Scientists hustle to prove or disapprove climate change. They cite benefits and others add to the list of harmful effects to our planet. It does not only affect humans, but every species on Earth will show how the warming affects their living. It’s such a controversy that lay people and notorious researchers won’t agree collectively.
Proved
Statistical data proves that climate change is happening. Since the late 19th century, the global temperature increased by 0.6° C. Glaciers thaw and 10% of the snow cover decreased since 1966. The sea-ice’s thickness is narrowing in a rate of 1.57 inches annually. Since the ice is losing its mass, the sea-level is rising in a rate of 0.06 inches yearly.
This peremptory consensus already used up $106.7 billion of US taxes trying to amend the problem of global warming.
Disapproved
16 scientists tagged their names in a Wall Street Journal article discrediting global warming. While records in the past 50 years or so indicates increasing temperature on earth, it is not consistent. There has been no warming in the last 15 years.
Global Warming is natural in Earth’s climatic cycle. It happens before humans are born and even before the debate started. The glaciers in Asia’s Karakoram Mountains are getting bulkier. 2008 has been the coldest since 2000, averaging on 14.3° C. Dr Mojib Latif predicts that it’ll be colder in the next two decades while other scientists claim that Earth a century from now will be 4° C colder.
Harmful
Climate change exalted the catastrophes – fiercer storms, more prominent wildfires and longer heat waves. Flash floods are counted in Europe. Freshwater ran out in Asia and Africa. Forests disappear in Latin America. These issues keep on breaking previous records.
There is an estimated six million species on earth and 20% of them are endangered due to global warming. In 2012, newly found species include gorgeous primates, smallest known frog and 24 different skinks in the Carribean. With the rate of extinction, their disappearance will run faster than discovery.
What does species’ demise meant for humans? Russell Mittermeier answers: “without species diversity, we wouldn’t have the healthy ecosystems that supply our food, cleanse our air and water, provide sources of life-saving medicines and help stabilize our climate.”
Beneficial
The typical news reported how humans suffer from climate change, but not all organisms are contested. Plants from drylands can adapt to warming of climate. It is logical that extended and intensified draught will lead to demise of these plants, but these species are used to the hot climate. Ecologist Roberto Salguero-Gómez, who investigated the plants during the research, claims that they also benefit from the climate change. Higher temperature at night will induce the growth of plants.
Increased temperature in the North Sea boosted its food web, according to Dr. Richard Kirby of Plymouth University. Since the 1° C rise, swimming crabs actually swam longer in the sea. Adult crabs will then increase in the next year. It makes it easier for lesser black-backed gulls to hunt them, which will also increase their numbers in the next three to four years.
Killer whales, wandering albatrosses, mosquitoes, jellyfish, and trumpeter swans are thriving in the warming condition. Even polar bears, according to researchers from Umea University in Sweden, benefit from climate change as species migrate towards the north promoting biodiversity and arctic ecosystem.
Economically, climate change will increase production in agriculture. Olivier Deschênes and Michael Greenstone’s study in 2007 believed that the “changes in temperatures and precipitation” will modestly enhance the yields and profits of American agriculture.
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Any side you take on climate change, there will be a community supporting it. Which do you believe in?