The issue of climate change has been circulating the public for a long time. Despite the strong evidence offered by scientists about the reality of the threat, many people continue to believe that the problem of global warming is very much exaggerated. These different opinions are represented by politicians of various countries, who form the national strategies regarding this matter. Although many people do not support policies aimed at reducing the global warming effect, immediate actions must be taken to solve this issue since social and economic events of the past decades like mass migration demonstrate a disturbing trend that will affect the whole planet in the future.
Realising the Threat
Scientific Evidence
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (or IPCC), an international committee working on collecting and analysing facts about the issue of global warming, have determined that anthropogenic factor is one of the most serious ones associated with the subject. For instance, their Summary for Policymakers mentions that the carbon emission level has increased by 40 per cent since the times before the industrial society (IPCC 2013, p. 11). Most of this amount is created by fossil fuel and land usage. Besides, the ocean is one of the forces that is affected by this matter. It absorbs a large portion of carbon dioxide, which negatively impacts its inhabitants.
It is easy to support the idea of global warming by ordinary people by judging the facts that they observe in the news. For example, one of the latest articles by The Guardian talks about the effect of the global warming on the Arctic ice, which melts and causes local animals to suffer from the lack of food (McKie 2017). It is easy to trace the logical outcome of the melting ice in Arctic and Antarctic regions, as the rising sea level threatens to flood the human cities, some of which appear to be the world’s largest economic centres. Even nowadays, it is possible to notice how winters and summers are becoming less typical than before.
Governmental Effort
Of course, the changing climate makes government officials step out with initiatives that would prevent future catastrophe. For instance, a range of American and European administrations has made an effort to impose higher fees on technologies that have a massive ecological footprint, specifically those using fossil fuel. Nevertheless, most of the world’s economy is not tailored to suit the modern need for reducing the production and operation techniques associated with the high level of pollution. Thus there are no revolutionary changes to the subject’s policies that have been drafted in recent years.
Climate Change Denial
Despite the variety of facts that support the theory of global warming, many people believe the issue to be a conspiracy, and the translated threat is very exaggerated according to them. There is a precedent in the recent history of the event called the Climategate. A massive leak of climate scientists’ e-mails occurred in 2009, the information from which gave certain people reasons to believe that the issue is artificial and the research community is interested in hiding the truth from the society, publishing fake reports instead. However, according to the Oxford University scientists, the media hype over the event has vanished in several weeks and has not brought any significant effect on the general public (Carrington 2014, para. 2).
One of the reasons why people may think that global warming is an artificial problem is a fact that research studies are often sponsored by governmental forces, which might be interested in particular results. Reports have the power to affect policies that will later form the countries’ economy. Another critical factor in the assessment of the issue comes from the fuel company managers. Many of them understand that new policies may directly affect their business, carrying high costs of maintaining operations or even closing the whole production. There is an ongoing battle between this group of people and ecological activists who try to impose sanctions on this field of industry. Nevertheless, oil is one of the primary resources in the modern economic and industrial system, and not a single government can refuse to exploit it.
Socioeconomic Effect
Despite a large number of people denying global warming, numerous issues must be addressed now to prevent the future crisis in the economy and social security. Some scientists even argue that the threat is underestimated, and new economic models must be developed to help the situation (Revesz, Howard, Arrow, Goulder, Kopp, Livermore, Oppenheimer & Sterner 2014, para. 5). However, they believe that models based on the current perception still might help assess the risks for the future.
One of the major problems is the immigration crisis that is currently associated mostly with open conflicts in the Middle Eastern region. However, it may soon appear that people leave their homes due to their inability to supply themselves with food. The concept of environmental refugees (McLeman 2014, p. 50) is becoming more significant in the modern world. For instance, water is one of the fundamental resources required for a normal human life. However, as the climate becomes drier, it creates competition among communities. This forces governments to regulate this field by issuing policies targeted at controlling the amount of water used by companies and individuals. Some countries invest large sums of money in building facilities for water desalination.
Another factor that can soon increase the environmental immigration level is the scarcity of food. The changing climate is proven to affect the yield of crops, indicating that models predict “decreases for the 2040s and 2050s” with an ongoing trend (Challinor, Watson, Lobell, Howden, Smith & Chhetri 2014, p. 289). Flooded lands cannot be used for growing crops, as well as dry patches of earth. Besides, Asia and Africa are suffering from deforestation conducted for agricultural purposes. Governments of these regions must issue policies that control this process by determining the optimal land usage and protecting wildlife areas from destruction. While it is understandable that emerging states rely on food export, they have to control this industry to prevent the major economic crisis and people loss in the future.
Conclusion
Even though there might be a certain portion of bias, scientific reports identify climate change as one of the major driving forces for policymaking. Scientists and politicians share the concern about the effect of global warming and the events it is likely to cause in the future. Research creates a base for regulating such industries as agriculture and oil production in an attempt to prevent the immigration crisis.
Reference List
Carrington, D 2014, ‘“Climategate” had only fleeting effect on global warming scepticism’, The Guardian, Web.
Challinor, A J, Watson, J, Lobell, D B, Howden, S M, Smith, D R & Chhetri, N 2014, ‘A meta-analysis of crop yield under climate change and adaptation’, Natural Climate Change, vol. 4, pp. 287-291.
IPCC 2013, ‘Summary for policymakers’, in T F Stocker, Qin D, Plattner G-K, Tignor M, Allen S K, Boschung J, Nauels A, Xia Y, Bex V & Midgley P M (eds), Climate change 2013: The physical science basis. Contribution of Working group I to the Fifth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
McKie, R 2017, ‘How disappearing sea ice has put Arctic ecosystem under threat’, The Guardian, Web.
McLeman, R A 2014, Climate and human migration: Past experiences, future challenges, Cambridge University Press, New York, NY.
Revesz, R L, Howard, P H, Arrow, K, Goulder, L H, Kopp, R E, Livermore, M A, Oppenheimer, M & Sterner, T 2014, ‘Global warming: Improve economic models of climate change’, Nature, Web.