Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of SI unit prefixes
- List of chemical symbols
- Preface to the First Edition
- Preface to the Second Edition
- Preface to the Third Edition
- 1 Global warming and climate change
- 2 The greenhouse effect
- 3 The greenhouse gases
- 4 Climates of the past
- 5 Modelling the climate
- 6 Climate change in the twenty-first century and beyond
- 7 The impacts of climate change
- 8 Why should we be concerned?
- 9 Weighing the uncertainty
- 10 A strategy for action to slow and stabilise climate change
- 11 Energy and transport for the future
- 12 The global village
- Glossary
- Index
12 - The global village
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of SI unit prefixes
- List of chemical symbols
- Preface to the First Edition
- Preface to the Second Edition
- Preface to the Third Edition
- 1 Global warming and climate change
- 2 The greenhouse effect
- 3 The greenhouse gases
- 4 Climates of the past
- 5 Modelling the climate
- 6 Climate change in the twenty-first century and beyond
- 7 The impacts of climate change
- 8 Why should we be concerned?
- 9 Weighing the uncertainty
- 10 A strategy for action to slow and stabilise climate change
- 11 Energy and transport for the future
- 12 The global village
- Glossary
- Index
Summary
The preceding chapters have considered the various strands of the Global warming story and the action that should be taken. In this last chapter I want first to present some of the challenges of Global warming, especially those which arise because of its global nature. I then want to put Global warming in the context of other major global problems faced by humankind.
The challenges of Global warming
We have noted in the course of our discussion that Global warming is not the only environmental problem. For instance, coastal regions are liable to subsidence for other reasons; water supplies in many places are already being depleted faster than they are being replenished and agricultural land is being lost through soil erosion. Many other reasons, locally and regionally, could be listed for the occurrence of environmental degradation. However, the importance of Global warming is not diminished by the existence of these other environmental problems; in fact their existence will generally exacerbate its effects – as, for instance, we noted on page 150 when looking at the effect of sea level rise on Bangladesh. It is generally beneficial to tackle all related environmental problems together.
Local degradation of the environment is generally the result of particular action in the locality. To give an example, subsidence occurs because of the over-extraction of groundwater.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Global WarmingThe Complete Briefing, pp. 322 - 332Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004