Climate Change - the implied dangers (#BAD09)

What will go wrong with Climate Change? A multitude of things. Not only are there dangers directly caused by climate change, there are also many that come along within the package and chain of events.

First of all, the kind of climate change that we currently think of is global warming. This will cause the ice caps to melt, the sea level to rise, the ocean currents to change and the warmer places on earth to become uninhabitable. Directly, but also indirectly, it will cause mass extinctions of species which is undoubtedly extremely harmful, although the effects are rather unforeseeable as to the exact outcomes. The climate change is also expected to cause more harmful weather conditions and thus natural disasters. The warming will also enlarge disease areas such as that of malaria. Implied in this is that there will less potable water and less food. In short, life will become cramped, unhealthy, dangerous and undernourished.

Factoring into these problems are pollution and the rise of population. Not only is pollution significantly responsible for global warming, it also speeds up the effects of specie extinctions, unhealthy living conditions and narrowing down of the habitable environment. Similarly, the rise in population will exacerbate the reduction of habitable living space for each individual and the dangers of disease spread as well as the food and water shortages.

Many of the bad effects of climate change, have the quality of a time bomb. A growing deterioration of our planet that heads towards an irretrievable collapse of the environment. The melting of ice caps on mountains will cause rivers to run dry and arable land to go to waste. Extinction of species can cause entire biospheres to disintegrate. And the overall increased tensions on human life and society can result in anarchy and war.

Many of the details of these dangers are discussed in a wide variety of podcasts, many of which I have reviewed:
Bee colonies collapse (Science Talk),
Mass extinctions (Making History with Ran Levi),
Population growth and health (UCSD's Human Impact on the Environment),
Fish Depletion (ABC Rear Vision),
Easter Island example (UCSD's Human Impact on the Environment),
Disasters and war (UChannel Podcast),
Hot, Flat and Crowded - Thomas Friedman (LSE podcast),
The Malthusian trap (Berkeley's Geography 130),
Stern Review (UChannel Podcast).

Blog Action Day 2009