Journal of Geography  & Natural Disasters
Open Access

Global Problem

Informally, a global issue is any issue (problem, risk) that adversely affects the global community and environment, possibly in a catastrophic way, including environmental issues, political crises, social issues, and economic crises. Solutions to global issues generally require cooperation among nations. In their book, Global Issues,  Hite and Seitz emphasize that global issues are qualitatively different from international affairs and that the former arise from growing international interdependencies which makes the issues themselves interdependent. It is speculated that our global interconnectedness, instead of (only) making us more resilient, makes us more vulnerable to global catastrophe. Global warming is the ongoing rise of the average temperature of the Earth's climate system and has been demonstrated by direct temperature measurements and by measurements of various effects of the warming. It is a major aspect of climate change which, in addition to rising global surface temperatures, also includes its effects, such as changes in precipitation.  While there have been prehistoric periods of global warming, observed changes since the mid-20th century have been unprecedented in rate and