Polar
Bears Aren't the Only Ones Feeling the Heat
This article shows us the animals
and plants that are not as cute as polar bears and other animals that get so
much attention of climate change. Eleven organisms were named in total from
around the world that scientists never really thought would get affected by
climate change this quickly. As written in the article “Higher temperatures in the southern United States endanger
Christmas tree plantations. During the 2011-12 season, heat and drought killed
80 percent of seedlings and 10 to 20 percent of mature trees”. This quote is
describing the loss of Christmas trees in 2011-2012 and is just one of the
startling facts of the danger of climate change that is affecting so many
organisms. Two plants were named in the article and nine animals were named and
described how badly they were getting hurt by the drastic climate changes
happening around the globe. Some include the Moose, Orangutan, Koala, North
Atlantic Right whale, Sea turtles, Bengal Tigers and more. Do you want these
animals to be extinct because of us? I certainly do not.
After reading this article I was very
surprised by the fact that some of these organisms were getting affected and or
that I have never heard about it before. For one, the Koala. Many people
this animal is regarded as cute, and personally I can see why. What is so
peculiar though is that they are being affected by global warming in a very
serious way. The eucalyptus leaves they eat are giving less nutrients to the
Koalas, which comes down to them eating more leaves to get the same nutrients
they were getting in the past. Overall, this means the Koalas have to work more
to get the same amount of energy.
The Bengal Tiger is also another
organism getting badly affected by climate change. The Bengal Tigers on the
coast of Bangladesh and India could have their entire habitat wiped out. If the
seas rise around 28 centimeters 96% of the tiger’s habitat would be underwater.
This area is also one of the largest stretches of the mangrove forest so if it
were to be flooded with water many other organisms were to be greatly affected.
Not to mention a large portion of cities and towns could be flooded with a
little water if the sea were to rise 28 centimeters. What is also frightening
is that we have also diminished the tiger’s numbers greatly from hunting and
deforestation so who knows how much longer the Bengal Tiger will even be on
Earth?
Another animal that I was surprised to be affected is the sea
turtles. The sea turtle sadly is just one out of many turtles being affected by
global warming (6 in total). Rising sea levels pose a major threat to the
turtles. The waves are washing away the
nests left by the turtles and are killing the babies before they even hatch. Second,
as the temperature raised the sand temperature also rises, which would cook the
eggs in the sand causing them to incubate incorrectly. Also the hot sand has an
effect on the male to female ratio allowing more females to be developed than the
males. This means in one breeding season the males have to work almost twice as
hard as the females due to population differences.
The article also brings up an
interesting new idea of spring, and this idea could be quite a sad one. The
Songbird, another animal affected by climate change, could make the springs to
come a whole lot quieter. The Songbirds rely on important migration pattern
from the South to their arrival to the North. Since 1950 though, spring has
come one a half days earlier on average. This caused the peak of food to be
before breeding season in the spring which allowed many young chicks to starve.
In the present this does not seem like a large problem, but if the Songbirds
predicament continues to get worse we might have a silent spring.
After hearing about all these animals
being affected by climate change defiantly makes me want to stop it as soon as
we can. Over the last couple years I feel that we have tried to ignore this
topic or simply felt that it was untrue. I have always thought that climate
change was real because of the evidence provided by scientists. What frustrates
me though is why people say it is untrue because the people that go against it from my
experience say its fake or a lie and give no rhyme or reason.
Climate Change is a very serious topic, but it also reminds
me a lot of middle school. I can remember projects I had to do that required us
to research global warming and show some of the effects it has had so far on
the Earth and also what we were doing to the environment. The events that stood
out to me the most was the conversations with substitutes we had about the
topic. Occasionally a science teacher would be out sick or not teaching and
after the period was almost over almost every time someone would ask about
global warming and each time it felt like a different answer. Each sub (that I
remembered) throughout middle school seemed to have a very different opinion
from one another, and one would completely agree with the idea while some would
call it all lies which I found quite interesting and why it is so controversial.
Finally, knowing this information I believe that we should
act. As a community we should do our best to lower carbon emissions and to
leave a smaller presence on the environment. There are many solutions to this
by using different light bulbs and using different fuel sources, but is that
enough. To be truthful I have no idea. We could be honestly be wasting our time
and the Earth could already be lost because it is too far down the road. This
should not though stop us from trying to save the organisms from losing the new
set of organisms shown in the article or even saving the Earth.
Author Tim Wall Oct 22nd 2013
Unexpected Victims of Climate Change
Great job Sam you did really great on this post. I did a really similar topic to what you did about the Polar bears. But, what I really like is that you took it a step further and discussed how Polar bears are not the only ones that are being affected. I like how you included how Bengal tigers would be wiped out due to their habitats being submerged underwater. I have one question though. What made you want to do your blog post on how animals are affected by global warming? Was it because you want to let others know how bad of a condition these animals are in because of animal activity? Was it for another reason?
ReplyDeleteA very well written post, Sam! I can connect to the fact that when most people think of climate change, they think of the poor polar bears who's habitat is melting. People think less of all the other organisms, like you had stated in your article. Turtles, Tigers, and Birds could be affect by climate change. Could climate change affect humans drastically? It likely can, and without many other species, the "circle of life" could be destroyed. As we learned in our vernal pool unit, removing one organism can destroy an ecosystem. We don't often think about all the different ways climate change can affect the world; its a lot more than the arctic region. Do you think there are species being hurt by climate change right now that we don't even know about? An excellent summary Sam.
ReplyDeleteSam I think you bring up a very interesting point. I must say I am not one myself that thinks of the Bengal Tiger being affected by temperature rise. It felt like people would always moan about the polar bears, but there are other organisms too. I never realized the devastation that would be caused by global climate change. I do agree that something needs to be done about global climate change and I know that you gave some energy efficient options. But how do you propose we do something that will matter on a large scale? Some people probably cannot afford to retrofit their homes with eco-friendly technology. I agree with you that something should be done, but this might be out of our reach economically.
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