Text Production Draft #1

What are the potential effects of global warming in terms of the climate change and how they can be arrested?

Global warming is a worldwide concern issue. Global warming is the increase in the Earth’s temperature due to emission of greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gases trap heat in the atmosphere and warm up the Earth. However, the concentration of the greenhouse gases increases due to the burning of gasoline and fossil fuels. As a result, the Earth becomes warmer. According to Holli Riebeek (2007), the average Earth’s surface temperature increase from 0.6 to 0.9 degree Celsius in the past centuries and it is believed that the temperature will keep on increasing in the next century. Global warming causes some potential impacts in terms of the climate change to us, so we have to take prompt actions to solve this problem and prevent it from getting worse.

One of the serious impacts of global warming is more hot days and fewer cool days. Global warming has influenced the weather conditions on Earth. Report of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change showed that there are increase in both heat waves and intense rain events during the past 50 years (Riebeek, 2007). Global warming causes bigger and more destructive storms to some area and it also leads to more widespread drought to some countries like Niger and Darfur. The erratic weather patterns could lead to hurricanes, tornados or typhoons bringing catastrophe and the lost of many lives.

Another significant impact of global warming is the rise of the sea levels. This is caused by the rising of the temperature. As the temperature increases, the oceans become warmer, causing the ice to melt more quickly and the sea levels increase. This will cause serious problems to the population lives in the coastal area. In the film An Inconvenient Truth (2007), Al Gore said that if the sea levels increase tremendously, it will cause some low-land area like Beijing, San Francisco bay and Netherlands to be inundated.

In addition, global warming also affects the ecosystems of our planet. As the temperature increases, plants and animals will have to adapt themselves to the new weather conditions. If they are unable to do so, they will face extinction. Chris Woodford (2006) commented that there are predictions showing that thirty to forty percents of the species in the world will be at risk of extinction due to global warming. Besides that, global warming also increases the problem of infectious diseases, development of new diseases like SARS, Arena virus and Lyme Diseases, and reemergence of some old diseases such as Avian flu and West Nile Virus (Gore, 2007).

Immediate actions should be taken to solve the global warming issue as it brings detrimental effects to our Earth. One of the solutions is reducing carbon dioxide emissions. This means that we should use less energy or better technology. At home, we can switch our utility to renewable energy and use energy-saving fluorescent lamps instead of the incandescent lamps. On top of that, we can cycle, walk or take public transports instead of using our own car. Governments also have the responsibility to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions. They should restrict the uses of the harmful chemicals to reduce global warming. Al Gore (2007) said that we are able to solve the global warming problems and although each of us is the causes of the global warming, each of us also has the choice to change it. We just need to have the determination to solve the problems. The extent of which the changes made are in our hands (Riebeek, 2007).

As a conclusion, global warming brings many negative effects like rising of sea levels, imbalance ecosystems and hotter environment. Cooperation of every nation in the world is required to solve the problem. Everyone bears this responsibility as the Earth is our only home. We have to try our best to overcome this global environmental challenge.