U.N. Panel Warns of Dire Effects From Lack of Action Over Global Warming
Liam Siegal
Gillis, Justin. "U.N. Panel Warns of Dire Effects From Lack of Action Over Global Warming." The New York Times. The New York Times, 02 Nov. 2014. Web. 02 Nov. 2014.
United Nations has released a report that if green house gases keep rising at its current pace may cause us to actually regress in our progress to fight hunger and poverty. Many developed counties have been joining the west by produce more Co2 because they are using more fossil fuels than ever before. This increase of Co2 can cause more droughts leading to more food shortages, increase water levels that could make islands just disappear and can make some species of plant and animals go extinct. The main issue for stopping this increase is that not many societies are on board with this cut back since fossil fuels provide them with most of their power and sometimes economics. So the UN has thought about ways to trap the Co2 by possibly burying the emissions. Though this is still an idea because if countries want to prevent the temperature from increasing more than 3.6 degrees from the preindustrial level, 1 trillion tons of Co2 must be restricted. Also funding is a key part for the UN to try and stop global warming. They looked at spendings and about $400 billion dollars a year is spent around the world attempting to combat global warming, but this amount is equivalent to less than the revenue made by a single oil or coal company. The UN knows that time isn't on their side and any climate change agreements will not be made till around 2020. Also many big countries will think its unfair that they need to reduce so much Co2. This may cause leaders to decide for themselves how much they want to reduce their emission creating an ineffective solution to the big problem.
Global Warming is becoming a big issue as we burn more and more emissions. Global warming is caused by the green house gasses making our atmosphere "thicker". This results in light and heat being trapped in the atmosphere and then returning to earth and increases our temperatures. The increase of temperatures are effecting the planet on a few different levels. Firstly, our polar caps have been shrinking over the years due to the heat. This is bad since the direct result is the increase in water levels. Increase in water levels will cause low level lands and island to disappear. The polar caps also act like giant mirrors since they reflect the suns light, but if we have less ice, then they can't reflect as much light therefore also causing an increase in temperatures. Secondly increase of temperature will effect the weather. Some areas will have harsher summers and suffer more droughts. This makes demand for food go up and prices have increase for food. This causes more hunger issues around the world and higher prices can lead to the collapse of government due to protests. It can also cause winters to be more harsh in other areas since global warming is affecting weather patterns. This can cause plants and animal go extinct that aren't use to the new kinds of weather patterns.
After reading this article, I didn't realize how fast global warming is occurring. My perspective was that there is global warming, but it would take many years till we see major impacts. I was surprised to think that leaders of different countries wouldn't want to try and stop global warming since it could negatively effect their countries and people. Though in a way it makes sense because when you look at the U.S, many states rely heavily on the oil companies since they can tax them a lot of money. Also to see that a single oil company makes more money than the combined amount spent to try and reduce Co2 emissions. I feel that this article could support its research more by saying exactly who studied this, what tests were performed and they could use more data to support their ideas like when talking about water levels increasing.
Tripp Judkins 11/4/14
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Comment #2
Your current event article, U.N. Panel Warns of Dire Effects From Lack of Action Over Global Warming, was very interesting. One thing you did very well was including facts. One fact I didn’t is that global temperature has gone up 3.6 degrees fahrenheit since pre industrial revolution. Another thing you did well was saying what rising global temperature cause. An example of this is saying global warming will cause the question of world hunger never to be solved. The final thing you did well was putting your own input about global warming.
I learned many things from your article. One thing I learned was that the UN will spend 400 billion dollars a year to combat Global warming. This is interesting because the UN finally reached an agreement to do something about the problem. Another thing I learned about was the cause of Global warming. I now know that C02 will cause droughts and hunger around the world to spike up.
There is one thing you could of done better. The one thing you could of done better is that you could have put more criticism into your current event. That one sentence at the end was not good enough to have a solid criticism. Although you had this mistake, This was a good article about an event that will affect our Future.