That change may be too slow to notice but the effects will be seen in not too distant a future. Just think about the atmospheric pollution caused by aircraft. Traces of flights may not be perceptible for ordinary people but scientists have estimated that the greenhouse gases - mainly carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide - emitted by the world's aircraft fleet contribute to 40 to 50 percent of global warming.
Climate change has caused many visible consequences - rising oceans, devastating hurricanes, floods and droughts, and extreme weathers that will cause more diseases and famine.
I have lived in Beijing for 30 years and thus have a very strong impression of climate change. When I first moved here from the south, summers were much cooler than in my hometown, Wuhan. Indoors were cool even during the day. I remember even pulling a cotton quilt for the night. But now, summers have become as humid as in the south. Smog shrouds the city for days or weeks, making the air sultry and the human body sticky. Thirty years ago, there was no smog at all.
Industrial activities in and around the city are certainly to blame for the air pollution but the lingering humidity is definitely the result of global warming.
The melting of ice in the Arctic and Antarctic regions has reached serious proportions. Sending more vessels through it will only accelerate the process. The ocean carriers would do better by putting an end to their plans of opening new routes through the Arctic waters. They should let the photo of "Mother Nature in Tears", etched by water dripping from a melting glacier in the Austfonna ice-shelf in Norway, be a lesson.
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