Environmental policies Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 1

Environmental policies - Research Paper Example As a result of the popularity of this issue, there have been key debates on whether the challenge it posses is dangerous for the world with another side dismissing global warming as an affair that is dangerous and does not exist although the two sides identify the importance of protecting the levels of greenhouse emissions into the atmosphere. This essay focuses on the challenging issue of global warming. The essay will provide a brief definition of global warming and engage in a discussion of global warming and especially on its key definitional aspect of climate change. Thereafter, the essay identifies the reasons that contribute to the aspect of climate change while identifying the main cause of climate change, which is the greenhouse gases emission. The essay will also identify the main responses to climate change and in particular, the main issues of adaptation to climate change and mitigation processes. Before engaging on any discussion on global warming, it is essential to und erstand what global warming means. By its very name, global warming is the increasing temperatures in the atmosphere of the earth and in oceans. It is important to differentiate between the weather and the climate of the world. In this case, the weather in a particular area includes temperatures, the amount of rainfall experienced in a place, the cloud cover, and the wind speed experienced in the place. On the other hand, the climate of a region or a place is quantified by finding the average of the weather in the place (Fern, 2009). Hence, the weather of a place could be defined as dry and hot, cool and wet, or even cool and dry while the weather could be sunny, rainy, windy, or any other type of weather. It is evident that the weather of a region could change anytime. This implies that the climate of a region could also change, which explains the phenomenon the world currently experiences in relationship to global warming as the world becomes hotter and hotter each day. Evidence o f Climate Change The last two decades have remarkably been characterized by the changes in the climate of the world. In this case, the 1980s and 1990s were noted as very warm years and this was the beginning of the issue of global warming since this period ushered in the changes in world climate (Houghton, 2004). In these two last decades of the 20th century, climatic records indicate that there have been issues of climate change with the world’s climatic conditions growing hotter and hotter. Case in point, there has been evidence of unusually strong winds in Europe with the early morning of 16 October 1987 experiencing blowing down of â€Å"over fifteen million trees in the southeastern part of England and in its capital of London† (Houghton, 2004, p.2). Most recently, the world has experienced its fair share of disasters resulting from typhoons and hurricanes that have brought devastating effects on the environment with the effects of these challenges felt on the liv elihoods of people and on their lives. Rainfall patterns have also changed, which is part of the climate changes that the world continues to experience. In this case, the world has experienced increasing incidents of strong rains that lead to flooding while other areas have experienced low