Among the other moral, economic, ethical and natural hazards that the world is currently facing and fearing for its future, global warming presents one of the biggest threats and challenges for the safety of the human kind and sustainability of the natural resources to ensure the future survival. The severe concern for the global warming emerged in the new millennium when symptoms for a disastrous future sprung up in various forms, the most noticeable being the worldwide climate change. But realization is not going to prevent the humans and the world as we know form what is ahead. For that, individual, national and international actions have to be put in action and place to cater for a cleaner, safer and a healthier environment that sustains the natural resources and accounts for less hazards. As troublesome as the hazards that the global warming is capable of are, so are its prevention measures, which put ethical and economic perspectives in a complex dilemma for individuals.
How did global warming emerge? Of course humans are the main cause of the hazard, who discovered the many uses of the natural resources found in abundance on Earth. Following the industrial revolution, the exploitation took on new heights and now the natural resources are increasingly running out and becoming extinct. Such are the non-renewable resources such as coal. With the invention of combustion engines and several forms of vehicles, the air got heavily infused with several combustions of fossil fuels and carbon dioxide which accounted for the immense threat of global warming. It has been recorded that in the last 50 years, the temperature has risen and the sole cause for that is the increase in the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. What are the green house gases? Greenhouse gases are the single most important concept to understand to give way to the whole idea of global warming. Greenhouse gases include water vapors, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, sulfur hexafluoride, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and chlorofluorocarbons and methane, etc. they are found under the ozone layer that protects the Earth from the harmful rays from the Sun. when fossil fuels or coal is burned in factories, and in vehicles, the carbon emission go directly upwards in the atmosphere and form the greenhouse gas, which produce the greenhouse effect. The greenhouse effect heats up the atmosphere.
The greenhouse effect is the process of keeping the Earth heated with the needed heat requirements. The greenhouse gases capture the sun rays, absorb the head, provide the Earth with how much it needs and reflect back the rest. This keeps the Earth warm otherwise it would freeze terribly and life on Earth may not exist at all (Singer 50). This was the natural process but due to the increased combustion activities on Earth, the greenhouse gases incumbent enhanced exposure of Earth to heat that is changing the entire world’s climate, making it hotter than it was 50 years ago (Rosenthal 80). With the intense heating up caused by the greenhouse gases, the ozone layer is getting affected and getting weaker each day. This only spells doom for all life forms in future in terms of the hotness it would withdrew (Mann 98).
Global warming has had two major influences upon the environment. First it increased the overall temperature of the Earth to 3° C which will future increase to 5° C by 2100 (Houghton 321). Secondly, it has made the sea levels rise by 25 meters. These two have the potential to cause a chain reaction which would eventually lead to the destruction of the entire food chain of humans, thus, presenting the humans with the grave concern. Such effects of the global warming and concern for the future survival of the life forms on Earth, the government has been compelled to take on several actions. One such act is the Clean Air Act which binds companies into producing fewer of air polluting products, such as hair sprays, and more ozone friendly products (Botkin 230).
But the prevention against global warming is not the sole responsibility of the government. The responsibility for the protection of the environment goes down at the individual level, and together with the combined effect produced by all the individuals global warming can be very well be prevent. But as much as this sounds, it is quite ideal, and far fetched from reality. Why is that so? Prevention from Global warming calls for reducing the use of electricity and using it only when desperately required; watching less TV, air drying clothes and limiting the use of washing machines and dryers; limiting the use of hair dryers and air conditioners, and many electrical appliances (Booker 113). Also, on the other hand, prevention measures include driving cars that emit less carbon into the air, limiting the use of hair sprays, cutting down forests, and trees, planting more trees, etc (Archer 126).
Planting trees and buying more fuel efficient cars are two highly favored areas where people are currently strongly contributing to, but when it comes to the use of electric appliances, people are finding hard to get used to the idea, as their lives are strongly dependent upon the use of many electrical appliances (Root and Price 59). For example in Asian countries, during summer, the heat is intense and air conditioning is like a blessing. For them, limiting the use of air conditioning is only possible during the winters (Lashop 530). For more cold European nations, there is lack of heat, which calls for the use of dryers for drying the laundry, leaving the people helpless to rely on electricity. Moving ahead to more economic dilemmas, when companies are bound under environmental protection rules, they face the complex scenario of measuring their costs and countering other laws (David 241). For example, employing more environmental friendly means of production increases cost of production and raises the prices of the products, which only becomes burden for the people whose incomes limit them into purchasing, thus, affecting the overall economy of a nation!
As much as can be said about the economic and individual dilemmas being faced by the people in countering the effects of global warming, it has to be prevented nonetheless in one way or another. Its drastic effects may not be seemingly obvious to the people as of yet but they are happening all around the world and quite sooner than one expects, the human life on Earth is going to change, all thanks to the industrial infusion and dependency on machines by the humans.