Environmental Degradation and Global Warming

Abstract

The degradation of the natural environment through anthropogenic activities is impacting economies and human well-being, both regionally and globally. The subsequent anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and unprecedented wave of global warming have exposed ice sheets, ice caps, and glaciers to degradation, which collectively provides major junk of the global freshwater. High glacial melt, catastrophic glacier advancement, and glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF), coupled with massive recessions and negative mass balance of glaciers, are resulting in scarcity of safe water for drinking and irrigation purposes. It is ringing warning bells of the deglaciation era, besides exhaustion of freshwater resources around the world. Further, environmental degradation has been causing high risk to physical infrastructure and human settlements, necessitating extensive renovation. Similarly, climatic disasters illustrate sociocultural impacts of varying degree, primarily among those who directly and solely depend on the limited freshwater resources. So, the dearth of freshwater has laid the groundwork for the local and global societal matrix – putting an end to societal attributes, e.g., bonds, trust, and networking, to find a standard solution to the problems. It has further increased communities’ vulnerability to natural hazards and increased chances of societal conflicts in lieu of gaining access to scarce freshwater. It further prompts the process of resource depletion, which further extends the social problems.