The truth about climate change

Raise awareness and spread knowledge about global warming's causes and real consequences. Discover how wildlife in the arctic is affected.

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Arctic Birds

Many species from all over the world migrate to the Arctic in summer and depend on it for breeding and feeding. Climate change will alter some of their habitats significantly.

Photograph of a Kittiwake bird in Svalbard

Expansion of the forests towards the North, for instance, may reduce the size of tundra areas (a type of ecosystem dominated by lichens, mosses, grasses, and woody plants), which are important breeding grounds for hundreds of millions of migratory birds. 

A big number of bird species are predicted to lose more than 50% of their breeding area during this century.

source: http://www.greenfacts.org/en/arctic-climate-change/l-3/3-sea-level-rise.htm

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Film: Ice Age 2 : The Meltdown

Ice Age: The Meltdown is the sequel of the 2003 film Ice Age and it is directed by Carlos Saldanha. 

Ice Age: the Meltdown is set at a time when natural warming of the planet is causing the animal’s icy habitat to melt. The characters quickly learn that the warming climate has one major difficulty: a huge glacial dam holding off oceans of water is about to break, threatening the valley in which they live. The only chance of survival lies at the other end of the valley. The film follows our three heroes as they embark on a mission across an increasingly dangerous landscape towards their salvation.

Ice Age: The Meltdown is a fun film, but it carries as well some serious messages about the environment, global warming and animal extinction.

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The economic side of the Arctic

“ A single oil well discharges around 1.500 - 2.000 tons of waste material. Contaminants from oil drilling will devastate the already sensitive ecosystem of the arctic if we let it”

The Arctic has significant oil and gas reserves. As the Arctic ice melts, the oil under Arctic waters becomes an increasingly attractive target for the oil industry. Consequently, oil that was once out of reach because the Arctic was frozen is now accessible because of climate change. And the companies responsible for climate change want more oil, which makes climate change worse.

Moreover, climate-related changes in Arctic ecosystems will have consequences not only at local level but also on a global scale because of the many links between the Arctic and the rest of the planet.

source: greenpeace.org

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Greenpeace and the Arctic

Greenpeace is a non-governmental environmental organization that exposes global environmental problems and tries to promote solutions for a green and peaceful future. Greenpeace leads a campaign called Save the Arctic which goal is to protect the Arctic, basically by preventing oil drilling and unsustainable industrial fishing in the area.

“Act now against climate change. Visit greenpeace.org”

“+ 2 °C are already to many.”

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The truth about global warming

This is a section of an article from The National Geographic’s website. It talks about how its been scientifically proved that the temperatures all over the world have risen.

“In recent years, global warming has been the subject of a great deal of political controversy. As scientific knowledge has grown, this debate is moving away from whether humans are causing warming and toward questions of how best to respond.

Signs that the Earth is warming are recorded all over the globe. The easiest way to see increasing temperatures is through the thermometer records kept over the past century and a half. Around the world, the Earth's average temperature has risen more than 1 degree Fahrenheit (0.8 degrees Celsius) over the last century, and about twice that in parts of the Arctic.

This doesn’t mean that temperatures haven't fluctuated among regions of the globe or between seasons and times of day. But if you average out the temperature all over the world over the course of a year, you see that temperatures have been creeping upward.

Although we can't look at thermometers going back thousands of years, we do have some records that help us figure out what temperatures and concentrations were like in the distant past. For example, trees store information about the climate in the place where they live. Each year, trees grow thicker and form new rings. In warmer and wetter years, the rings are thicker. Old trees and wood can tell us about conditions hundreds or even several thousands of years ago.

Keys to the past are also buried under lakes and oceans. Pollen, creatures, and particles fall to the bottom of oceans and lakes each year, forming sediments. Sediments preserve all these bits and pieces, which contain a wealth of information about what was in the air and water when they fell. 

For a direct look at the atmosphere of the past, scientists drill cores through the Earth's polar ice sheets. Tiny bubbles trapped in the gas are actually pieces of the Earth's past atmosphere, frozen in time. That's how we know that the concentrations of greenhouse gases since the industrial revolution are higher than they've been for hundreds of thousands of years.”

source: http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/gw-real/

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No vaccine exists to prevent Zika virus disease. Zika virus is mostly spread through the bite of an infected mosquito.  These are the suggested prevention method issued by PAHO & WHO.

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“The rapid rise of the Zika virus is turning into a full-on public health crisis. The virus, transferred via specific types of mosquitoes, “is now spreading explosively” across Latin America, according to Margaret Chan, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO).

There could be up to 4 million cases right now, just eight months after the first case was reported in Brazil. There are 23 countries where the virus is active.

A number of factors have had to line up for the Zika virus — a disease that’s been associated with birth defects — to spread so far and wide so quickly, but chief among them is heavy rain and heat. Climate change could play a future role in this virus’ spread as it creates conditions more favorable to the mosquitoes that transmit it.

Heavy rain and warm temperatures have helped the mosquitoes carrying Zika thrive. There have been heavy rains in southern Brazil and Uruguay this winter. Those rains can translate to standing water on the ground, which is crucial mosquito breeding habitat.

Then there's the heat.

Temperatures have been above normal for much of Latin America as a whole since early last year, which was also the warmest on record for the world. Climate change is directly responsible for all of last year’s record heat globally.

That heat is in some ways a more important ingredient driving the Zika virus outbreak. It not only means mosquitoes can incubate the virus, but also that people are also more likely to be outside and have exposed skin for mosquitoes to feast on.

Research on other viruses can tell us what climate change could mean for Zika. Until now, the Zika virus has been a relatively little-studied disease (though that’s about to change). There’s not really a lot known about it, let alone how climate change could influence its spread in the future”

source: http://www.climatecentral.org/news/zika-virus-climate-change-19970

This article shows that there is a close relation between Zika and climate change. In fact, climate change increases heat and heavy rain. These extreme weather conditions can, unfortunately, have a negative effect because they allow mosquitoes spreading the virus.

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Not everything is caused by climate change: Perito Moreno Glacier

“The Perito Moreno Glacier is a glacier located in Argentina. The ice formation is over 19 miles (30 km) in length and the ice arch was a popular destination for sightseers who marveled at the 820-foot-wide (250 meters) structure. 

An arched section of the Perito Moreno Glacier collapsed in front of thousands of spectators in Argentina in March 16th 2016. 

Experts said the collapse has nothing to do with climate change and was instead all to do with physics. In fact, ruptures occur every four to five years. The pressure from the weight of the Perito Moreno ice field causes the glacier to grow toward the southern arm of Lake Argentina, creating a dam. As the water volume increases in the dam, it creates a tunnel of water through the glacier. The constant water flow gradually eats away at the ice of the dam wall, forming the ice bridge. As the bridge grows thinner with the passing of water, the weight of the ice can no longer be supported, causing the spectacular rupture.”

source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-11/perito-moreno-glacier-ice-bridge-collapses-in-argentina/7241680

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This video explains the main ideas about climate change. It focuses on greenhouse gases, human activity and the increase of global temperature.

It shows as well that humans are responsible for the increase of CO2.

But there are facts that are missing:

Climate change exists because it’s observable. It is clear that humans are involved but we are not completely responsible for it. In fact, the climate has been constantly changing since the earth was formed 4.6 billion years ago. 

In a nutshell, we are accelerating what was supposed to be a natural process of our planet.

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Why is the Arctic that important?

This post shows the importance of the arctic for our planet. 

“As snow and ice are bright white, most of the solar energy that reaches them is reflected back to space. This is one reason why the Arctic remains so cold. As air temperatures are increasing, snow and ice now tend to form later in the autumn and melt earlier in the spring. The darker land and water surfaces, which absorb more of the sun's energy, are thus longer uncovered. This warms the surface further, which, in turn, causes faster melting, creating a ‘positive feedback loop’ that amplifies and accelerates the warming trend”.

source: http://www.greenfacts.org/en/arctic-climate-change/l-2/3-sea-level-rise.htm#1

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Why don’t we take climate change seriously?

”Trump tweeted the following in 2014: “Give me clean, beautiful and healthy air -  not the same old climate change (global warming) bullshit! I am tired of hearing this nonsense”.

Recently he was asked about this again and called this “a joke”. Trump has repeatedly called climate change a "hoax" in speeches, tweets and media appearances. In addition, he said on the Sept. 24, 2015, edition of CNN’s New Day, "I don’t believe in climate change." And on Jan. 18, 2016, he claimed that climate change "is done for the benefit of China, because China does not do anything to help climate change."

source: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jun/03/hillary-clinton/yes-donald-trump-did-call-climate-change-chinese-h/

Donald Trump’s opinion about climate change shows that this subject is not being taken seriously. Why? There is uncertainty, mistrust, denial and lack of information. Many facts about climate change and global warming aren’t true and people tend to think that the whole problem is a lie. 

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Arctic Wildlife and Ice Melting

Wildlife photographer Kerstin Langenberger captured this image of a polar bear off the shores of Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean.

Thousands of years of evolution have prepared Arctic species like the polar bear, walrus and narwhal for life on and around the sea ice. Because of climate change, that ice cover has been changing rapidly, in both extent and thickness, and shrinking far too quickly for these species to adapt.

The most important action to help preserve these species is to slow the rate of climate change, and ultimately to stop it so that the habitat of ice dependent species does not entirely disappear, pushing them into extinction. 

The objective of this post is to explain the problem of sea ice melting in the arctic and how it can affect its wildlife. Global warming is a cause of their extinction and solutions must be found.

source: http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/where_we_work/arctic/wildlife/

[exotericenvironmentalism]

Following his similar animation visually recording spiralling global temperatures over the last 160+ years, this graphic from Ed Hawkins depicts declining trends in Arctic sea ice volumes since 1979.

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This graphic shows how the arctic sea ice volume has decreased during the past 37 years.

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Blogs followed

- http://exotericenvironmentalism.tumblr.com/ : This blog talks about environmental issues, and how important the environment is essentially. It has lots of topics, in particular pollution, that are close to the one I am talking about and relates to my blogs theme. 

- http://marine-conservation.tumblr.com/: This blog deals with the conservation of marine wildlife, from coral reefs to fishes. The relation to my blog is that it also talks about humans involvement in the modification of the ecosystems.

- http://7billionlittlethings.tumblr.com/: This blog is based on giving tips about how to be more friendly with our planet. The Global warming theme is what connects it to my blog.

- http://tree-me-better.tumblr.com/: This blog is linked to mine because it focuses on the damage of the earth. It also presents ironic pictures about its current condition. 

- http://climate-change-in-the-arctic.tumblr.com/ : This blog focuses on the arctic as well as mine. It also talks about climate change impacts and other issues such as greenhouse gases or CO2 emissions. 

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Arctic Melting Blog Intro

This is a topic that I’m really interested in. Arctic melting is a consequence of global warming but we don’t really know what is true about it and what is not. We need to know how the planet will be affected and how the next generations will live. 

One of my main points is to talk about how arctic wildlife is and will be affected. This blog will also deal with the causes of global warming such as deforestation or the use of fossil fuels, as well as with its consequences, such as sea level rise or natural disasters.