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RISING TEMPERATURES AND RISING SEAS

At the time when the Kyoto Protocol was agreed in late 1997 most experts discussed climate change and global warming in particular in the future tense today , however , they discuss it as a phenomenon happening now . Some of the effects of rising temperatures can be perceived at present , particularly melting mountain glaciers and sea ice sheets contributing to sea level rise , crop-withering heat waves lowering grain harvests and claiming tens of thousands of human lives every year , more frequent and destructive storms and wildfires , and drought . Mankind

's economic activities have triggered changes in the planet 's climate whose consequences are difficult to anticipate , let alone control (Brown 48-49

Global warming and its effects

Deforestation and burning fossil fuels are the main source of the annual discharge of approximately nine billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere . They are the major cause of the rise in the atmospheric carbon dioxide level and the planet 's average temperature which is projected to increase by additional 1 .1-6 .4 degrees Celsius during the 21st century . Human-induced global warming have already increased the area affected by drought which expanded from about fifteen percent of the planet 's Europe , Asia , Canada , eastern Australia , western and southern Africa have become the world 's major areas suffering from very dry weather conditions (Brown 50-51

Higher temperatures considerably affect the world 's ecosystems . If the average temperatures rise by 1 degree Celsius , about thirty percent of all species existing today on the Earth will be on the verge of extinction . By 2040 , for example , global warming will make the survival of trout , salmon , and steelhead in every fifth river of the Pacific Northwest impossible as the rivers will be too hot for cold-water fish to live in (Brown 51

Because of the optimum temperature at which crops are grown today , even an insignificant increase in temperatures can result in the shrinkage of the grain harvest in the

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world 's main food-producing areas . Other damaging effects of steady global warming are the reduction in photosynthetic activity in plants the prevention of pollination , and crop dehydration . Crop ecologists point out that if the average temperatures rise by just 1 degree Celsius above the norm , rice , wheat , and corn yields , which are the world 's three food staples , will be decreased by about ten percent . It becomes quite obvious that with temperature increases on the one hand , and the planet 's growing population on the other hand , humans will experience more and more difficulties in feeding themselves (Brown 52-53

Rising temperatures also lead to the melting of ice masses in the world 's mountainous regions which feed rivers during the dry season . The melting of glaciers will turn disastrous for hundreds of millions of people in Asia who are dependent on the rivers which originate in the Himalayan Mountains . Some of the rivers such as the Ganges , the Yellow River , the Yangtze River , the Indus , the Brahmaputra , or the Mekong risk becoming seasonal...

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