I think the biggest security threat that the world will face in the future is global warming. Global warming is the increase in temperature of the earth’s atmosphere and the oceans. The increase in temperature is caused by the increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Green houses gases include water vapour, ozone, carbon dioxide and methane. Carbon dioxide is the most common greenhouse gas. One of the sources of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the burning of fossil fuel and the cutting down of trees which leads to more concentration of the carbon dioxide, since plants take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen.
Normally when sunlight reaches the earth, some of it is absorbed and the rest is radiated back. The greenhouse gases absorb the heat warming up the atmosphere and reflects some of the heat back to the earth. This heat could have been lost to the space were it not for the huge concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This is called the green house effect.
Global warming is a global phenomenon and the fact that there is very little global consensus on it is very worrying. Global warming is caused both on small scale and on a large scale. By small scale I mean day to day personal activities, an example of this is the fuel emmission from a person’s car and the use of chemicals that are harmful to the enviroment. Some of the causes of global warming are the emmission of greenhouse gases from industrial processes, transportation fuels, agricultural by products which makes the soil lose its fertily, waste and disposal treatments, land use and biomass burning and residential and commercial sources.
Over the years the temperature of the earth has increased by 3 degree celcius to 5 degree celcius and this is expected to rise in future, threatening the future of all living organisms on earth. The effects of global warming are many. One of the effects is the increase of diseases amongst people. Cases of cancer have increased and some of the cancers have been caused by emmission of harmful gases to the enviroment and the use of harmful chemicals. Most developed countries have increased rates of skin cancer due to the destruction of the ozone layer. The World Health Organisation has predicted the increase in global cancer rates by 75% by 2030.
Global warming has also led to the melting of land ice and increase in temperature leading to expansion of oceans. Extreme weather events like hurricanes, floods, drought, heat waves and tornadoes have happened more frequently gobally. Hurricanes and tornadoes have been common in United States of America and parts of Asia. Drought has also been common leading to the death of many people especially in Africa.
The natural habitat of most animals have been destroyed by human beings and cases of deforestation have been common. This has led to extinction of some species of animals. I think global warming is the biggest security threat because, it is a global phenomenon which does not have a global consensus on the way forward. Efforts have been made through for example, United Nations Climate talk, which aims to get a global climate pact. Everyone has to be educated on global warming since it is the personal responsibility of all individuals to protect the enviroment for ourselves and the future generation.
References
Erwin, S., Magnuson, S., Parsons, D., & Tadjdeh, Y. (November 2012). Top Five Threats to National Security in the Coming Decade. Imechukuliwa toka http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/archive/2012/November/Pages/TopFiveThreatstoNationalSecurityintheComingDecade.aspx
Feyfe, J., Nathan, G., & Zwiers, F. (2013). Overestimated global warming over the past 20 years. Journal of Natural Climate Change . Imechukuliwa toka http://www.see.ed.ac.uk/~shs/Climate%20change/Climate%20model%20results/over%20estimate.pdf
