Charmaine Khoo
Reflections for Monday 9th February Geography lesson
I’m really sorry for the delay in submitting this reflection, I was not feeling well last night (went to the doctor's) so I did not have time to post. Here’s my reflection:
During today’s geography lesson, we watched the video “An Inconvenient Truth” by Al Gore. The main gist of it revolves round the topic of the increase of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere leading to global warming leading to adverse effects on Earth. I really enjoyed watching the video; its visual aids (such as graphs) helped to bring the message across very effectively.
The atmosphere is very vulnerable, very thin, and we humans are absolutely capable of changing its composition. As shown in various graphs in the video, the level of carbon dioxide produced into the air and temperature of earth are constantly rising and have risen significantly much faster over the last 10 years.
Glaciers are melting at a rate faster than anyone can imagine now, which brings detrimental effects such as the polar bears having to swim miles to find ice as depicted in the video and ocean waters absorbing the sun’s rays faster than before. This is indeed very worrying. It is good that we are exposed to such a phenomenon of the Earth. While we are cooped up at home in Singapore, we do not know what takes place in other places of the world such as the North and South Poles, where gigantic chunks of ice are melting away each day. How can we just watch our Earth fall into the hands of global warming like that and not do anything? What can we do to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide being released into the air?
I remember Al Gore talking about the carbon dioxide level in history, for as long as it was recorded. Earth experienced 7 ice ages, 650,000 years recorded and the carbon dioxide level has never exceeded 300 million parts (that’s how it was measured). Today’s carbon dioxide level has hit way, way above any record in history. As my eyes traced the line extending upwards, I was shocked at how sharp the gradient of this line is. The carbon dioxide level is increasing at too fast a rate for us! We have to do something drastic about this before all the remaining ice melts during summertime in 30-50 years.
He claims that there are 3 reasons for the possible collision of the world in future. The first is increase in population over generations, which put pressure on the supply of food, water and other resources as these have to be increased to meet the demands. Secondly, old habits + new technology = dramatically altered changes. Lastly, it is the sudden jolt to be aware of danger, as illustrated by the frog humping out of hot water. Do not wait till tomorrow to start making attempts to save the Earth, our home. We may not directly feel the effects of it now and thus not care much. However, we have seen the truth for ourselves in the video. Many countries/ states are drowning because of the excessive melting of ice into water around it. We have to start making the conscious effort now.
When the Earth’s overall heat gain is greater than its' heat loss, as being experienced now, what will happen? This leads to the question posted to us: To what extent should we be concerned about carbon dioxide emissions?
Comments: (here, name at bottom)
posted by 08ip01 at
10:54 PM
6 Comments:
An idea that occured to me was that global warming is more than merely the repercussions of our actions, it is also nature's own way of combating the imbalance of her systems. Nature is all about equilibrium, and equilibrium is what allows the interconnected systems to work together, at its optimum. As we can see, disequilibrium endangers so many aspects of our lives.
Back to my original point, the whole global warming issue will ensue as long as humans continue to emit large amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere. Eventually, the earth will get too hot for us to live. When the humans die out, the excess emissions will stop. Give another few thousand years perhaps, and the excess carbon will slowly be put back in their place (ie the oceans and plants will absorb them and deposit them in the earth, where they mostly came from to begin with). This works like a negative feedback system. Eventually, the Earth will slowly be restored back to equlibrium, and life will start afresh again.
I agree. But that is what so undeniably uncontrollable. Humans and nature coexist, or at least, we are forcing this coexistence. Humans can struggle for their survival, but Mother Nature as a paradox, cannot. In fact, humans struggle for more than just their survival - they struggle to maintain high levels of comfort, convenience, disregarding facts that points towards their eventual extinction.
Educating people about global warming does not seem to suffice. Even in today's context, countries have to pressurise others to stay within carbon emission limits. But there is constant competition. E.g. China wanted to continue producing goods freely, which would use up a lot more coal and natural resources while releasing much more carbon dioxide in the air. India did not want to comply and reduce carbon emissions because they said it was unfair that countries like the USA were free to develop as they wished industrially in the past, yet now their freedoms are infringed upon with pressure.
Human minds are limited to immediate danger. Coaxing and warning for mutual benefit does not guarantee anything.
Perhaps then every solution for climate change boils down to human attitudes. And yes it is essential to maintain that equilibrium. But yes, then again, when will the human race wake up?
Carbon Dioxide emissions are certainly an important factor- its the main factor and cause actually of global warming, and defintely causes much trouble and brings imminent danger to our lives and the environment. Much closer to home, it is reported that due to carbon dioxide emissions raising the global temperature and affecting the climates, forest fires have and will last longer than usual. Even earlier this year there were a series of forest fires in Sengkang. Its kind of like a chain effect now. We harm the environment, and it harms us. And as Victoria said, the earth will restore itself- it will return to equilibrium, and in the process human lifeforms will be extinguished from the surface of the earth. But the point here is that humans simply are not willing to vanish from this beautiful planet we now call home, are we? That is precisely why we are trying so hard to (or at least some people are) stop this Global Warming, but at the same times our actions or lack thereof seems to speak otherwise as in our quest for wealth and comfort we relentlessly use up nature's resources, and contribute to global warming 'extremely entusiatically'. It certainly seems to be the fault of humans. But the vast of us seems to not realise it, or appear to have no desire to atone for our mistakes. As Audie stated, China relentlessly booms its industries. U.S. refuse to sign the Kyoto Protocol, and yet almost preaches of taking action to Global warming. Actions must start from oneself. Preaching is not enough. Everyone is talking about it, but no one is doing enough. There seems to be no reliable and sensible way out of this Global warming we have entangled ourselves in. We humans forced ourselves into this cycle of earth, and yet destroy it, through our actions we send it spinning out of its vortex, we disrupt the cycle.
But maybe this is only reality, this is our destiny. Humans are not Gods, and perhaps there are simply actions that canot be undone. To err and to die eventually, at the cost of our errors and lack of repentance. While the earth continues in its cycle of life, we are just momentarily removed from it, and yet, permanently.
During the video, when Al Gre was explaining to the audience the graph itself we see that the peaks of the line represent the stone ages and the ice ages. From the graph, we can tell that it has been a continuos pattern and that it is only natural for this planet to return to those stages. So does it really matter how fast it returns to the stone age? Are we humans simply beoing the selfish beings we are and hoping that things can be altered for us, when really, we hardly have any power or right to do so.
The first danger is that if people keep releasing CO2 into the atmosphere to such an extent that the situation is nearly irreversible, there would be nothing we can do to fix the problem anymore. For example, if there is too much CO2 in the air, plants are not able to grow properly and energy sources may exhaust which prevent us from artificially purifying the atmosphere.
Another potential danger is that as the global temperature increases, ice shells at the poles start to melt. From the cracks, methane may leak out. Methane is a gas which has 4 times better green house effect compared to CO2. When the leakage of methane occurs in large scale, it deepens the seriousness of the global rising temperature.
Yeah, I agree with Hazel. The effects of global warming is not only a vicious spiral, the effect it has on the environment is akin to a log exponential graph, the longer it is left unattended/treated results in the increase in severity of damage done. especially with regards to the methane gas. Because it does 4 times the damage of Carbon Dioxide, it takes 1/4 the time to cause permanent damage as Carbon Dioxide, and assuming the earth will be heated to the point of human extinction in 100 yrs, but because of this Methane emission, it'll only take 20 yrs, and as a result, humans are to be extincted sooner than we can solve the problem. Indeed, action must be taken, and fast too, if we are plan on not leaving the surface of the earth until after the next ice age or so.
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