While "climate change" has become a buzzword in the past two decades, it is not the only phenomenon that concerns human and biodiversity survival. Scientists and
environmentalists have been raising concerns about many environmental issues that are directly or indirectly interlinked and have
a significant impact on the survival of all living beings currently inhabiting the planet. We will take a look at some of the concerns.
The planet's warming in the interglacial phase is not surprising. Earth periodically undergoes ice-age and interglacial stages, where it cools down and warms up. During the interglacial stage, the warming up of the planet helps support live forms and makes
the earth habitable. Issues the world has been encountering for the past 100 years, increasingly for the past three decades, are due to the Anthropocene's impact on the ever-changing climate. Recent unprecedented rainfall leading to flooding in 73 districts in Pakistan
in August-September 2022, in Bengaluru in India in September 2022, and in Bangladesh, while prolonged drought in East Africa has left many countries on the brink of famine, are all attributed to climate change by climate scientists.
Industrial concerned issues | Single indicator LCIA method | Multi-indicator LCIA method |
---|---|---|
Global warming | GHG protocol, IPCC GWP 2013 | BEES+, CML, ReCiPe 2016, IMPACT 2002+ |
Freshwater scarcity | AWARE, Hoekstra et al. 2012 (water scarcity), Pfister et al. 2009 (water scarcity) | BEES+, CML, ReCiPe 2016 |
Energy crisis | Cumulative energy demand (CED) | CML, ReCiPe 2016, IMPACT 2002+ |
Biodiversity extinction | USEtox, BEES+, CML, ReCiPe 2016, IMPACT 2002+ | |
Damage to human health | USEtox, BEES+, CML, ReCiPe 2016, IMPACT 2002+ |