effect has led to high soil temperatures. Atmospheric temperatures have gone up leading soil moisture evaporation. The impact is drying up of vegetation due to lack of water. There is a high expansion of deserts like Sahara and the rest. Therefore, this phenomenon contributes to global warming because vegetation is the main source of carbon sinks on earth’s surface. Cities like Nairobi and Harare have recently recorded high levels of Malaria because the vectors, which thrive in warm areas, have migrated to high altitudes.
These two cities are on highlands; however, due to global warming from industries, automobiles and farming among others, the temperatures increase thus favoring mosquito survival. Other infectious diseases like avian flu have reemerged due the effects of green house gases. Environmental pollution has not only led to global warming, but also break out of new infectious diseases like Ebola and West Nile virus among others.
In conclusion, the global warming has led to disastrous effects on the earth. These include drying up of vegetation cover, hurricanes, tornados, typhoons, floods, depletion of coral reefs, earthquakes, ice melting and wildfires among others. In addition, there is break out of new diseases due to global warming leading to loss of lives.
However, human activities on earth are the main cause of global warming due to emission of green houses gases. The increasing human population has led to increase in vegetation clearance to increase food supply. Therefore, a decrease in human carbon emission and continuous reforestation is the only solution to curb global warming because trees consume any carbon dioxide that is in the atmosphere according to Al Gore.