How Climatic Changes Effect Society

There has been a significant climatic change that has taken place throughout the years on Earth. These changes have effected society in more than one way. However, there is nothing society can do about the long term influences of climatic changes. Society has tended to address the short term effects of climatic changes that influence the global temperatures within the life span of present generations. The following will show how climatic changes does effect society, health, and economics. Society depends a lot on natural resources for various aspects. First of all, society depends largely on forests to supply trees which in turn supply wood for construction. Other resources include oil and animals (livestock). In the focus of wood, there is the Western Canadian Boreal Forest which is a large producer of wood for the United States construction industry. However, climatic changes has had large and impacting effects on the construction industry. Compared to eastern Canada, the southern boreal forest region of western Canada has a relatively dry climate. Thus, drought effects are one of the major concerns being addressed by researchers in this region. climate modellers have predicted a large increase in temperature for this region, which could lead to even drier conditions and enormous stresses on vegetation in the western Canadian boreal forest. This type of impact was observed following the 1988 drought it experiences, when there was a die-back of aspen over extensive areas of the aspen parkland in Western Canada. Associated with this drought was a drying up of large lakes in the region. Another potential impact for the region is a major increase in forest fires. This is due to the fact that fire frequency is closely linked to moisture levels which are expected to decrease under climatic change. Thus, it is noticed that with increased climatic change the future that this forest has in supplying lumber is decreasing, and the construction industry will face a slight drawback due to this. In this it is noticed that, with a drawback in the construction industry's output, will also effect the economy and society. The economy will effect society and the decrease in output means a decrease in jobs, which in effect hurts society. Contrary to the example of the forests in Canada, is the information found on its agriculture. Because average temperatures are expected to increase more near the poles than near the equator, the shift in climatic zones will be more pronounced in the higher latitudes. In the mid-latitude regions ( 45 - 60 latitude ), the shift is expected to be about 200-300 kilometers for every degree Celsius of warming. Since today's latitudinal climate belts are each optimal for particular crops, such shifts could have a powerful impact on agricultural and livestock production. For example, in the Canadian prairies, the growing season might lengthen by 10 days for every 1oC increase in average annual temperature. Another example (Taken from sources on the net) is the impact of climate change on water. Now, water is a survival of mankind, in general, but almost for all life. Thus, if water was effected by climatic changes, so would society, health, as well as economics be impacted by climatic changes. In areas where climate change causes reduced precipitation, freshwater storage reserves, primarily in the form of groundwater, will steadily shrink. Areas where more precipitation was not matched by increased evaporation would experience floods and higher lake and river levels. An increase in extreme events such as droughts and floods would undermine the reliability of many critical sources. Diminished snow accumulation in winter would reduce the spring run-off that can be vital to replenishing lakes and rivers; a 10% decline in precipitation and a 1-2oC rise in temperature could reduce run-off by 40-70% in drier basins. Worsening droughts combined with the over-exploitation of water resources would cause salt to leach from the soil, thus raising the salinity of the unsaturated zone (the layer between the ground and the underlying water table). In coastal zones, a lowered water table would also draw salt-water from the sea in the fresh groundwater. At the same time, higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are expected to improve the efficiency of photosynthesis in plants, which could in turn cause more rapid evapo-transpiration. Together, these various effects would have extremely negative consequences for river watersheds, lake levels, aquifers, and other sources of freshwater. As it is seen in the information found, such consequences would in reality effect society, agriculture, and economics. Society, would have lower levels of freshwater, agriculture would also have lower levels of freshwater to survive on. Because of this, the economy would be effected since more work will need to be enforced to revitalize the sources of freshwater, or find more. It can be seen through these previous examples, that society is effected by various forms of climatic change. Thus, if society is effected, so is the health of people within the society, and economics is also effected. It basically is like a continual cycle that persists with a relation between climatic changes and the effects it has on society, health, and economics.