Climate Change: Effects on Environment and Human Health PDF

In common usage**, climate change** describes global warming---the ongoing increase in global average temperature---and its effects on Earth\'s climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to Earth\'s climate. The current rise in global average temperatu...

In common usage**, climate change** describes global warming---the ongoing increase in global average temperature---and its effects on Earth\'s climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to Earth\'s climate. The current rise in global average temperature is primarily caused by humans burning fossil fuels since the Industrial Revolution. Fossil fuel use, deforestation, and some agricultural and industrial practices add to greenhouse gases. These gases absorb some of the heat that the Earth radiates after it warms from sunlight, warming the lower atmosphere. Carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas driving global warming, has grown by about 50% and is at levels unseen for millions of years. Climate change has an increasingly large impact on the environment. Deserts are expanding, while heat waves and wildfires are becoming more common. Amplified warming in the Arctic has contributed to thawing permafrost, retreat of glaciers and sea ice decline. Higher temperatures are also causing more intense storms, droughts, and other weather extremes. Rapid environmental change in mountains, coral reefs, and the Arctic is forcing many species to relocate or become extinct. Even if efforts to minimize future warming are successful, some effects will continue for centuries. These include ocean heating, ocean acidification and sea level rise. Climate change threatens people with increased flooding, extreme heat, increased food and water scarcity, more disease, and economic loss. Human migration and conflict can also be a result. The World Health Organization calls climate change one of the biggest threats to global health in the 21st century. Societies and ecosystems will experience more severe risks without action to limit warming. Adapting to climate change through efforts like flood control measures or drought-resistant crops partially reduces climate change risks, although some limits to adaptation have already been reached. Poorer communities are responsible for a small share of global emissions, yet have the least ability to adapt and are most vulnerable to climate change. **Global warming** refers to the increase in the planet's overall average temperature in recent decades. Natural processes have always affected Earth's temperature and climate, but more recently, the planet's temperature and climate have changed at a higher pace than nature alone can explain. These rapid changes are due to human activities and the widespread use of fossil fuels for energy. Fossil fuels include coal, oil and natural gas and burning fossil fuels causes what is known as the "greenhouse effect" in Earth's atmosphere. The greenhouse effect happens when the sun's rays penetrate the atmosphere, and the Earth's surface reflects that heat. Some of the gasses in the atmosphere then trap heat over Earth. Gasses emitted by the burning of fossil fuels are very good at trapping heat and preventing it from leaving the atmosphere. These greenhouse gasses are carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, chlorofluorocarbons and water vapor. The excess heat in the atmosphere has caused the planet's average global temperature to rise over time, otherwise known as global warming. The Industrial Revolution, beginning in the mid-18th century, led to the start of an anthropogenic (human-caused) rise in greenhouse gas emissions from Europe and the United States. The invention of the coal-fired steam engine introduced coal as a major source of energy. Soon it was heating homes and fuelling machines in factories. **Rising temperatures also worsen air pollution by increasing ground-level ozone smog,** which is created when pollution from cars, factories, and other sources react to sunlight and heat. Ground-level ozone is the main component of smog, and the hotter things get, the more of it we have. Dirtier air is linked to higher hospital admission rates and higher death rates for asthmatics. It worsens the health of people suffering from cardiac or pulmonary disease. And warmer temperatures also significantly increase airborne pollen, which is bad news for those who suffer from hay fever and other allergies. The **earth\'s marine ecosystems** are under pressure as a result of climate change. Oceans are becoming more acidic, due in large part to their absorption of some of our excess emissions. As this acidification accelerates, it poses a serious threat to underwater life, particularly creatures with calcium carbonate shells or skeletons, including mollusks, crabs, and corals. This can have a huge impact on shellfisheries. The increasing **number of droughts, intense storms**, and floods we\'re seeing as our warming atmosphere holds---and then dumps---more moisture poses risks to public health and safety too. Prolonged dry spells mean more than just scorched lawns. Drought conditions jeopardize access to clean drinking water, fuel out-of-control wildfires, and result in dust storms, extreme heat events, and flash flooding in the States. Elsewhere around the world, lack of water is a leading cause of death and serious disease and is contributing to crop failure. At the opposite end of the spectrum, heavier rains cause streams, rivers, and lakes to overflow, which damages life and property, contaminates drinking water, creates hazardous-material spills, and promotes mold infestation and unhealthy air. A warmer, wetter world is also a boon for foodborne and waterborne illnesses and disease-carrying insects, such as mosquitoes, fleas, and ticks. **Global village** describes the phenomenon of the entire world becoming more interconnected as the result of the propagation of media technologies throughout the world. The term was coined by Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan in his books **The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man** (1962) and **Understanding Media** (1964). Literary scholar Sue-Im Lee describes how the term global village has come to designate "**the dominant term for expressing a global coexistence altered by transnational commerce, migration, and culture".** Marshall McLuhan, who was a Canadian thinker, coined the term \'global village\' in the 1960s. It indicates the daily production and consumption of media, images, and content by global audiences. **The term \"global village\" means all parts of the world as they are being brought together by the internet and other electronic communication interconnections.** The new reality of the digital age has implications for forming new socially meaningful structures within the context of culture. Interchanging messages, stories, opinions, posts, and videos through channels on telecommunication pathways can cause miscommunication. Within the global village framework, individuals transcend the micro-, meso- and macro-dynamics of their life on a daily basis. Individuals tend to get involved in complex communities of networks stretching worldwide. The increasing density of electronically established and maintained human interconnections can form new socially significant clusters. Electronic media have the ability to impact individuals differently for various reasons, such as their religion, politics, beliefs, business, money etc. The time in which messages are received also affects how a message is understood. **Robotics** is the intersection of science, engineering and technology that produces machines, called robots, that replicate or substitute for human actions. Robots perform basic and repetitive tasks with greater efficiency and accuracy than humans, making them ideal for industries like manufacturing. Within mechanical engineering, robotics is the design and construction of the physical structures of robots, while in computer science, robotics focuses on robotic automation algorithms. Other disciplines contributing to robotics include electrical, control, software, information, electronic, telecommunication, computer, mechatronic, and materials engineering. The goal of most robotics is to design machines that can help and assist humans. Many robots are built to do jobs that are hazardous to people, such as finding survivors in unstable ruins, and exploring space, mines and shipwrecks. Others replace people in jobs that are boring, repetitive, or unpleasant, such as cleaning, monitoring, transporting, and assembling. Today, robotics is a rapidly growing field, as technological advances continue; researching, designing, and building new robots serve various practical purposes. **Automation algorithms**: An algorithm is a set of procedures. In software development, algorithms typically take the form of a series of commands or operations that a program performs to accomplish a given task. That said, not all algorithms are software. You could make a good case that a recipe, for example, is a type of algorithm, because it\'s also a set of procedures. Automation is the application of technology, programs, robotics or processes to achieve outcomes with minimal human input. Humans might set up the tools and processes that perform automated tasks, but once launched, an automated workflow runs mostly or entirely on its own. (Automation includes the use of various equipment and control systems such as machinery, processes in factories, boilers, and heat-treating ovens, switching on telephone networks, steering, stabilization of ships, aircraft and other applications and vehicles with reduced human intervention.) Earlier in the computer age, automation wasn\'t a core focus of tasks like software development. But over the past decade or so, the idea that programmers and IT operations teams should automate as much work as possible has become widespread. Today, automation goes hand-in-hand with practices like DevOps and continuous delivery. **Information technology (IT)** is a set of related fields that encompass computer systems, software, programming languages, and data and information processing, and storage. IT forms part of information and communications technology (ICT). An information technology system (IT system) is generally an information system, a communications system, or, more specifically speaking, a computer system --- including all hardware, software, and peripheral equipment --- operated by a limited group of IT users, and an IT project usually refers to the commissioning and implementation of an IT system. IT systems play a vital role in facilitating efficient data management, enhancing communication networks, and supporting organizational processes across various industries. Successful IT projects require meticulous planning, seamless integration, and ongoing maintenance to ensure optimal functionality and alignment with organizational objectives. The term is commonly used as a synonym for computers and computer networks, but it also encompasses other information distribution technologies such as television and telephones. Several products or services within an economy are associated with information technology, including computer hardware, software, electronics, semiconductors, internet, telecom equipment, and e-commerce. Information technology is a branch of computer science, defined as the study of procedures, structures, and the processing of various types of data. **Innovation** is the practical implementation of ideas that result in the introduction of new goods or services or improvement in offering goods or services. Innovation often takes place through the development of more-effective products, processes, services, technologies, art works or business models that innovators make available to markets, governments and society. Innovation is the multi-stage process whereby organizations transform ideas into new/improved products, service or processes, in order to advance, compete and differentiate themselves successfully in their marketplace. **Artificial intelligence** **(AI)** **Artificial intelligence is the science of making machines that can think like humans. It can do things that are considered \"smart.\" AI technology can process large amounts of data in ways, unlike humans. The goal for AI is to be able to do things such as recognize patterns, make decisions, and judge like humans.** Such machines may be called AIs. Some high-profile applications of AI include advanced web search engines (e.g., Google Search); recommendation systems (used by YouTube, Amazon, and Netflix); interacting via human speech (e.g., Google Assistant, Siri, and Alexa); autonomous vehicles (e.g., Waymo); generative and creative tools (e.g., ChatGPT, and AI art); and superhuman play and analysis in strategy games (e.g., chess). However, many AI applications are not perceived as AI: \"A lot of cutting-edge AI has filtered into general applications, often without being called AI because once something becomes useful enough and common enough it\'s not labeled AI anymore.\"