We've all heard debate about global warming, but I think most reasonable people can agree that it's happening. So given that it's happening, I wanted to compile and talk about the social consequences of it occurring. Doing some quick searching on Google I find:
The Consequences of Global Warming
On Weather Patterns
The Consequences of Global Warming on Health
The Consequences of Global Warming on Wildlife
The Consequences of Global Warming
On Glaciers and Sea Levels
5 Reasons Why Climate Change Is a Social Issue, Not Just an Environmental One
There's a start.
The Consequences of Global Warming
On Weather Patterns
More Powerful and Dangerous Hurricanes
Warmer water in the oceans pumps more energy into tropical storms, making them stronger and potentially more destructive. Even with storms of the same intensity, future hurricanes will cause more damage as higher sea levels exacerbate storm surges, flooding, and erosion.
Warning signs today:
The number of category 4 and 5 storms has greatly increased over the past 35 years, along with ocean temperature.
Hurricane Katrina of August 2005 was the costliest and one of the deadliest hurricanes in U.S. history and caused economic losses in the order of $125 billion.
Drought and Wildfire
Warmer temperatures could increase the probability of drought. Greater evaporation, particularly during summer and fall, could exacerbate drought conditions and increase the risk of wildfires.
Warning signs today:
The 1999-2002 national drought was one of the three most extensive droughts in the last 40 years.
Warming may have lead to the increased drought frequency that the West has experienced over the last 30 years.
The 2006 wildland fire season set new records in both the number of reported fires as well as acres burned. Close to 100,000 fires were reported and nearly 10 million acres burned, 125 percent above the 10-year average.
Firefighting expenditures have consistently totaled upwards of $1 billion per year.
Intense Rainstorms
Warmer temperatures increase the energy of the climatic system and can lead to heavier rainfall in some areas. Scientists project that climate change will increase the frequency of heavy rainstorms, putting many communities at risk for devastation from floods. Check the map of flood vulnerability in the United States.
Warning signs today:
National annual precipitation has increased between 5 and 10 percent since the early 20th century, largely the result of heavy downpours.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports that intense rain events have increased in frequency during the last 50 years and human-induced global warming most likely contributed to the trend.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Northeast region had its wettest summer on record in 2006, exceeding the previous record by more than 1 inch.
The Consequences of Global Warming on Health
Deadly Heat Waves
More frequent and severe heat waves will result in a greater number of heat-related deaths.
Warning signs today:
In 2003, extreme heat waves claimed as many as 70,000 lives in Europe. In France alone, nearly 15,000 people died during two weeks of soaring temperatures, which reached as high as 104 degrees Fahrenheit.
Much of North America experienced a severe heat wave in July 2006, which contributed to the deaths of over 140 people, including some who owned working air conditioners.
In the 1995 Chicago heat wave, 739 heat-related deaths occurred in a one-week period.
Bad Air, Allergy and Asthma
Global warming could increase smog pollution in some areas and intensify pollen allergies and asthma. Hotter conditions could also aggravate local air quality problems, already afflicting more than 100 million Americans.
Warning signs today:
Scientific studies show that a higher level of carbon dioxide spurs an increase in the growth of weeds such as ragweed, whose pollen triggers allergies and exacerbates asthma.
The number of pollen allergy and asthma sufferers has increased worldwide over the last several decades. Some researchers have suggested that this could be an early health effect of human-caused climate change.
Air pollution makes allergies worse: Diesel exhaust particles can interact with pollen and deliver it deeper into the lung.
Rising temperatures increase ground-level ozone smog production, which presents a serious threat to asthmatics.
Infectious Disease and Food and Waterborne Illness Outbreaks
Warming temperatures, alternating periods of drought and deluges, and ecosystem disruption have contributed to more widespread outbreaks of infections like malaria, dengue fever, tick-borne encephalitis, and diarrheal illnesses. People living in poverty will be hardest hit by the global surge in infectious diseases.
Warning signs today:
Disease-carrying mosquitoes are spreading as the climate allows them to survive in formerly inhospitable areas. Mosquitoes that can carry dengue fever viruses were previously limited to elevations of 3,300 feet but recently appeared at 7,200 feet in the Andes Mountains of Colombia. Malaria has been detected in new higher-elevation areas in Indonesia and Africa, posing new risks to millions of impoverished people whose health is already challenged.
Heavy rainfall events can wash pathogens from contaminated soils, farms, and streets into drinking water supplies. An outbreak of diarrheal illness in Milwaukee in 1993 which affected 403,000 people was caused by the parasite Cryptosporidium, which washed into the city's drinking water supply after heavy rains.
Higher outdoor temperatures can cause increased outbreaks of foodborne illnesses such as salmonella, which reproduces more rapidly as temperatures increase. Another foodborne bacteria, Vibrio parahaemolyticus, once native to subtropical regions, has expanded its range as far north as Alaska, where in 2004 it sickened unlucky cruise ship passengers when they ate raw local oysters.
Dangerous Weather Events
A warmer atmosphere can hold -- and dump -- more moisture, contributing to more intense extreme weather events, which in turn put people's lives at risk.
Warning signs today:
Hurricane Katrina forced the evacuation of 1.7 million people in 2005, and lead to deaths and long-term health problems for 200,000 New Orleans residents.
A combination of rising sea levels, reduced snowfall and increased rainstorms threatens to flood the homes of 300,000 California residents in the Sacramento-San Joaquin river delta area, potentially contaminating the drinking water of 24 million people.
Alternating drought and floods have led to food and water shortages, malnutrition, mass migrations and international conflict. Some researchers suggest that 50 million people worldwide could become "environmental refugees" by 2010, displaced by rising sea levels, desertification, depleted aquifers and intermittent river flooding.
The Consequences of Global Warming on Wildlife
Ecosystem Shifts and Species Die-Off
Increasing global temperatures are expected to disrupt ecosystems, pushing to extinction those species that cannot adapt. The first comprehensive assessment of the extinction risk from global warming found that more than 1 million species could be obliterated by 2050 if the current trajectory continues.
Warning signs today:
A recent study of nearly 2,000 species of plants and animals discovered movement toward the poles at an average rate of 3.8 miles per decade. Similarly, the study found species in alpine areas to be moving vertically at a rate of 20 feet per decade in the second half of the 20th century.
The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report found that approximately 20 to 30 percent of plant and animal species assessed so far are likely to be at increased risk of extinction if global average temperature increases by more than 2.7 to 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit.
Some polar bears are drowning because they have to swim longer distances to reach ice floes. The U. S. Geological Survey has predicted that two-thirds of the world's polar bear sub-populations will be extinct by mid-century due to melting of the Arctic ice cap.
In Washington's Olympic Mountains, sub-alpine forest has invaded higher elevation alpine meadows. Bermuda's mangrove forests are disappearing.
In areas of California, shoreline sea life is shifting northward, probably in response to warmer ocean and air temperatures.
Over the past 25 years, some Antarctic penguin populations have shrunk by 33 percent due to declines in winter sea-ice habitat.
The ocean will continue to become more acidic due to carbon dioxide emissions. Because of this acidification, species with hard calcium carbonate shells are vulnerable, as are coral reefs, which are vital to ocean ecosystems. Scientists predict that a 3.6 degree Fahrenheit increase in temperature would wipe out 97 percent of the world's coral reefs.
The Consequences of Global Warming
On Glaciers and Sea Levels
Melting Glaciers, Early Ice Thaw
Rising global temperatures will speed the melting of glaciers and ice caps and cause early ice thaw on rivers and lakes.
Warning signs today:
After existing for many millennia, the northern section of the Larsen B ice shelf in Antarctica -- a section larger than the state of Rhode Island -- collapsed between January and March 2002, disintegrating at a rate that astonished scientists. Since 1995, the ice shelf's area has shrunk by 40 percent.
According to NASA, the polar ice cap is now melting at the alarming rate of nine percent per decade. Arctic ice thickness has decreased 40 percent since the 1960s.
Arctic sea ice extent set an all-time record low in September 2007, with almost half a million square miles less ice than the previous record set in September 2005, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Over the past 3 decades, more than a million square miles of perennial sea ice -- an area the size of Norway, Denmark and Sweden combined -- has disappeared.
Multiple climate models indicate that sea ice will increasingly retreat as the earth warms. Scientists at the U.S. Center for Atmospheric Research predict that if the current rate of global warming continues, the Arctic could be ice-free in the summer by 2040.
At the current rate of retreat, all of the glaciers in Glacier National Park will be gone by 2070.
Sea-Level Rise
Current rates of sea-level rise are expected to increase as a result both of thermal expansion of the oceans and melting of most mountain glaciers and partial melting of the West Antarctic and Greenland ice caps. Consequences include loss of coastal wetlands and barrier islands, and a greater risk of flooding in coastal communities. Low-lying areas, such as the coastal region along the Gulf of Mexico and estuaries like the Chesapeake Bay, are especially vulnerable.
Warning signs today:
Global sea level has already risen by 4 to 8 inches in the past century, and the pace of sea level rise appears to be accelerating. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that sea levels could rise 10 to 23 inches by 2100, but in recent years sea levels have been rising faster than the upper end of the range predicted.
In the 1990s, the Greenland ice mass remained stable, but the ice sheet has increasingly declined in recent years. This melting currently contributes an estimated one-hundredth of an inch per year to global sea level rise.
Greenland holds 10 percent of the total global ice mass. If it melts, sea levels could increase by up to 21 feet.
5 Reasons Why Climate Change Is a Social Issue, Not Just an Environmental One
As illustrated by the 400,000 attendees at the People's Climate March in New York City and the solidarity events that took place around the word, the realities of climate change are no longer only being stressed by environmentalists. The effects of climate change will be economic, social, and environmental and will alter people's lives in a myriad of ways that we are just beginning to understand. Acceptance of this complex interaction, which follows the prescription laid out by the concept of sustainable development, is key to beginning to enact effective policy on climate. Since the recent New Climate Economy Report focused on climate change through an economic lens, it is time to facilitate discussion on the social effects. Here are 5 reasons why climate change needs to be considered a social issue as well:
1. Small farmers will feel the effects
Small farmers already struggle to get a fair price for their goods, safeguard against weather & pests, and compete with large-scale monoculture agricultural systems to stay in business. Climate change is poised to make matters worse for farmers through a shift in climate and agricultural zones, changes in production patterns due to higher temperatures, and more extreme and changing precipitation patterns all of which threaten crops. Such an upset has the potential to take away families' livelihoods and main source of income as well as hurt entire communities who depend on selling the fruit (and veggies) of their labor. Small farmers are an integral part of our societies and, consequently, the effects of climate change on farmers can threaten food supplies and security as well as increase volatility in global food prices.
2. Rural and urban poor are the hardest hit
1 billion people will still live in extreme poverty in 2015 and many depend on their surrounding natural resources for survival. Poverty and inequality, which we have been working to improve for decades, will only get worse with climate change because disadvantaged groups do not have the resources to cope with effects such as extreme flooding or droughts that may displace them or change their way of life. Poor neighborhoods in cities around the world are already known to suffer from more pollution, but they will also be disappointingly affected by increase in temperatures. Even in U.S. cities, research shows that poor neighborhoods are at higher risk for heat-related ailments, which will increase as temperature rises. Residents in poorer neighborhood are less likely to have air conditioning and only willing to use it when needed due to cost. There is also a tendency for there to be less trees and for buildings to be constructed from materials that retain heat.
3. Unequal capacity for adaptation
Developing countries, who did not significantly contribute to the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, will now be at an even greater disadvantage when it comes to dealing with the effects of climate change. Developing countries already struggle with lack of infrastructure and less technological and financial resources, among a number of other concerns that will hinder their ability to adapt. Furthermore, these countries are dependent on the resources they do have to deal with high rates of poverty and income inequality, both of which, as we stated, will be exacerbated with climate change. For example, public funds that could have originally been used towards education will now have to go to sea walls, increased irrigation, or storm water systems to adapt. Although this reality is discussed as a part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), technological and financial assistance to developing countries isn't even close to sufficient.
4. Women, children, and the elderly will become even more vulnerable
Women, children, and the elderly who already tend to be a vulnerable group in society will become even more so from climate change . In rural areas of developing countries it is often the responsibility of women and children to collect firewood and water, yet decreasing supplies is resulting in more work and less time for other tasks as they now often have to go further distances to find supplies. Children and the elderly are also more susceptible to the heath concerns associated with climate change such as heat-related ailments from higher temperatures, malnourishment due to increased strain on food supplies/increased prices, and also disease that can be associated with increased flooding. In many countries where women do not have equal access to land, capital, and other resources as men (yet are often heads of households), women are already having difficulty in accessing climate resilient technology or crops, which are necessary for climate change adaptation. Furthermore, there are various psychological and physical impacts that have already been witnessed (in both men and women) due to increased pressure to provide for the family.
5. Communities will be forced to relocate
Many communities will be forced to move as they are exposed to rising sea levels, extreme drought that puts strain on resources, or even extreme rainfall that becomes the norm. Small island developing states (SIDS) are particularly vulnerable and are at the forefront of feeling the effects of climate change. At the beginning of 2014, Fiji's first village to relocate moved 1 km further inland as a part of the country's climate change program as seawater had already began to flood residents' homes in the village of Vunidogoloa. It is expected that 34 other villages could also be moved as Fiji grapples with eroding coastlines and increased flooding. The entire nation of Kiribati, a small island state in the Pacific, is expected to become uninhabitable due to sea level rise and the country has recently bought land in Fiji in order to relocate. This means entire ways of life that have existed for centuries will be relocated and changed forever.
Because the effects of climate change are not simply environmental but economic and social as well, new and existing policies must take a holistic approach and transcend disciplines, sectors, and the public-private divide. Addressing climate change is a tremendous concern unlike any our society has had yet to deal with and requires a unique approach that leaves behind the idea that humans are a separate entity outside of the environment.
There's a start.
