PLCY 110 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: United Nations Environment Programme, Coral Bleaching, Montreal Protocol
Document Summary
Climate change has happened many times before, but we are interested in current changes. Previous changes: variations in earth"s orbit that change the amount of energy the planet receives. Thus, we are focusing on human-induced climate change. When there is a break in pattern or stability of climate. Bernauer: long-term changes in temperature and precipitation patterns . Some say it is man-made, but we do not want to be so strict. Emission of co2 traps heat in the earth"s atmosphere. Sunlight comes in but it does not go out. Tragedy of the commons resource until exhaustion. The existence of negative externalities makes people exploit a common . Fisherman who use the same lake with no regulation on fishing. Everyone can fish as much as they want. This eventually exhausts all fish in the lake. Carbon emissions: us emits 6b tons of co2 every year. Greenhouse effect: gases trapped in atmosphere cause it to warm.
