Happy Friday everyone, I hope everyone has some exciting plans for food to make or trails to hit up this weekend.
I want to just lay out some ways the climate change is affecting the planet. Sometimes I find that people don’t like to talk about climate change because it is controversial, depressing, or they aren’t as informed as they would like to be on the topics.
Controversial and depressing topics for me are politics, climate change is facts.
Maybe after reading these ways that climate change affects the planet will encourage you to inform yourself more, and then you will be able to have those conversations.
Climate change means more than just a variation in the temperature, but rather it refers to long term changes in precipitation, weather, temperature, and sea levels.
I will be going through 10 ways that climate change affects animals, the planet, and us. These 10 points are only the beginning, and will continue to become more prevalent.
Climate change is a fact, it is not a theory which is up for debate of whether you believe in it or not. Climate change affects us all in many ways.
To people who question whether it is real, or say they want to know 100% it is real before they will do anything about changing their habits, I always say “worst case scenario, we are creating healthier living conditions for everyone in the long run”
I will go into more depth, but the 10 topics I will discuss include how climate change affects; bird migration and hibernation patterns, egg hatching and predation, species migration, aquatic life, increased storm activity, draught and flood, species extinction, Human health issues, glacier melting, and increased habitat destruction.
1. Bird migration and hibernation patterns
Climate change can affect bird migration because as the weather gets warmer some birds don’t leave the cold climate at all and some leave later. This can affect the vegetation available in the cold climates and starve them before they migrate south for the winter.
Birds have overcome this by changing their diets during the winter. For example, Canadian Geese often don’t fly as far south as they have in the past, in the winter they survive off of moving water that provides algae, small fish, and aquatic vegetation that they have learned to survive off of during the winter.
Bird migration patterns are in line with hunting seasons for certain birds. Hunting seasons for these birds aren’t changing with the migration patterns and this causes more pregnant females to be killed by hunters.
Hibernation patterns have also been altered from the change in temperature. For example black bears are starting their hibernation periods later in the season, and waking up from hibernation earlier. This affects their interactions with other predatory species that don’t hibernate, causing more territorial battles.
Black bears primarily eat berries and vegetation. Since they are waking up earlier but the berries are not ready, cubs emerging from hibernation for the first time are struggling to be fed and bears are starving.
This starvation pushes them towards finding dumps where they can forage for food waste, or they move closer to cities. This causes interactions between people and bears to become more regular, and oftentimes the bears get shot.
2. Egg hatching and predation
There are many eggs that are changing their patterns such as fish eggs, turtle eggs, bird eggs, and other reptiles and amphibians eggs.
Salmon eggs are influenced by water temperature, having a 6-20 week range of when they hatch. As water becomes warmer earlier in the Spring, salmon are hatching too early and the 85% death rate that salmon eggs already have from predation, this increases with the hatchlings not being fully developed, or being eaten by other fish that would have moved farther up the watershed.
Salmon hatchlings would normally not interact with this predatory species, but now that there is overlap there is a serious decline in salmon hatchling survival rates.
This becomes a problem when the fishing season for salmon is upon us and the salmon that do survive are caught by fishermen, who are still within the quota. The quota is not changing as the fish are declining, this is not the fishermen’s fault, but the ministry of natural resources in Canada that regulates the number of fish allowed per fisherman based on an algorithm of how many fish there are present.
This holds true for many species who rely on temperature to induce the egg hatching process. Turtles are hatching too soon and being eaten as soon as they enter the water. If they make it to the water.
Nature had a rhythm that ensured some species never crossed paths due to migration, hibernation, or egg hatching seasons. As the climate changes, some things change with it, and others do not. Some things can be avoided, others cannot.
3. Species migration
As the temperature changes, in some areas becoming colder than before, others warmer than before, species that prefer certain climates will migrate to find those climates again.
A fine example of species migration is the emerald ash borer rushing through Canada.
This species of insect uses ash trees as a host. This is known as parasitism. The emerald ash borer eats and kills the ash tree to survive, moving between the trees.
Currently Canadians are cutting down ash trees to stop the spread of the insects, and the government is contributing significant funding to spray chemicals over large forest stands that contain a lot of ash trees.
The government should rather be spending those funds on stopping climate change rather than stopping the immediate “threat”.
The ash borer has started migrating north because it does not reach the same cold atmospheric temperatures as before which kept the emerald ash borer at bay before. Since the emerald ash borer is able to over winter in Canada, it is able to work its way East and North killing off ash tree species.
When these ash trees are being eaten by the parasitic ash borer it is not always obvious until it is too late and the tree is ready to fall. They can fall on houses, power lines, roads, and can cost the city or property owners a pretty penny which is dangerous for those who cannot afford tree removal, or the city takes too long.
Other species like poisonous/venomous species are moving North and people who are unaware of this can get hurt, species are having to interact with unknown species causing territory issues, bears and large predatory species are moving farther north or are adapting to the warmth.
Animals, insects, fish, and birds are all having to move or adapt to new conditions that could mean life or death. These species don’t have the same adaptability to temperature as humans do (air condition/heating).
4. Aquatic life
This ties into species migration but I felt that it had its own importance. Climate change is affecting sea levels, in places like the Florida Everglades, the Saint Lawrence River, and other major estuarine, coastal rivers, and coastal wetlands.
The ocean is salt water, inland waters are usually freshwater. The species that live in these types of environments are different and have different salt tolerances.
If a fish that is meant to live in salt water is exposed to fresh water, it will die because they are saltier than their environment which drains them of their needed salts. The same goes for freshwater fish being exposed to salt water.
As climate change continues to make the sea levels rise, more and more aquatic species are affected by the salt content of their habitat. This is causing species loss and increased fish death.
Warm water has lower oxygen levels, cold water has higher oxygen levels. Ocean water is more often cold which increases the oxygen levels in the water which also kills fish that require lower oxygen levels. The same with the other way, fish that are washed into freshwater that is naturally warmer will be suffocated from low oxygen levels in the water.
Aquatic life that is philopatric are unlikely to move when their habitat is disturbed, so they will die, those that are non-philopatric can move and are more likely to survive if they have warning or time to migrate to a safer habitat.
5. Increased storm activity
An increase in storm activity refers to the monsoon seasons in India, hurricane seasons in equatorial regions, and tornado season in flat geographical areas all being longer and more severe.
This is because of the increase in carbon in the atmosphere, the temperature increasing, the easterly and westerly winds changing their paths across the globe, and the sea level rising causing a need for more precipitation.
The change in easterly and westerly wind patterns changing means that the Cold and Warm air is mixing more often and in different directions than before. The general pattern that moves air north and south causing seasonal changes has been affected and is becoming weaker.
Increased storm activity means more people being homeless, businesses being closed or affected by income from tourists and general population that have recently become homeless or are spending money on building supplies for repairing damage to their homes, government paying more in repairs and potentially charging more in taxes.
These are only the human problems. And they will affect everyone at some point or another. Those who are claiming it is natural are just wasting time making excuses to refuse changing their habits and consumption choices.
The change in wind patterns will cause cold climates to warm and warm climates to cool affecting animals, vegetation, soil conditions, and people.
6. Drought and flood
Climate change also refers to precipitation. Areas that have always been wet and seen high precipitation historically have begun to see decreases in precipitation which is causing drought like conditions during growing seasons affecting food supply and economy.
Same goes for areas which see drought like conditions commonly, they are seeing an increase in precipitation causing their crops that are more drought resistant to struggle.
An increase in draught conditions and atmospheric temperatures are yielding more and hotter forest fires that are not typical. Some areas are in a burning path that has naturally burned before cities were built there, and fires that have been suppressed for so long are coming back worse than before causing people to lose homes and businesses and sadly family and friends.
Some areas have been built in flood paths, like the Mississippi basin, which is primarily minority populations so little has been done to improve the conditions like flood barricades. Soon, areas that have not seen catastrophic flooding will, then something may be done to prevent the flooding.
Both extreme drought and extreme flooding events have consequences, and some areas are seeing both every year which is causing food shortages, farmer struggles, and economic decline.
I suppose these events aren’t extreme enough yet to be obvious that climate change needs to be taken care of.
7. Species extinction due to atmospheric carbon increase
Species are becoming increasingly at risk of extinction, endangered, or extinct due to unbearable high temperatures as atmospheric temperatures rise. As well as, high pollutant levels being toxic.
There are indicator species that are highly sensitive to temperature change and/or pollutant levels. These indicator species are telling us that these changes are occurring and soon it will be us being affected like them.
Observing indicator species reactions to changes in atmospheric carbon will allow us to predict the levels in which humans and other wildlife can withstand before we too are unable to breathe the air or go outside.
This is similar to doing studies on rats in a lab to know how it may affect humans. This has been studied and studied, the papers have been written, the results are in, but the general population is not listening to the scientists calling to us.
More species will continue to become extinct due to temperatures rising to unbearable levels and toxic pollutants making the air unbreathable.
8. Increased health issues
There has been a significant increase in human health issues due to climate change. Such as increases in asthma, pneumonia, and other respiratory illnesses due to breathing in pollutants.
There are more cases of asthma near industrial areas that release pollutants, especially carbon based gases. Though the number of cases of asthma for everyone is increasing because the air is so potent with pollutants now.
People are spending more time inside, and because of this are developing more respiratory and neural diseases. The air inside has been proven to be approximately 10 times worse than outside air.
Toxins that bind to air particles and are breathed in are causing neural development issues in kids. Elements like chromium, lead, mercury, and fluoride are more prevalent now than they have been in the past.
If these effects are being seen in humans, they are being seen tenfold in wildlife.
9. Glaciers melting
Glacier melt is a product of climate change because of the increased atmospheric temperature. Glaciers hold many historical pollutants, including high levels of carbon and sulphur which is being released back into the air and water.
Glaciers are not only causing pollution, but a rise in atmospheric carbon and sulphur, rise in sea level, loss of habitat and hunting ground for animals and people, and they are influencing the natural ocean water circulation.
Ocean circulation refers to the way warm water near the equator moves north, cools down, brings cool water south, then warms and brings warm water back north. This happens in a figure 8 style through the Atlantic ocean, and branches off to the pacific and other large ocean bodies like the red sea.
A loss of hunting ground for species like polar bears, whales, and sea lions could mean they begin to move south and change their behaviour entirely. This could be catastrophic to other aquatic species and humans such as Northern cities.
As well as glaciers melting, permafrost is melting in northern regions meaning the ground is becoming unfrozen after thousands of years being frozen. Similar to glaciers it releases carbon and causes sea level rise. There are many northern cities built on permafrost, and they are seeing buildings collapse.
The national seed vault that is home to thousands of saved seeds in a frozen northern location was built on permafrost. This vault was built in order to save seeds for an event in which climate change causes mass seed loss. For an apocalyptic event. As the permafrost melts underneath it, it too will crack and break down. This could mean a loss of seeds saved for human survival.
10. Increased habitat destruction
Lastly, climate change is affecting habitats. There has been and will continue to be an increase in habitat destruction from natural events such as floods, draught, fires, monsoon, overheating, and territory battles of overlapping refuge animals.
Animals are under serious attack from the Anthropocene. From deforestation, climate change, human inhabitation, and hunting.
Climate change is altering their natural environments, and they are innocents being harmed, having no control over where they can live, what they can eat, and how they can survive. Humans are taking the life raft and leaving behind nothing to help save the animals.
As more and more habitats are destroyed the huge variety of living creatures will have nowhere to go, many will die, the rest will fight over territory, they will be killed from hunters and pollution, they will have nowhere to go because of us.
Final Remarks
The worst part of this climate change battle is that it is about 10 corporations causing it. They are the ones telling you that it is because you left your lights on, you left your car running, or you bought a new pair of boots. When it is them who need to be stopped and regulated.
The day will come when we realize we can’t eat money, and we have squandered the resources the earth has presented us with…
Thank you for reading this, Remember to enjoy nature while it is here and if you get the chance to sign a petition to stop a corporation from polluting, do so with intention to make the world a better place.
Think of the innocent animals, your future generations, quality of life, and you will see there is so much to fight for and it can be done so very simply.
I will be eventually writing about low waste ideas for your home, as well as, other ways you can help stop leading polluters (corporations) from continuing to harm the planet.
Please check out some of my other recipes, environmental posts, and vegan ideologies while you are here on my blog, and I hope that you learned something or have gotten motivation to do something about climate change.
Have a wonderful weekend, and thank you again for checking this post out.