Earth is a planet doomed to experience extreme heat. This is the caveat posed by the so called phenomenon of Global Warming.
The Age of Industrialization that started in the 20th century and paved the way to the modern technologies that we are enjoying today also produced with it processes and activities that dramatically contributed to changes in the global climate, and hence the way of life of all forms of life on Earth.
A lot of studies confirmed that the Earth is experiencing continuous increase in surface temperature in the last two centuries, among them the report of United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which states that the planet’s temperature increased .74 to .18 degree Celsius, and points out that humans’ utilization of fossil fuels that subsequently cause greenhouse gas concentration plays a major part in the said increase.
Since global warming is about surface heat, it only follows that the ice caps located in the planet’s two poles are doomed to melt, which will result to increasing sea levels, disappearance of low lands, and modification of normal patterns and usual amount of precipitation. With these, it is expected that all regions will face changes in vegetation, and hence destroy the ecosystems living in such vegetation.
This means that plants and animals that can’t tolerate such changes certainly will have to migrate to places that are more accommodating to their needs, otherwise they will helplessly face their extinction. This also means that agricultural products will shift in and out of their places, which in turn will affect the whole global economy that relies on the production and import and export of harvests.
Global Warming is predicted to continue in the following years, and many studies show that the global temperature will increase from 1 to 6 degree Celsius. Many governments of nations have made actions to resolve this environmental issue, one of them the Kyoto Protocol which unified different nations to gradually reduce the greenhouse gas emissions in their respective countries.