Modern civilization has brought us many conveniences, but it has also created a serious problem: global warming. Changes in the climate system and increased carbon dioxide emissions are causing global temperatures to rise. To solve this problem, we need international cooperation, advances in science and technology, and small individual actions.
Modern civilization has given us so much. It’s like a magic box that you open and open and open, and gifts keep coming out. We have developed civilization and exploited resources without question. The side effects of over-exploitation are now beginning to rear their ugly heads. Global warming is a prime example. We often trace the roots of civilization to fire, and as far back as the Bronze Age and the replacement of bronze by iron, fire with the power to melt iron was an essential requirement. Fire is very useful and essential if we can control it well. But if it gets out of our control, even for a moment, it can destroy everything we have. The same is true for modern civilization. So far, we think we’ve been relatively good with fire, but global warming is a wake-up call to our complacency.
Earth’s climate system consists of five parts: the atmosphere, oceans, living land and sea, cryosphere, and land surface, which interact organically to determine the climate on Earth’s surface. On Earth before the Industrial Revolution, the climate system allowed for the stable cycling of energy, water, gaseous elements in the atmosphere, and organic matter. However, after the Industrial Revolution, human use of fossil energy exploded, causing changes to the climate system. The radiant heat radiating out of the Earth has decreased, resulting in global warming.
How severe is this global warming? A climatologist named Mark Maslin analyzed the effects of global warming in his book The Political Economy of Climate Change. He uses climate modeling projections to show the threats to sea levels, storms and floods, heat waves and droughts, the El Niño Southern Oscillation, public health, biodiversity, and agriculture in 2030, 2050, and 2100. If global warming exceeds 6 degrees Celsius, the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets will begin to melt in the next century, and sea levels will then rise by as much as 12 meters. A mere 6 degrees of global warming could mean that we will no longer have a planet to live on. In this way, global warming is a real threat to our lives.
In fact, the jury is still out on whether carbon dioxide is the cause of global warming. Radical global warming skeptics claim that global warming itself is a hoax. What is clear, however, is that there is some connection between the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the temperature of the Earth. We just haven’t figured out which one is causing the other, i.e., is the increase in carbon dioxide causing the average temperature of the Earth to rise, or is the increase in carbon dioxide causing the average temperature of the Earth to rise?
However, it is clear that the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide is a product of humanity’s actions in the present, and if it has the potential to degrade the livability of future generations, we need to take action to address the problem before we can establish cause and effect. If we wait for the consequences to unfold, we could face irreversible consequences. Many countries around the world agree on the seriousness of carbon dioxide-induced global warming and have agreed to gradually reduce their carbon dioxide emissions to an average of no more than 5.2% below 1990 levels by 2012. This is the Kyoto Protocol, which was created in 1997. Korea is not a party to the Kyoto Protocol, so it is not legally obligated to reduce carbon dioxide. However, given Korea’s continued industrial development and economic growth, it is inevitable that we will have to comply with carbon dioxide reduction regulations at some point.
So how can we regulate our planet’s firepower? In other words, how can humanity cope with the problem of global warming? In fact, there are many different arguments coming from all walks of life. Most scientists and academics want to solve the problem of global warming with science and technology. This is the argument for fighting fire with fire. Various methodologies are being discovered and studied. Alternative energy sources, including renewable energy, or carbon capture technologies, for example. But no one solution will solve all the problems. For example, renewable energy sources are still largely in the research phase, so a complete transition is not possible, meaning they are not yet economically viable enough to feed a population of over 6 billion people. Nuclear power plants produce no carbon dioxide during the generation process, except during the construction phase. However, as we saw in Fukushima, unpredictable natural disasters can be catastrophic. The issue of nuclear waste disposal must also be seriously discussed. Although we are on the verge of developing a future generation of nuclear power plants, we cannot completely overcome the shortcomings of the current generation of nuclear power plants. Nuclear fusion power, which is expected to be the energy source of the future, is also still in the research phase.
As we have seen, global warming is undoubtedly a serious issue. And the simplest and most effective way to prevent and mitigate global warming is to reduce the absolute amount of fossil fuels used. Most of the solutions presented above are specifics on how to reduce fossil fuel use. But can we reduce energy use in a vacuum? It’s not possible. Affordable and reliable power is just as important as global warming. In the past hot summers, we’ve seen large-scale power outages caused by people’s reckless use of electricity and the inadequate management of power supply and demand by power authorities. While many people were inconvenienced and the blackout lasted only a day, the economic losses to the country as a whole were enormous. The 2003 blackout in the eastern United States, considered the worst blackout in history, plunged entire cities into darkness. Not to mention the enormous economic losses, violent crime rates soared, including robberies, rapes, and murders. When the electricity goes out, the most basic safety net in society collapses.
There is a lot of technology being developed to combat global warming, but it’s really more of an investment for the next decade than an immediate solution. So, realistically, what we can do right now is the clichéd “conserve and moderate”. People perceive energy, especially electricity, as a public good. This perception leads to reckless overuse of energy and materials. Our civilization was all built on fossil fuels, and as a result, almost everything we do in the modern world consumes fossil fuels. The things we enjoy today are built on the hard work of past generations and the sacrifices of the next. While the development of renewable energy sources and carbon capture technologies are important, the fact is that the fastest and simplest way to prevent global warming is to conserve energy on a holistic level.
Of course, conservation and moderation are not the only solutions. In addition to conservation, research on alternative energy sources to fossil fuels and carbon dioxide reduction technologies must be actively pursued. We will eventually pay for this research in the form of taxes. The bottom line is that global warming should be recognized as an important issue among the many problems that governments have to solve. Therefore, the most important thing to prevent global warming is for the public to be alerted to the issue of global warming, and for voices to come out of the woodwork to help solve the problem.
Of course, it’s not just governments, but also companies and research organizations that need to work together, and since global warming is a global problem, international cooperation is crucial. This is why cap-and-trade programs are in place. The idea is to buy and sell the rights to carbon dioxide emissions, so that an invisible hand can ensure that saving carbon dioxide emissions is done in the most efficient way. Efforts to combat global warming are being made on a global scale, and they need to be made more vigorously. The storms that engulf a city are born from the tiniest breeze. Now is the time to collectively light the fuse to protect our next generation.
In addition, we can make small changes in our personal lives to make a big difference. For example, small actions like conserving energy in our daily lives, recycling, and using eco-friendly products whenever possible can add up to a big difference. These efforts aren’t just about stopping global warming, they’re essential to creating a better environment for ourselves and future generations. When small individual actions add up to collective change, we will be able to effectively tackle the huge problem of global warming.
