Globally, the human history was not a great concern, especially to human population dynamics. This was as a result of a match between natural resources and human needs. However, around the XIX century, the untold millennia of human history was revealed due to socio-economic and environmental issues that begun to affect humanity both in positive and in negative ways. Global population in the XIX century was estimated to have reached the first billion. Scientist have calculated that the world population grows by one billion every twelve years (Does population growth impact climate change?, 2009).
For example, the 20th century population was estimated to be 1.6 billion people, but at the dawn of the new millennium the population was about 6.1 billion. This was a huge increase, especially in the light of the fact that the replenishment of natural resources consumed by the population takes ages, not to mention the fact that some resources, such as crude oil, are non-renewable. Crude oil and coal in the 18th and 20th century were the main sources of energy, especially as the industrial revolution erupted in Europe and Asia, particularly, in United Kingdom and China (Does population growth impact climate change?, 2009). There were major social and economic benefits from the industrial revolution, including the rise of living standards, yet it took little time for the emergence of adverse environmental issues, such as air and water pollution, which led to policies and legislations formation to regulate the issues on a national and global level.
Climate Change: Anticipating Drastic Consequences
Climate in both the northern and the southern hemisphere had been relatively stable up until the end of the 20th century, when the issue of global warming emerged. Simultaneously, due to climate change over time, gradual cooling had been taking place up to the beginning of 20th century. Afterwards, universal average surface temperature of air moved to about 0.6 degrees Celsius (Earth is ‘committed to 0.6ºC of unavoidable warming, n. d.). Due to this climatic variation, the frequency of air frost has decreased in many areas. As a result of these changes, sub-tropics and tropics vegetation has been drying.
Greenhouse gas concentration has become the key factor facilitating global warming. The latter, in its turn, is as a result of long rays from the sun being trapped in the Earth atmosphere after the short rays are refracted after hitting the earth due carbon concentrations brought about by anthropogenic activities, such as mining and transportation activities. The negative effects of global warming have been experienced in many countries, including Japan. Developed countries have devoted a range of conferences to the issue; for instance, Agenda 21 was adapted at the United Nations conference on Environment and Development in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro (UNO, n. d.) to apply the strategy of sustainable development at a national level. This was a major foot forward in helping developing countries design a strategy for management of the environment.
Natural Hazards: What May Entail Major Problems
Natural calamities are a result of geophysical activities, such as landslides, flooding, earthquakes and volcanic activities. Developed nations have invested in addressing this problem through involvement of geomorphologic activities in natural disaster field on local, regional and global levels (Alcántara-Ayala, 2002). Collaboration of the developed and the least developed nations to establish adequate strategies of risk management and assessment can be a pro-active measure to prevent from further instances of statewide natural disasters. The impacts of this international frame work have been taken worldwide/ since natural disasters continue to affect developing nations, such as Haiti, which was recently hit by the earthquake.
Therefore, support and collaboration of healthcare units and the disaster management departments should be considered a top priority in every state, so that no major injuries could occur in case of a disaster. More to the point, it is important that further geomorphologic researches should be carried out to define the patterns of natural disasters occurrence.
Reference List
Alcántara-Ayala, I. (2002). Geomorphology, natural hazards, vulnerability and prevention of natural disasters in developing countries. Geomorphology, 47(2–4), 107–124. Web.
Does population growth impact climate change? (2009). Scientific American. Web.
Earth is ‘committed to 0.6ºC of unavoidable warming (n. d.). Science Development Network. Web.
UNO (n. d.). United Nations Conference on Environment & Development Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Web.