Ways Humans Impact the Environment - Assignment Example

For some time now, human impact on environmental change has become the focus of scientists and environmental conservatives. The risks resulting from climatic change have attracted mixed reactions. Accordingly, some of the firms argue that their revenues will be seriously affected by the carbon dioxide emissions controls and therefore, have poured cold water on the global warming findings. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), scientific consensus has been arrived at concerning the present global warming trend.

This is due to increased greenhouse gas emissions, which have anthropogenic climate-changing effects.The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in a report, the human development report 2007/2008 indicates that human development challenges of this century are partly due to anthropogenic change. The assertion here is that the inability to reduce the global warming impact will result in increased poverty among the poorest countries that ironically are the least contributors to the problem.

Statistics indicate that CO2 is the leading contributor in surface warming influence from as far back as the year 1750 followed by methane and halocarbons. Apparently, more CO2 emission remains in the air today unlike it was fifty years ago. The issue of anthropogenic change remains emotive. Some companies such as Exxon Mobil have gone to lengths to try to confuse the public concerning this issue.The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) in the US reported that Exxon Mobil had spent $16 million to accomplish a skeptical campaign on the global warming issue.

Concerns about anthropogenic change have led to a number of campaigns by both activists and conservatives. One such campaign utilizes the ecological footprint, which is a measure of how much demand on the earth’s ecosystem is being exerted by human beings. The footprint calculator derives measurements for nations and activities. The former measures the global hectares required by a definite population regardless of their location. This differs between countries.