Global warming has much to do with increase in global atmospheric temperature (Leddy 139). This is accelerated by green house effect enhanced by air pollution. These threaten to significantly change the climate patterns thereby increasing global average temperatures (139). Because of global warming it is forecasted that the polar ice caps, mountain glaciers will melt rapidly resulting into rise in levels of coastal waters. This will usher in era of new weather patterns and extremes of rainfall and drought that will negatively impact on food production (139). This research paper will focus on whether it is economically viable to spend more resources to protect the environment from the effects of global warming or whether it does not count to spend more resources on global warming initiatives.
I have always ambivalently felt that there is no need for government and the environmental agencies to pump resources into initiatives that are supposed to protect the environment from global warming primarily because proponents of government intervention have failed to realize such regulations have their inherent limitations. The government has always been blamed for not coming up with stringent policies that are supposed to check on environmental pollution (Gwartney 737).To many, the option of regulation may seem as a way to go but in actual sense it has several underlying problems associated with it (737). Seekers of government intervention may be raising genuine concern, but because of uncertainty of the harm associated with global warming it is pretty difficult to file suits against known polluters and be compensated. Government regulations that are supposed to check against environment pollution are in their entirety known to ignore information and incentives validated by market signals (737). The government is not in a position to come up with specific costs that are attached to the extent of environmental pollution neither are the polluters aware about the costs that are attached to the pollutants they release into the environment that contribute to global warming (737). The element of accountability is totally lacking both on the side of regulators and polluters. Regulation is also characterized by springing up of special interest groups who use political power to achieve goals that are not geared towards achieving goals of environmental conservation (Miller 587).
In as much as it may not be wise to spend more resources in environment conservation to stem out global warming, for purposes of sustainability, it is imperative that we conserve our environment to check on the negative effects that global warming expose our lives to. Claar and Klay in their study conclude that economic costs of fighting global warming are so negligible relative to potential economic benefits that are accrued from the environment (103). They make use of clear cut techniques that can be interrogated. Damages that global warming causes are many. It is estimated that in the US alone damages attributed to global warming accounts to 0.25 percent of the world’s total gross national product. This damage is attributed to two times CO2 concentration (Masood 649). Global warming is bound to have serious costs that range to billions of dollars. Such costs have been derived from models that assess costs of global warming in respect to agriculture, forestry, fisheries, energy, water supply, infrastructure, damages sanctioned by drought, land loss occasioned by rise of water level in the oceans and the seas, loss of different species of organisms that are important in sustaining the ecosystem, pollution and migration, and more important- the loss of human life. Developing countries are more likely to be the hit hardest by the effects of global warming as opposed to developed world that have the capacity to counter the effects of global warming. This is primarily due to the fact that developing countries have less adaptive capacity to mitigate the effects of global warming.
Studies emphatically suggest that reduction in green house emissions reduce long term health risks, the reduction in spread of malarial mosquitoes and fewer extreme climate events (McMichael 450). Reduced production of green house gases lead to increased food production because of absence of extreme environmental conditions that will interfere with the growth of food crops. Reduction in green gases that are emitted in the environment is likely to improve health standards because there will be reduction in health damaging air pollutants (Dockery 3). Combustion processes associated with production of green house gases like carbon dioxide, and methane do generate local and regional health damaging air pollutants like particulates and sulphides. It is therefore worth noting that reduction of emission of green house gases will definitely benefit many generations that will come after us who will be having less exposure to health damaging air pollutants. Reduction in health damaging air pollutants in the environment will definitely cut costs that households spend on medication that are related to such complications.
It is in the public domain that costs involved in controlling green house gas emissions associated with global warming is affordable and can be offset by the economic gains and other benefits. Scientists have come up with strategies that are geared towards reducing global warming in the coming decades and estimate the cost of engaging in such undertakings to be between 20-100 pounds for units of carbon dioxide released into the environment (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 4). These scientists unanimously say that nations have no options but to embrace the policy of reducing green gas emissions that lead to global warming. There are various challenges that are associated with the efforts that are geared towards the reduction of the impact of global warming. For example, for a single carbon dioxide unit released into the atmosphere from now uptown 2030, $100 shall be spent towards stabilization efforts of released gases. Consequently, it has been estimated that in years to come, the price of a single gallon of gasoline shall have increased by $. This will also drive up the cost of units of electricity consumed and resultant increase in other basic commodities that are used in day to day basis. Consequently, this would lead to slow global economic activity by 3 per cent between now and the year 2030. Even so, the global economic growth is expected to grow at be robust for the same period. The costs attributed to emission of green house gases into the environment can only be offset if the global economy free itself from the yolk of dependence on carbon (Wang 11) based fuels and technologies and embrace the use of cleaner sources of energy hence a cleaner environment (The World Bank 1).
Despite the fact that certain negative effects that global warming is associated with have not gotten enough empirical evidence, it is worth noting that at whatever cost we have to protect our environment by limiting the green gas emissions into the environment for the sake of the coming generation and the current generation.
Works Cited
Claar, Victor and Klay, Robin. Economics in Christian perspective: theory, Policies and life choices. NY: Intervarsity Press, 2007. Print.
Dockery, D and Pope, Arden. Epidemiology of Acute Health Effects: Summary of Time-Series Studies. In Particles in Our
Air: Concentrations and Health Effects; Wilson, R., Spengler, J., Eds.; Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA, 1996.
Gwartney, James. Economics: Private and Public Choice. Mason: Southwestern Cengage, 2009. Print.
Leddy, Jim. Simple Truth. Washington: Xulon Press, 2008. Print.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Radiative Forcing of Climate Change, and an Evaluation of the IPCC IS92 Emission Scenarios; Houghton, J. T., Meira Filha, L. G., Bruce, J., Lee, H., Callander, B. A., Haites, E., Harris, N., Maskell, K., Eds.; Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, U.K. 1995.
Masood, Ehsan. Kyoto agreement creates new agenda for climate research. Nature. 390(1997): 649.
McMichael, A. J, Anderson, H. R, Brunekreef, B and Cohen, A. Intl. J. Epidem. 27(1998): 450.
Miller, Tiller. Living in the environment: Principles, connections, and solutions. Belmont: Cengage Learning, 2009. Print.
The World Bank. Valuing the Health Effects of Air Pollution, No. 8 in the series, China: Issues and Options in Greenhouse Gas Control; World Bank: Washington, DC, 1994.
Wang, X. Comparison of Constraints on Coal and Biomass Fuel Development in China’s Energy Future. Ph.D. Dissertation, Energy and Resources Group University of California: Berkeley, 1997.