Climate Change: The Key Issues

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Background
Perspectives
Argument
Validity
Strengths and Weaknesses
Ethical Outcomes
Ethical issues
Conclusion
References

Introduction

Climate change is one of the largest and controversial problems, which became a subject of a number of debates and discussions. Its ramifications and consequences can be detrimental to the entire human society due to the fact that climate change effects are unavoidable. In addition, solutions for fighting climate change need cooperation on a global scale, which can put certain nations at a disadvantage and severely hurt their economies, because there are many countries that are highly dependent on fossil fuel reserves.

It will also require overlooking and dismissing any international conflicts in order to unite in addressing the given issue. Although there have been some remarks regarding climate change being a hoax, it is becoming more evident that it is a real global crisis, which means that immediate actions need to be taken, such as fossil fuel ban and worldwide energy reform.

Background

One of the urgent problems on the planet in recent years is the change in climatic conditions. Such changes in the ecological environment are reflected in the fundamental human rights recognized by international law, including the right to a favorable environment. Changes in climatic conditions can lead to rising sea levels, tsunamis, tornadoes, floods, salinization of freshwater, a decrease in the area of arable land, or land resources that can be intended for housing construction and many other phenomena that are a threat to human life and health. These phenomena are reflected not only in the normal functioning of people and the environment, but also in the economy, construction, market, and other relations.

The consequences of these phenomena affect both the individual and society as a whole. Most at risk are people and peoples whose lifestyle is associated with the environment, as well as coastal and island countries that do not have the economic resources to adapt to drastic changes. Many international laws and treaties state that countries undertake to cooperate to achieve the goals of preventing human rights violations, as well as take appropriate measures to combat climate change, to mitigate this phenomenon or adapt to its consequences.

The principled and agreed position of the World Health Organization, the United Nations, and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), formulated at the world conferences on climate change, is based on the results of a number of scientific studies. It reflects the prevailing point of view on the negative impact of global climate change on public health. An analysis of world literature indicates the emergence in recent years of a number of scientific publications on the medical and environmental consequences of global climate change.

Most articles report an extremely high degree of relevance to this problem. The authors attributed the expected effects of climate change to serious deformations of the human environment, which will inevitably reflect on public health. The impact of global environmental changes is seen as a set of impacts that reduce the planetary conditions of life support. This refers to changes in the composition of the atmosphere, land degradation, depletion of water resources, and a decrease in biodiversity.

The potential health effects of climate change are significantly different from direct impacts on a local, regional, or ecosystem scale in relation to the long-term impact on the stability of ecosystems in general. To assess this potential impact, it is necessary to expand the scope of health impact assessment. Climatic changes occur relatively quickly. They affect land use, vegetation, the change of habitats of many species of animals and plants. Moreover, the role of hydroclimatic changes is obvious.

However, the uncertainty of the consequences for the biosphere as a whole remains. Close attention should be paid to events such as medium-term climate change, as well as changes in the frequency of extreme climate events. The studies and analysis of the scientific literature indicate the need to create a system of preventive measures to protect public health in the context of the development of global hydroclimatic changes, which are aimed at reducing the negative consequences of changes in waterlogging in connection with global hydroclimatic transformations.

Perspectives

It is highly important to understand that climate change needs to be addressed on a global scale. It is stated that there is a need for a concept, such as an international regime, which means that social institutions that are agreed upon norms and rules regulate the actions of units in the area (Bulkeley & Newell, 2015). In addition, the data derived from both land and sea around the world indicate that a strong trend in temperature increase can be observed in both of the places (Urry, 2015).

Climate change and its temperature factor will also significantly speed up the overall extinction rate of critical species, and the values were highest in New Zealand, Australian, and South America (Urban, 2015). Another study suggests that the issue has a strong tendency to accelerate the greenhouse gas emission process because permafrost, which is an organic carbon trapped in Arctic glaciers, can be released by global warming (Schuur et al., 2015).

Another major risk from the given problem is the fact that human agriculture, alongside climate change, will lead to severe desertification and land degradation (Huang, Yu, Guan, Wang, & Guo, 2016). This, in conjunction with the constantly increasing human population, means that there will be a substantial shortage of food supply, which will manifest itself in famine and starvation across the globe. All these data strongly suggest that the issue of climate change needs to be prioritized over any conflict because ramifications will affect every nation in the world.

Argument

It is highly evident that the issue needs to be addressed in an immediate manner and with the involvement of all nations. The argument is that the fossil fuel industry should be gradually banned by incentivizing alternative energy sources, and global energy reforms need to take place in order to ensure that no violations will be conducted. In order to help the nations, which are primarily dependent on their fossil fuel reserves, the international community should aid them in their transition to alternative energy sources. Statistical data shows that the absence of such global policies will lead to greenhouse gases level going beyond 550 ppm CO2-eq, which will be detrimental to fossil fuel dependent nations themselves (Bauer et al., 2016).

Another statistical data on toxic air emissions indicates that a sharp reduction in fossil fuel dependence will result in significant health and economic improvements for children and future generations (Perera, 2017). The study demonstrates how global fossil fuel reserves are estimated to be 11000 gigatons, whereas the maximum number that global society can use and still prevent drastic climate change consequences is equal to 1240 Gt (Jakob & Hilaire, 2015). This means that without a global energy reform and fossil fuel ban, humanity will deal irreparable damage to the planet and its inhabitants.

Processes of warming or cooling have been observed throughout most of Earth’s history. Despite the difference in views on the cause of climate change, it has been established that, while maintaining the current growth rate, in a few years, people should expect a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (Urry, 2015). Regardless of these disputes, most scientists believe that the anthropogenic effect could provoke a climate shift and cause a new warming cycle.

Numerous epidemiological studies confirm that even from a short-term increase in average daily temperature in combination with increased levels of atmospheric air pollution with chemicals, such as nitrogen and sulfur dioxide, suspended particulate matter, ozone, significant damage to public health in the form of increased mortality is possible (Bulkeley & Newell, 2015). Hospitalization due to exacerbation of diseases of the cardiovascular system, the respiratory system can be a big problem.

The problem of assessing damage to public health from the effects of environmental factors is one of the important areas of modern hygiene science. Damage calculation is necessary for long-term social forecasting, for evaluating the effectiveness of environmental measures, calculating the rates of payments of environmental users for environmental pollution, calculating the budget parameters of the health care system and social security. The financing of environmental measures according to the residual principle is a consequence of the underestimation of the real losses that society suffers due to environmental pollution and which can be expressed in economic units. Climate change is becoming an increasingly noticeable adverse environmental factor every year, having a significant negative impact on public health.

Validity

In order to support any argument, it is important to be able to evaluate the validity of evidence. All sources of statistical data are from highly respectable sources, such as Nature, which makes them reliable. In addition, the data is derived from longitudinal studies and backed up by previous research in a similar field. The sources are peer-reviewed, and thus, they are free of any biases. Lastly, these are relatively recent reports, which means that information in the articles is not outdated or irrelevant.

Strengths and Weaknesses

The primary strength of the first source is manifested in it is accurate economic estimations based on real data, but the weakness is another model should be used to show that the proposed solution is plausible. The main strength of the second statistical data is the fact that the selected health ramifications are linked with strong data on air pollutants. However, the factor of infectious diseases can be considered as a weakness because the given factor is not dependent on climate change only.

The key strength of the third source is that it reveals a major underlying issue of the fact that it is impossible to use up all fossil fuel reserves without detrimental consequences, but the weakness can be found in estimations of the reserves. It is evident that the main message of these articles is to implement policies and regulations on the fossil fuel industry on the international scale. Therefore, future areas of research should involve top lawyers, environmental scientists, and social scientists in order to design fair and effective policies.

Ethical Outcomes

The major positive outcome of adopting international reforms regarding the fossil fuel industry is the fact that the carbon emissions rate will reduce sharply. This means that greenhouse gas accumulation in the atmosphere will decrease, and thus, many environmental disasters will be avoided. Eliminating such risks will manifest in the fact that valuable economic resources will not be spent on repairing and minimizing the damage from the disasters, but will be used for the developments and improvements. In addition, future generations will inherit a planet with fewer problems and will not live under the pressure of ecological disaster.

However, one of the largest negative outcomes is that, inevitably, some nations will be economically hurt by fossil fuel ban. Therefore, it is important to provide them with global aid in their transition towards alternative energy sources.

Ethical issues

In the case of the positive outcome, two related ethical issues are child mortality and starvation, because both of these problems will arise if actions will not be taken accordingly. As it was mentioned before, constantly increasing the human population alongside agriculture will lead to desertification of the land, which will result in less food supply. In addition, toxic air pollutants will heavily affect the child mortality rate. Regarding the negative outcome, two related ethical issues are economic inequality and poverty.

There are many nations, which heavily rely on their fossil fuel reserves, such as Gulf nations. By forcing them to abandon their primary source of economic prosperity, citizens of these nations will inevitably suffer from poverty. In addition, such drastic changes will further worsen economic inequality among countries because the policy will benefit nations, such as Germany, because it is not dependent on its fossil fuel reserves.

Conclusion

In conclusion, climate change is a global crisis and a major threat to human civilization, and thus, the international community should ban the main contributor, which is the fossil fuel industry, and implement energy reforms. Climate change needs international regimes, because the lack of them will result in a temperature increase in both land and sea, extinctions, permafrost release, desertification, shortage of food supply, and severe greenhouse gas accumulation. Therefore, drastic actions need to be taken in order to avoid dealing with irreparable damage to the planet and its inhabitants.

References

Bauer, N., Mouratiadou, I., Luderer, G., Baumstark, L., Brecha, R. J., Edenhofer, O., & Kriegler, E. (2016). Global fossil energy markets and climate change mitigation – An analysis with REMIND. Climatic Change, 136, 69-82.

Bulkeley, H., & Newell, P. (2015). Governing climate change (2nd ed.). London, UK: Routledge.

Huang, J., Yu, H., Guan, X., Wang, G., & Guo, R. (2016). Accelerated dryland expansion under climate change. Nature, 6, 166-171.

Jakob, M., & Hilaire, J. (2015). Unburnable fossil-fuel reserves. Nature, 517, 150-151.

Perera, F. P. (2017). Multiple threats to child health from fossil fuel combustion: Impacts of air pollution and climate change. Environmental Health Perspective, 125(2), 141-148.

Schuur, E. A. G., McGuire, A. D., Schadel, C., Grosse, G., Harden, J. W., Hayes, D. J., … Vonk, J. E. (2015). Climate change and the permafrost carbon feedback. Nature, 520, 171-179.

Urban, M. C. (2015). Accelerating extinction risk from climate change. Science, 348(6234), 571-573.

Urry, J. (2015). Climate change and society. In J. Michie & C. L. Cooper (Eds.), Why the social sciences matter (pp. 45-46). London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

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