Good afternoon to all my classmates, the topic for the class today
is the weather and climate change.
I have divided the presentation in three parts:
- The facts
- The negative effects
- The solutions
THE FACTS
The weather is turning mad. A TV programme said that since temperatures
were recorded first in 1880 the weather has never been so crazy. For three months
it hasn’t rained a drop in Spain, and today the weather forecast said that
until the second part of February rain is not expected
On the east coast of the US the heaviest blizzard in centuries has
literally covered the White House under half a metre of snow.
In several important cities of China the smog and the pollutants in
air are so thick that people walking on the street must carry surgical masks to
cover their faces. People with lung illnesses or old people are also recommended
not to leave home. In the days that the level of contamination is worst, even big
factories are shut down in order to make air less polluted.
There is a scientific agreement or consensus that human activity is
changing the weather or the natural ecosystem. The point of no return will be
the temperature increase in two Celsius degrees.
Basically the economic activities with its endless waste of natural
resources are transforming the landscape in an uninhabitable world. Maybe the
ultimate survival of the human being can be put into question if quick measures
are not put in place.
The most important danger to life on earth is, without a doubt, global
warming. It is mostly being caused by increasing concentrations of greenhouse
gases and other human activities These findings have been recognized
by the national science academies of the major industrialized nations and are
not disputed by any scientific body.
The greenhouse gasses are basically pollutants from the combustion
of fossil fuels, like oil, petrol, coal and gas. Since the start of the
industrial revolution the amount of CO2 drop into the atmosphere has
increased exponentially. Only in 2014 the
production of vehicles in the whole world reached the figure of 90 million.
Add to these facts that there are hundreds of power stations that
employ fuel oil or coal that contribute heavily to the pollution of the
atmosphere.
NEGATIVE IMPACTS
Future climate change and associated impacts will differ from region to region. The main
negative effects are:
Warming global temperature
Changing precipitation
Expansion of deserts in the subtropics,
with the continuing retreat of glaciers and sea ice
More frequent extreme weather events including heat waves,
droughts,
heavy rainfall
with floods
and heavy snowfall.
Species extinction due to
shifting temperature regimes
Effects significant to humans include the threat to food security from
decreasing crop yields. Hunger in the world will be an acute problem in the
future.
THE SOLUTIONS
In the long term the only solution is to curb the emission of gasses
from fossil fuels. In practical terms this means to change oil and coal for
other emission free energy resources. Renewable energies like solar power, wind
farm, tidal power, geothermal power.
In countries with long hours of sun or wind it will be easy to build
wind turbines or install solar panels. In Iceland geothermal energy is very
useful. For the normal citizen the
principal novelty will be the electric car (or hybrid).
With coal there is also an acute social problem. Mining is an
intensive manpower industry in which usually hundreds of miners work in a pit,
so if coal is no longer necessary and coal pits are closed, thousands of
workers will be suddenly unemployed.
Hopefully, most countries take part in the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change whose ultimate
objective is to enforce that in the future global warming should be limited to
below 2.0 °C relative to the pre-industrial level.
Many thanks indeed for your attention… if there are any questions
I’ll try to answer them.
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