Our Future

By: Hannah C.

           

 

Imagine a future where our entire way of life is different. Where unpredictable weather, unbearably dry and sweltering summers, and learning about all the extinct animals are normal. What if I told you that in the future, because of global warming, that could be a reality?

            Global warming is known everywhere, but you almost never hear people talking about it even though scientists are referring to it as, “The biggest global health threat of the 21st century!” Climate experts predict that by 2100, global temperatures will have increased by eight degrees warmer.  Considering the increase in temperature recently, that doesn’t seem so far off.  Imagine what two hundred years from now would be like if the temperature continues to increase. Even farther than that too!

First of all, global warming has been affecting the weather. The greenhouse effect is pollution that we've released into our atmosphere acting like a blanket and keeping in warmth from the sun, which in turn makes the Earth get warmer. Evidence of Earth warming includes the fact that we have found 2000 through 2009 to be the hottest decade since an estimated one thousand three hundred years ago. Higher temperatures caused by that effect makes storms and water-related disasters much worse. This costs us extreme amounts of money. In just 2015, ten weather and climate disasters have cost us 1 billion dollars. You might assume that's normal if you didn't know that ranging from 1980 through 2015, the average cost was 5.2 billion from disasters. “Extreme weather events are costing more and more,” says Aliya Haq, deputy director of NRDC's Clean Power Plan initiative.  “The number of billion-dollar weather disasters is expected to rise.”  That once again raises the question what our future will be like if we continue like this.

The weather isn’t the only thing that’s changing because of global warming. Global warming is affecting animals too. Shifting life cycles are when natural events that animals take part in at a specific time start at an unusual time. For example, global warming has caused some species of bird to start migrating at a different time, whether it be earlier or later. Some animals that hibernate are waking up from their hibernation at a later time also. You could brush that off, but shifting life cycles can have dangerous effects. The World Wildlife Fund ran a study that showed this. In that study they found that warblers, also known as perching birds, when immigrating from the United States to Canada, ended up spreading a type of mountain pine beetle, which destroyed copious amounts of balsam fir trees.

This brings us to another detrimental problem, habitat disruption. Habitat disruption is when an  ecosystem undergoes many developments, which usually change the ecosystem so much that the ecosystem no longer fulfills the needs of the animals that live there. Some animals can thrive in another ecosystem, but even finding another ecosystem is difficult. For example, because of warmer temperatures, tundras have been turning into forests. The animals that live in tundras, such as arctic foxes, snowy owls, and caribou, can’t survive in forests. Since they can’t survive in forests, and because they live far up North, they can’t go anywhere else. For the animals that can survive elsewhere, even just finding somewhere to live is difficult. Humans take up a large amount of land, so when animals venture out, searching for a place that fulfills their needs, they are often restricted by land that they originally could have thrived in that’s taken up by humans.

In conclusion, global warming is a serious issue that deserves to be more recognized. The reason this is so important is because animals' lives are on the line. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that if temperatures continue to rise as they are currently on average globally, by 2100 around 20 to 30 percent of species of animals and plants are at risk of extinction. For animals to exist they need plenty of food, which includes plants. Animals may be doing ‘alright’ currently, but evidence shows that in the future it’ll be much harder to survive for many of them.