Environmental Issues Journal Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Environmental Issues Journal - Essay Example the temperature on earth continues to rise, the water cycle is further driven to evaporation, which allows water to be more available for storm formation but less accessible for some land masses. This increases the risk for flooding in the usual storm-afflicted areas, and the likelihood of drought in locations that get relatively less precipitation. The change in temperature also makes the storm tracks vary, making the weather less predictable. More importantly for humans, increasing temperature will lead to heat-related health incidents, air-quality respiratory illnesses, and low crop yields (Environment Protection Agency). The naturally-occurring gases contribute to climate change because the mechanisms that regulate their amounts in the atmosphere become less efficient. Although the temperature in earth started increasing since the 1800, the most rapid increase has been observed in the recent decades, most possibly due to human activity (Environmental Protection Agency). In the case of carbon dioxide, it is regulated by the carbon cycle. However, its increasing level in the atmosphere is partly attributed to industrialization that started 150 years ago, which emit the gas by burning fossil fuels to power the machineries. Currently, electricity generation and transportation add into the carbon dioxide emission. Methane from landfills, coal mines, oil and gas operations, and agriculture also add to the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. As well, the continuing deforestation depletes the plant population that absorbs carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (National Energy Information Center, 2004). Unfortunately, we cannot prevent the earth from heating up. This is because many greenhouse gases take a long time to be degraded, and the cycling of the heat from the ocean to the atmosphere is relatively slow. What we can do is to slow it down. When the problem of increasing levels of greenhouse gas continues, the rate at which temperature of the Earth’s surface rise