Paul Eckert Weblog

Global Warming- How are Animals Affected by Global Warming

 By: Kelvin Ho

Article posted by Paul Eckert

It is not a secret that we humans have been destroying the environment for years. It is now that some of us are trying to make all people aware of the affects that our lack of care has had on the environment and what will happen if we do not make changes now and try to stop the progress of global warming. Our focus, or drive, is the thought of what type of world are we leaving our children. We also need to be looking at how global warming is affecting our animals now and in the future if we do not stop and make the needed environmentally safe changes.

There are numerous studies that are being conducted and have been conducted where watching animal behavior and traits to measure the status of the environment. These studies are showing that our Earth is changing in unnatural ways and it is disturbing. Think about the fact that right now as things stand, reindeer will no longer wander the places they currently do, they will disappear.

Marmots no longer hibernate the same amount of time that they used to. Actually compared to thirty years ago, they are ending hibernation three weeks earlier. The Canadian red squirrel is breeding 18 days earlier. Studies are showing that the red fox is moving north and invading the territory of its Arctic cousin. Polar bears are not as healthy as they were 20 years ago and they are thinner.

If we look at the sea and our creatures there we also see changes that should cause alarm. Coral reefs are expected to increase by up to a third in size. Elephant seal pups are thinner because their prey is migrating to cooler waters. Our turtles are changing behavior as well, the loggerhead is laying eggs 10 days earlier and the Hawkbill turtle hatchlings are having more females then males due to temperature changes.

Birds are changing their diets to insects that do not consume leaves that have been treated with high amounts of pesticides. What does all of this mean? It means that global warming is going to cause many of our animal species to become endangered if not extinct.

The melting ice, the warm seas, the spreading dessert are all threats to our animals. These changes, no matter how subtle have a dramatic influence on the lives of our wildlife. In the sea the disappearance of the tiny organisms that the larger creatures feed off of is causing the sea life to migrate northward.

Keeping in mind that global warming plays a huge part in our weather and climate, the increased storminess destroys the breeding colonies of the albatross that already battle the possibility of being captured and killed by fishing boats. The rise in sea levels wipe out the nesting sites of the sea turtles, seals and wading birds are also on the list of species to be affected by their habitats being destroyed.

Thought the very source of nature is change, and adaptation, the changes that are taking place in our environment due to global warming are just happening to fast. The speed is what makes it difficult for the animals to adapt effectively and this will cause us to loose a lot of our wildlife. Can you imagine a world with no reindeer? What about the day that the Sahara dessert covers all of Africa and makes migration impossible for birds?

These are changes that we can see everyday and we need to start paying attention to them. The predicted elevation of sea level by an amazing three feet coupled with the disruptions to the Earth life support systems should be our wake up call.

Three Global Warming Prevention Tips

By: Nathan Brown

Article suggested by Paul Eckert

Droughts, floods, hurricanes, desertification. Global warming is causing catastrophic change to the place we call home. You can curb these trends if you act now. The key is realizing that you need to make changes to your basic life style so that you produce a small portion of the greenhouse gases from your daily actions.

The earth is large but finite. The result of the enormous human population and the environmental impact of our current way of life is that we are rapidly extinguishing the Earth’s biodiversity and degrading most ecosystems, creating a bleak future for ourselves.

There are numerous ways in which our learning to live with less will take place; there is no single, magic button solution that will solve the problem of global warming. The following tips discuss some of most potent possibilities, in that implementing them will cut out or reduce some of your most significant personal contributions to global warming:

Global Warming Prevention Tip #1: Sell your car

Yup, the past century of personal motorized travel has been a very convenient, luxurious, and enjoyable demonstration of grossly unsustainable human activity. According to the Energy Information Administration, the transportation sector overtook industry as the biggest US producer of carbon emissions in 1999, and motor fuel accounts for 60% of total US production of carbon emissions over the past 20 years. You probably contribute to these emissions in a variety of ways, but you have the greatest ability to reduce the role you play in this by changing how you relate to your car.

One of the best alternatives to owning your own car is to join a car co-op. In fact, car co-ops now operate in a growing number of cities around the world. Go here to find the closest car sharing option to you.

No care sharing going on in your area?

If you cannot yet relinquish your car, make mileage efficiency the top deciding factor in choosing a vehicle, and start working now on any changes you need to make in your life to let you get rid of your car as soon as possible.

Public transportation is the only reasonable, long-term solution to the majority of our transport needs. It is slowly improving as US cities confront the impacts of an infrastructure built around cars and trucks. It will only get better when you demand adequate services; vote with your feet (and bring all your friends!) to demonstrate the need.

Global Warming Prevention #2: Buy local, eat local

You may have noticed the proliferation of farmer’s markets around the country over the past decade or so. This is not just a quaint fad, but rather a vital, direct-action opportunity to reduce your global warming impact and increase local food security. When you purchase from your local area, you not only reduce the amount of carbon emissions required to support your lifestyle, you also help to keep money in your community.

The long-distance transport of food and other goods comes with a heavy ecological cost;the average meal on your plate in the US has traveled 2000 miles to get to you, which helps to explain why every calorie of food you consume costs an average of ten calories of energy to produce it. That imbalance fuels the global warming fire by adding far more carbon to the atmosphere than is necissary to meet your dietary needs.

A partial change is better than no change; you probably can’t eliminate processed and imported goods from your life tomorrow, but the more needs you can meet locally, the more you reduce your carbon footprint and contribute to the prevention of further global warming.

Global Warming Prevention Tip #3: Make your local government part of the solution

No politician interested in reelection is going to sponsor the kind of legislation required to alleviate our massive responsibility for global warming without an organized citizenry pushing for better climate legislation. Only when citizen activism shifts this topic into the mainstream will the government move to act on it substantively.