Thursday 5 May 2011

Climate Change

Climate change is a real, urgent and increasing. It is not a problem that just occurred recently but it has been topics for discussion about 100 years ago, until it becomes an important issue of the world now, and it seems to be a crucial point in environmental awareness. Also, England is one of country that is facing with this problem as the article "Heatwave sees warmest UK April for more than 100 years" on the BBC News (2011).

The Met Office said that when compare the UK temperature last April with last 100 years, it found that temperatures were 3 to 5C higher than usual. This situation leads to a drought and rainfall problems as unexpected, and there might be an effect to some farmers because of the lacking of water for agriculture will effect to food prices may increase in the future. Moreover, a BBC Weather Centre spokesman referred to high pressure that made the direction of wind change which consist of the warmer wind coming across from the southeast and block the cooler wind from the west, finally it causes the climate was changed.

In my opinion, the major cause that leads to climate change or global warming is human behavior, although some people think it is naturally occurred. The attitude of some human that see nature is only substance and they never think they are a part of nature. Therefore, they do not feel that they want to preserve the environment. Besides, in daily life, human is always emitting carbon dioxide from driving a car, cooking for food, working in the big factory, and so on. I think all of these are the main factors for this problem. Also, there are many effects from climate change that we have experienced in recently such as unusual weather, severe natural disasters, floods, earthquakes or even severe storms, and it brings about a damage both property and life. Although there are a lot of high technologies to help solving climate change nowadays, we couldn't assure those technologies can be the real solutions. As long as human can't still change their behavior, technologies aren't the last answer. They just slow down the problem but they can't solve global warming truly.
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Reference

Heatwave sees warmest UK April for more than 100 years. (2011, May 3). BBC News. Retrieved May 4, 2011 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13269741

7 comments:

  1. I think that Kukik has chosen one of the most controversial topics around. When i read the papers, such as the letters column of The Nation, they are full of people disagreeing about whether climate change is real, whether humans cause it, and, perhaps most important, what we should do or not do in response.

    I tend to agree with Kukik, and the scientific consensus, that climate change is real and is at least in part caused by human behaviour. I'm less sure that I agree on what should be done.

    I do like the way Kukik reminds us, as Stephen Law does, that human beings are just one more animal living on this planet, and as much as part of nature as any other living things. But I'm not sure what sort of behaviour changes Kukik thinks are necessary.

    Having mentioned Stephen Law, it's also worth noting that if we were vegetarian, that would be very good for nature and the natural environment. Producing meat requires far more resources than producing plants - meat animals have to be fed a lot of plants to turn them into meat. It is much more efficient if human beings directly eat the plants instead of turning them into animals first at great environmental cost. Rearing animals uses up a lot more land than plants, so more forest has to be cut down; growing animals uses a lot more water than crops, putting pressure on scarce water supplies; and producing meat produces far more green house gases than does plant production: indeed, producing plants reduces green house gases as the plants naturally absorb carbon dioxide as they grow, unlike animals which emit CO2 and other green house gases such as methane.

    Stephen Law did not mention it, but the threat of global warming is another good reason for human to switch from eating meat to eating plants. Perhaps Kukik is right and we really do need to change our behaviour!

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  2. Kuriko!
    I agree the climate change or global warming is human behavior. We invade rivers, beaches, ocean, for to build bigger constructions. Also, we invade the forests, to cut the threes, elimination the species of the animals and use the new technologies for justify ours acts. I think that is a urgent the humanity’s to acquire knowledge about and begins to cake more of the nature of the whole planet, so that we don’t put an end our own lives in reason of the progress.

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  3. Peter

    We can eat meat because I think rearing animals lead to a cause of climate change not much if we can go to correct way. Refer to eight million years ago, human don't know animal husbandry and they consume food by hunting animal naturally. Both plants and other animals were in a natural ecosystem as they should be, until when climate shifted dramatically and it made most species and dinosaurs became locally extinct rather than adapting to the new ecosystem. This is one example that I think eating meat doesn't relate with climate change but behavior of human that raise animal by using incorrect method and without corporate natural responsibility now that reacts to the weather change directly. If there is a good management for lands that are available, human doesn’t need to deforest for husbandry. If we know circulation system from plants to animals, and from animals to plants such as feeding animal from vegetable or making fertilizer from animal faeces, we can conserve sustainable nature and help reducing fluctuated temperature in the world.

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  4. Kukik
    I agree with you that human being is part of global warming. I give you the sample as we notice that right now our capital, Bangkok, there is no seasons. The weather is getting hot. The important thing that changes the climate is human. Human is a developer and a destroyer. The business and industry is in progress by not concern about any effects that happen with the environment. Generally trees can absorb the pollution which results from the worst traffic jam. Instead of plant more trees, they choose to build the buildings or construct the roadway. Sad but true, the urban people don’t have enough park to relax during their weekend. According to the interview from Dr.Polladeaj, he said Thai people don’t’ solve the problem from the cause. To illustrate; if they feel hot, they think about buying air-condition can help them to feel cool. If there is a problem with tons of garbage, they'll invest to buy more incinerators. However the process of manage the recycle garbage or how to teach people to have the feeling of responsibility never raised up. If we can get everything we want and think the problem already fix. In fact that’s cause lots of trouble accumulate and becomes the Global warming now.

    Reference

    Angsunan, W. (2008, September). Bangkok…the capital of trouble. Maneger Newspaper
    Retrieved May 7, 2011 from http://www.gotomanager.com/news/details.aspx?id=72805

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  5. I agree with Kukik and Art that not only humans are developers but also they are destroyers. As we can see from the news around the world, many countries are facing with this problem such as USA, England, Thailand. For instance, recently, in the southern part of Thailand, the flood caused a lot of damage. This makes people be aware of it for a while that they should prevent the issue not just try to solve the problem.

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  6. Kukik and Peter,

    I agree with you on climate change that is real. Again, we talk a lot for the causes of climate change and the prevented ways. Nowadays, we know both the causes and the prevented ways but it 's still be a problem because source of pollution is moving forward under countries development.

    In my opinion, I think we should find the ways to adapt ourself for the real situation and the future situation that calculates from the best technology. In addition, if we know that the temperature will rise 3 ํC, it will affect to agriculture, more evapo-transpiration, moisture loss from the body, extinction of some fish and some livestock or mutation. we know from the technology how it affect so we should find the ways to live with its. For example, if we know that the drought situation will occur in next 10 years so we should avoid to cultivate the plants that use a lot of water.

    It should be adaptation and prevention parallely.

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  7. I've only just read it (a bit late, I know), but I think that Nui makes a point that is often forgotten. Many people think we need to stop or undo global warming and other changes, but as Nui suggests, another strategy is to adapt to the changes. I think that the adaptation strategy might be a better choice than the "no change" strategy - we do not, after all, want to undo human social and economic development because what we have today is generally much better for far more people than what existed in the past.

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