About Climate Change
Man made climate change, or global warming, is now threatening the future of living things everywhere, including people. It impacts on species as diverse as whales and polar bears to monkeys, frogs and fish. Scientists who study biodiversity (the different types and numbers of all living things) estimate that the future existence of 40% of the worlds animals plants and other life forms are threatened with extinction.
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Climate change from human activities is caused by the release of gases such as CO² and methane on a massive scale. These greenhouse gases are naturally occurring, but human activities over the last 150 years (e.g. industrialised farming, deforestation, burning fossil fuels for cars, planes and trucks, generating electricity for homes and factories) increases the amount released each year and critically degrades the natural systems that previously absorbed excess greenhouse gases back out of the atmosphere. In the UK alone around 135 million tonnes are emitted each year, globally the figure is almost 8 billion tonnes. From 2000 to 2005, the growth rate of carbon dioxide emissions was more than 2.5 per cent per year, whereas in the 1990s it was less than one per cent per year. We need to reduce the figure by at least 80% globally and more so in wealthier nations, yet the problem is still growing.
The manner in which many of us currently live is the cause of climate change and the other long term threats to the health of the earth. Ultimately this will threaten the continuation of human civilisation too. Industrialised economies across Europe, North America and increasingly China, India and Brazil, are organised in such a way that making the right choices in the future will take radical and brave steps at both a personal and a societal level.
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There is no bigger threat from human activities and no more important task than making the changes we need to ensure the worst impacts of climate change are avoided. Over the last two years, One World Wildlife has supported LowFlyZone. This project encourages and celebrates the decision to be free from flying in planes and finding less polluting ways to enjoy travel, whether for business or liesure. A host of other fundamental shifts will be needed and One World Wildlife fully supports the Transition movement in promoting a flourishing grassroots development of communities committed to step up to the the challenges ahead.
At the earth's poles, the direct and obvious effect of the melting ice caps means this habitat will have changed so much that many of the species that live there will not be able to survive. It will mean the end for polar bears in the north and many penguin species in the south. These species don't have anywhere else to go and it would be a great tragedy if they only survived in zoos. The poles are critical for many whale species too because of the abundant krill and other prey that grow there: if this ecosystem is interrupted, many species will lose the underpinning resources they need to survive.
The world's oceans are already beginning to acidify as they are absorbing more CO² from the atmosphere. The consequence of this is that the thousands of different marine organisms that live by growing a protective shell are under threat (e.g. crabs, shrimps, coral, diatoms). Under increased acidic conditions, they can no longer grow their shells and many of these creatures form the basis of the ecosystems across the world's oceans. It is very difficult to describe the wide range of impacts there would be if such a dramatic upheaval to the ocean ecosystem were to take place, including the existence of many fish stocks that billions of people depend on - yet already scientists are seeing worrying changes.
In the long run species such as lions and elephants are threatened by climate change too because of the drying out of huge swathes of Africa. Without water life disappears very quickly. People in Africa have already started to suffer increased droughts leading to more failed crops. Agricultural land is under increasing strain, and so each year ever more wilderness is taken for agriculture and while many people struggle to survive the wildlife disappears altogether. The environmental cost will lead to further conflict and mass emigration putting a major strain socially and economically on other nations outside the worst affected regions.
The most biodiverse parts of the planet like the Amazon rainforests are also in peril. Rainforest is so called for good reason, it depends on and helps sustain the rains that keep these warm wet regions of the world as ‘biodiversity hotpspots’.
Scientists now predict that rainfall may decline to the point where these forests will begin to dry out. Once dry to a certain point, unstoppable forest fires can rage through, taking all the species with them and devesating the ability of people to grow crops and make a living from the land.
Forest fires are already a growing and serious problem in North America. In amazonia, as yet unknown species of all kinds, birds, mammals, reptiles and others will be taken with the fires. Not only that: many tribes of people that have survived the same way for thousands of years in harmony with their environment will disappear and ironically be among the people who suffer the most. Visit LowFlyZone to see what you can do to cut your own travel emissions, or support us through AdoptWildlife.
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