unit 15 draft
郑若蔓
Global warming: the recent increase in the world’s temperature that is believe to be cause by the increase of certain gases (such as carbon dioxide, water vapor, methane, ozone act) in the atmosphere, which bring more challenge to human being as our planet’s atmosphere is warming up.
Global warming is a very controversial topic. Scientists have spent a huge number of time and energy in it. There are a lot of different opinions among different scientific study groups. Among these, the argument of the existence of the global warming is most not controversial problem.
If the global warming really exists, what would happen? It will definitely cause a series of environmental, ecological, societal, even political impact. In the aspect of environment, the direct result of global warming is increasing the Earth’s average temperature, which means glaciers, sea ice and polar ice sheets are melting, increasing the amount of water in the world’s seas and oceans. The continuity and accuracy of altimetry measurements allow even today to identify an accelerated rise in the mean level on a global scale. Altimeter measurements show that between 1993 and 2003, the mean global sea level amounted to 3.1 ± 0.7 mm / year. [Source: Aviso]. Secular sea level trends extracted from tide gauge records of appropriately long duration demonstrate that global sea level may be rising at a rate in excess of 1 millimeter per year. [Source: Science AAAS]. And scientists project that as the ice shelves on Greenland and Antarctica melt, sea levels could be more than 20 feet (6 meters) higher in 2100 than they are today [source: An Inconvenient Truth]. There is another result which is related with the rising of sea level-----Shrinking Glaciers. "Receding and wasting glaciers are a chief telltale sign that global climate change is real and accelerating," said Jeffrey Kargel, a glacier expert with the U.S. Geological Survey in Flagstaff, Arizona. Most of Earth's 160,000 glaciers have been slowly shrinking and thinning for more than a century as the climate warms up from both natural causes and human activity. A glacier in the Peruvian Andes, Qori Kalis, is losing as much ice in one week as it used to surrender in a year, according to Lonnie Thompson, a geologist at the Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State University in Columbus. [Source: National Geographic]. Global warming also cause drought. It may be a little bit incomprehensible, but it is truth. Climate change is worsening U.S. Drought. NOAA has issued a report (An Interpretation of the Origins of the 2012 Central Great Plains Drought) on a small part of the recent brutal droughts that have hit the United States over the past few years. The report shows that a lot of different picture of different period U.S, which shows the drought condition.
If the global warming is not real and government would do something to slow down or may be stop it. That means the government have to limit the carbon dioxide emission which is inevitable during the industrial production process. And it will definitely affect the state economic and trade. However, extreme weather, droughts, floods; severe storms which caused by global warming will not only affect agricultural and industrial production, but also affect the lives of local residents, which will cause more economic losses. A report done in 2004 by British Insurers discovered that the changing climate systems increase the risks for property and households by about 5% per annul. And if the government does not take any action, then that would be the worst situation that anyone does not want. For example, in order to improve the country's productive forces and overall national strength, some developing countries will ignore environmental issues. However, when environmental problem happened, they have to use more money to treat a series of problems caused by the global warming.
There is another situation. If there is no global effect in the world, but government take action to slow down it. That will result in very serious economic losses, caused a lot of social problems, many people will lose the job.
In my opinion I think that the most likely situation that may happen in the future is the global warming is real and the government will take action for reducing its effect.
