10 Short Essay Topics on Global Warming in World Climate Change

10 Short Essay Topics on Global Warming in World Climate Change In the past, scientists and environmentalists have shown scepticism regarding the entire discussion surrounding global warming. This scepticism was in part due to a lack of hard facts making a case for global warming or its effects on the earth’s ecosystem as well as human life. As expected, time and advances in science have played a role in chronicling global warming using real figures and these statistics have finally begun to tin over hardened sceptics. Physically, global warming has also begun to wreak havoc on the earth’s vegetation, wildlife and sea life. These changes include deforestation, the frequent occurrence of hurricanes and melting of polar-ice caps. Statistics as well as this visible physical evidence show that now is the time to discuss global warming and its effects in our schools to educate the public. So here, 10 facts on global warming and its effects on human health will be provided to aid students writing essays on these topics. Two successive articles on how to go about choosing a topic on global warming and human health in world climate change and a guide for writing a short essay will be provided to compliment this article. The facts on global warming and human health in world climate change you should know: Melting glaciers due to global warming adversely affect human health. Statistics show that the rate at which glaciers in the Arctic Circle are melting has seen a considerable increase in recent years. The figures show that the melting rate between the years 2000-2010 is currently 3 times higher than the rate witnessed in 1980 to 1990. The increased rate due to rising temperatures has led to flooding thereby endangering human life. Global warming has caused irregular weather patterns. The weather pattern of the 21st century is rapidly changing when compared to recorded patterns from two decades ago. The irregular weather pattern is being experienced globally and its effects on plant and human health include increased rainfall which affects the delicate balance that plants need to survive and grow. These irregularities also lead to animal migration and with scarce food resources, humans in certain regions - East and West Africa - will experience health problems due to climate change. Global warming has led to extreme heat and droughts in diverse regions of the earth. The effects of global warming vary from region to region but through this variance, statistics show that earth is currently experiencing a 1-2% increases in its overall temperature. The World Health Organization has previously stated that the safety threshold is a 2% increase and anything above that will be disastrous to human health. As of today, extreme heat kills approximately 30,000 people yearly in the developed world while in sub-Saharan Africa approximately 20 million people do not have access to water due to droughts. Global warming creates more natural disasters. Data from WHO shows that the number of deaths caused by natural disasters in the 21st century has more than tripled the numbers experienced in the 20th century circa 1950 to be precise. This increase is directly proportional to the increase in global warming currently been witnessed today. Sadly, natural disasters have accounted for approximately 60,000 yearly in more developed regions of the world. Global warming creates an enabling environment that spreads infections. The increased temperature and flooding caused by climate change are slowly turning the earth into a breeding ground for diseases and infections both in the developed and developing world. Statistics show that regular floods enable the spread of waterborne diseases such as cholera and river blindness. Disease carrying mosquitoes are also a by-product of these flooded environments and these factors work together in reducing the quality of human health globally. Global warming puts the ‘fire’ in wildfires. although wildfires are unpredictable occurrence, the increased dryness, temperature and carbon dioxide in the air due to global warming and climate change serve as natural fuels for wildfires. Global warming has led to a direct increase in the number of wildfires occurring each year and these fires last longer and cause more damage due to the earth’s changing climate. Predictably, the gas and vapours released into the air after a wildfire. It is toxic and attacks the respiratory system of humans. Global warming affects air quality. In regions where excessive industrialization has taken place and is currently taking place, toxins are released into the atmosphere that negatively affect it. Statistics show that the pollution caused by power plants, vehicular emissions and overabundance of carbon dioxide in the ecosystem has led to ground level ozone smog. This smog affects the human respiratory system and impedes breathing causing respiratory illness such as asthma in more extreme cases. Global warming adversely affects mental health. Research has shown that the disruptions caused by extreme weather changes, climate change and natural disasters have led to mental health problems among affected individuals. Disasters such as wildfires and hurricanes have led to increased anxiety and emotional stress levels which can accumulate with time into more serious mental health issues. Global warming acidifies the ocean. Ocean acidification occurs when the world’s oceans absolve more carbon dioxide than is needed to balance its ecosystem. This excess carbon dioxide then breaks down into carbonic acid which neutralizes the normal alkalinity of the ocean. The fall out of ocean acidification on human health is unavoidable due to the fact that 70% of humans have around the oceans. And as the ocean’s acidity affects the living organisms in it - which humans eat - unhealthy acids which affect human health are ingested. Global warming threatens our future health conditions. Statistics show that the earth’s temperature is set to increase by 3-4% on a yearly basis by 2030. This number which is above the 2% threshold will lead to adverse effects on the ecosystem that could cause approximately 250,000 deaths per year. A breakdown of this analysis put the projected death rate due to heat strokes at 38,000, diarrhoea at 48,000, Malaria at 60,000 and malnutrition at 95,000. So here we come to the end of this article and we have provided you with 10 important facts on global warming and human health. Learn more by reading the other articles on selecting essay topics and how to write a short essay on global warming and human health in world climate change. References: Parry, M Canziani O. (2007). Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability, Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge University Press. Weart, R. (2004.) The Discovery of Global Warming. Cambridge: Harvard University Press Philander, S. (2012). Encyclopaedia of Global Warming and Climate Change 234, 256. Rinkesh, J. (2009). Effects of Global Warming. conserve-energy-future.com/GlobalWarmingEffects.php Fried, S. (2006). Predicting the Effect of Climate Change on Wildlife Severity and Outcomes in California. Zhou, N. Yang, J. (2008). Potential Impact of Climate Change on Schistosomiasis Transmission in China 78, 188-94. Knowlton, K. (2009). Climate and Your Health: Addressing the Most Serious Health Effects of Climate Change. https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/climatehealthfacts.pdf

Profile of Pakistans ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence)

Profile of Pakistan's ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is the country’s largest of its five intelligence services. It is a controversial, sometimes rogue organization that Benazir Bhutto, the late Pakistani prime minister, once termed a â€Å"state within a state† for its tendency to operate outside of the Pakistani government’s control and at cross-purposes with American anti-terror policy in South Asia. The International Business Times ranked the ISI as the top intelligence agency in the world in 2011. How the ISI Became so Powerful The ISI became that â€Å"state within a state† only after 1979, largely thanks to billions of dollars in American and Saudi aid and armament covertly channeled exclusively through the ISI to the mujahideen of Afghanistan to fight the Soviet occupation of that country in the 1980s. Muhammad Zia ul-Haq, Pakistans military dictator from 1977-1988 and the countrys first Islamist leader, had positioned himself as the indispensable ally of American interests against Soviet expansion in South Asia and the ISI as the indispensable clearinghouse through which all aid and armament would flow. Zia, not the CIA, decided what insurgent groups got what. The arrangement was to have far-reaching implications the CIA didnt foresee, making Zia and the ISI the unlikely (and, in retrospect, disastrous) hinge of U.S. policy in South Asia. The ISI’s Complicity With the Taliban For their part, Pakistan’s leaders- Zia, Bhutto and Pervez Musharraf among them- seldom hesitated to use the ISI’s double-dealing skills to their advantage. That’s especially true regarding Pakistan’s relationship with the Taliban, which the ISI helped create in the mid-1990s and subsequently finance, arm and keep in business as a hedge against India’s influence in Afghanistan. Either directly or indirectly, the ISI has never stopped supporting the Taliban, even after 2001 when Pakistan ostensibly became an ally of the United States in the war on al-Qaeda and the Taliban. â€Å"Thus,† British-Pakistani journalist Ahmad Rashid wrote in Descent Into Chaos, Rashid’s analysis of the failed American mission in South Asia between 2001 and 2008, â€Å"even as some ISI officers were helping U.S. officers locate Taliban targets for U.S. bombers [in 2002], other ISI officers were pumping in fresh armaments to the Taliban. On the Afghan side of the border, [Northern Alliance] intelligence operatives compiled lists of the arriving ISI trucks and handed them to the CIA.† Similar patterns continue to this day, especially on the Afghan-Pakistani border, where Taliban militants are believed often to be tipped off by ISI operatives of impending American military action. A Call for the ISI’s Dismantling As a report by the Defense Academy, a British Ministry of Defense think tank, concluded in 2006, â€Å"Indirectly, Pakistan [through the ISI] has been supporting terrorism and extremism- whether in London on 7/7 or in Afghanistan or Iraq.† The report called for the dismantling of the ISI. In July 2008, the Pakistani government attempted to bring the ISI under civilian rule. The decision was reversed within hours, thus underscoring the power of the ISI and the weakness of the civilian government. On paper (according to the Pakistani Constitution), the ISI is answerable to the prime minister. In reality, the ISI is officially and effectively a branch of the Pakistani military, itself a semi-autonomous institution that has either overthrown Pakistan’s civilian leadership or ruled over the country for most of its independence since 1947. Located in Islamabad, the ISI boasts a staff of tens of thousands, much of it army officers and enlisted men, but its reach is much more vast. It exercises that reach through retired ISI agents and militants under its influence or patronage- including the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and several extremists groups in Kashmir, the province Pakistan and India have been disputing for decades. The ISI’s Complicity With al-Qaeda â€Å"By the fall of 1998,† Steve Coll writes in Ghost Wars, a history of the CIA and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan since 1979, â€Å"CIA and other American intelligence reporting had documented many links between ISI, the Taliban, [Osama] bin Laden and other Islamic militants operating from Afghanistan. Classified American reporting showed that Pakistani intelligence maintained about eight stations inside Afghanistan, staffed by active ISI officers or retired officers on contract. CIA reporting showed that Pakistani intelligence officers at about the colonel level met with bin Laden or his representatives to coordinate access to training camps for volunteer fighters headed for Kashmir.† Pakistan’s Overriding Interests in South Asia The pattern reflected Pakistan’s agenda in the late 1990s, which has changed little in subsequent years: Bleed India in Kashmir and ensure Pakistani influence in Afghanistan, where Iran and India also compete for influence. Those are the controlling factors that explain Pakistan’s apparently schizophrenic relationship with the Taliban: bombing it in one place while propping it up in another. Should American and NATO forces withdraw from Afghanistan (just as American aid ended after the Soviet withdrawal from that country in 1988), Pakistan doesn’t want to find itself without a controlling hand there. Supporting the Taliban is Pakistan’s insurance policy against a repeat of American withdrawal at the end of the cold war. â€Å"Today,† Benazir Bhutto said in one of her last interviews  in 2007, â€Å"its not just the intelligence services who were previously called a state within a state. Today, its the militants who are becoming yet another little state within the state, and this is leading some people to say that Pakistan is on the slippery slope of being called a failed state. But this is a crisis for Pakistan, that unless we deal with the extremists and the terrorists, our entire state could founder.† Pakistan’s successive governments, in large part through the ISI, created the now seemingly out-of-control conditions that prevail in Pakistan that enable the Taliban, al-Qaeda offshoot al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) and other militant groups to call the northwestern part of the country their sanctuary.