Mar
20
Climate Change and Global Warming: A Societal Dilemma
March 20, 2008 | | 1 Comment
By Eva Chang (6)
Recently, the issue of climate change had made its way in the forefront of global debate. There had been talks about the politics and economic matter as well as its social dimensions. Held on March 5, 2008 in Romania, the Social Dimensions of Climate Change workshop addressed various implications of climate change on different societal concerns including migration, space consumption, basic needs, rural institution, social policies, indigenous people and livelihood among others. At the very least, climate change could undermine human development process as it could vehemently spread disease, decline agricultural yields and damage the primary industries and fisheries as stated by the Climate Action Network Australia (CANA). Further, global warming will be most accountable for the occurrence of natural disasters, extreme weather and eventual water shortages.
Climate change will expose the populace to intense health threats and infectious diseases specifically water-borne diseases and allergies as well. The two most common diseases that will emerge are dengue fever and malaria because of the spread of mosquitoes and other vectors as main carriers from either too cold or too dry places resulting to widespread increased in diarrhea and cholera. More extreme weather, further, will have an effect on and eventually damage bodily health and sanitary infrastructure resulting to inflated morbidty and mortality rates especially for the very young and the elderly.
ScienceDaily, as well as the US Department of Energy, discovered that there is a necessity to understand atmospheric smog formation since experiences of higher heat as a result of increased ozone and smog formation in higher-heat climates will disproportionately affect the mounting of ambient temperatures implicating fresh, consumable goods like meat and fish and thus risking the health and food supply security. Apart, adversities of global warming will deliver drought, El Nino and other harsh conditions for water and soil. Notably, farming and fishing are the major sources of employment and livelihood of most poor-country, rural-dwellers. Malnourishment and joblessness will be the staggering effects exacerbated by decline in grain cropping, swine and poultry and forestry.
Putting all the climate adversities together, the outcome will be collective migration which will impact housing and wellbeing of the people in most urban areas as these rural dwellers were displaced by inundations and droughts and this could lead to more serious problem. In fact, a report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicted that by 2080, 1.1 – 3.2 billion will experience water scarcity, 200-600 million hunger and 2-7 million coastal flooding each year. Consequently, social tension, violence and crime rates will be likely to increase. CANA also states that the concentration of the people in certain places, including slum areas, shantytowns, emergency camps or refuges, and the subsequent occurrence of shortage in water, food and shelter facilitate faster transmission of the disease, hunger, deaths and thus famine.
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Eva, the Social Dimensions of Climate
change meeting was held not in Romania, but at the World Bank headquarters in Washington DC. There were some interesting papers on conflict and climate change and migration and climate change