PP224 Chapter 10-12: Issues in Environmental Ethics
Document Summary
Climate change is the most all-encompassing environmental crisis humanity has ever faced. A friend of mine once characterized it this way. You can think of all the environmental issues that beset us pollution, freshwater scarcity, biodiversity loss, and so on written down on a list. But climate change is not just another item on this list. One of the reasons for this is that the problem of climate change is making most of these other problems worse. Weather: measurements of temperature, precipitation, humidity, winds, and air pressure in a particular area over short periods. Climate: average weather patterns for an area over a long period of time. And what scientists are noticing is that, because of the greenhouse effect, the climate is changing dramatically. The greenhouse effect is the process by which certain gases in the atmosphere trap heat that would otherwise escape to space, providing a kind of blanket for the earth.
