Impacts of Global Warming

Impacts of Global Warming

IMPACTS OF GLOBAL WARMING


At first global warming sounded like a good idea, especially to people in Northern climes. But starting in the 1960s, scientists recognized long-range problems, concentrating at first on sea-level rise and a threat to food supplies. New items were gradually added to the list, ranging from the degradation of ecosystems to threats to human health. Experts in fields from forestry to economics, even national security experts, pitched in to assess the range of possible consequences. It was impossible to make solid predictions given the complexity of the global system, the differences from one region to another, and the ways human society itself might try to adapt to the changes. But by the start of the 21st century, it was clear that climate change would bring serious harm to many regions — some more than others. Indeed many kinds of damage were already beginning to appear. (This essay does not try to cover the entire history of impact studies, but sketches some examples. Current scientific understanding of impacts is summarized at the end).

Governments were now putting some of the environmental movement's demands into law; that created a practical need for formal "environmental impact" assessments. A new industry of expert consultants strove to forecast effects on the natural environment of everything from building a dam to regulating factory emissions. On a broader scale, people concerned about the environment applied increasingly sophisticated scientific tools to study the impacts of deforestation, acid rain, and many other large-scale activities. They looked at impacts not only on natural ecosystems but on human health and economic activities. Assessing the long-term impact of greenhouse gases fitted easily into this model.
Any regional analysis had to start with the climate changes that would result from a given level of greenhouse gases, as calculated by computer models. But although the increasingly sophisticated models had...

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