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Climate Change and Human Activity: Are we the cause?

My name is Alyce Crane and I go to Tarleton State University. I’m currently majoring in Wildlife Science, and I hope to use what I’ve learned to help the environment. I have experience in the forestry service and experienced the changes that human life can do to the environment. In the following entries I have researched what we as humans have done to the environment and the changes that were recorded by researchers themselves, how plants and animals are affected by these changes, and how can we slow them down. 

What’s climate change?

Bill Nye explains exactly what climate change is. He talks about the consequences of the human race advancements. Bill also discusses how you can slow this process down. Chick here for the link.

Has the environment changed in a good or bad way? Why?

Karina Acevedo et al addressed that environmental changes have negatively impacted most of the planet. Her paper explains four factors that seem to have persuaded the team into thinking that the planet is going to towards a negative time. The research done on birds to test whether the immune system was a factor predicted a significant amount of survival variation. Environmental stress and immune competence were broken into two categories, stress-induced immunosuppression, and pollutant-induced immunosuppression. Influence of human behavior can cause wildlife diseases by studying climate change, droughts, a complex disease that appears in California sea lions called urogenital cancer, and UV radiation. The last factor discussed how the success rate of reproduction and growth of offspring is due to the immune malfunctions being caused by previously mentioned factors. Link.

Prevent Climate Change mentions the top five ways the climate has changed in a negative way. A few that are mentioned are rising temperatures, melting ice caps, rising sea levels, weather conditions becoming more extreme, and most importantly the ecosystems changing. From the information given it seems that when one occurs such as rising temperatures another appears like melting ice caps which causes rising sea levels. Link.

Jason Meyers made a video called “Is Global Warming Good?” which talks about whether this is a good or bad thing. He never really gives a definite yes or no answer, but from his examples, he leans more on climate change being bad for humans. Link.

Have we caused any damage?

According to World Wildlife Fund (WWF), we are the main cause of the climate changing. We’ve released a huge amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and usually, there had been enough trees to soak up the CO2. We’ve cut down trees which releases the stored CO2 into the atmosphere once more as oxygen. The amount of carbon dioxide that’s released is more than what the trees left can handle. The article also describes the animals and regions that have been affected by the damage that we are continuing to do. Link.

Who has been affected by the climate change?

According to U.S. Department of the Interior, there are nine animals that are being affected by the climate change. Moose, salmon, snowshoe hares, American pikas, sea turtles, puffins, Alaskan caribou, piping plovers, and polar bears are all mentioned in this article as well as how they have been affected. Link.

According to The Wildlife Society, sea turtles have been affected by the climate change. The rising temperatures cause the sand to dry out, and as a result, a vital protein which determines whether they will be male or female is becoming scarce. Link.

Arkive describes how the Quiver tree has been affected by the climate change. They predict that rain will become scarce and the trees won’t adapt quickly enough to accommodate the insects and animals that benefit from these Quiver trees. Link.

Prevent Climate Change describes that human activity that emits CO2 into the atmosphere is absorbed by the ocean. The acidity of the ocean is predicted to increase dramatically in the next millennium. The acidity levels increase leaving the marine life in devastation. A protein that helps create the exoskeleton of some organisms is threatened. Link.

A podcast by Science Vs called “Climate Change…the Apocalypse?” discusses the main factor of fossil fuels being released from human activity. Professor Ralph Keeling tests the air to record the CO2 levels over the years. Another professor and a doctor appear on the show to discuss the future of the planet. They spoke about some things that may be the reason why the temperature is rising. They were discussing whether the number of volcanic eruptions had anything to deal with the temperature. They go on talking about the future and where we stand on the environmental devastation. Link.

NERC Science of the Environment Planet Earth created a podcast called “Marine life and climate change” which discussed how past microscopic organisms have been absorbing carbon dioxide for millions of years. Jason Hopkins and Paul Brown have done experiments to recreate what possibly could have caused them to slow down change. They believe that at one point there were all kinds of different species of micro-organisms related to the ones that had little change but went extinct due to severe changes in their environment. Link.

Susan Poizner talks on a podcast called “Climate Change and Fruit Trees” that discusses what happens to our fruit trees during this climate change. Gregory Peck talks about what happens to the trees when they have early bud break and frost hits and how you can accommodate this change in climate. Link.

What can we do to slow down the changes?

Al Gore wrote Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis that discusses how we have the tools to solve the problems that we’ve caused but we don’t have the habits and the political-culture that can prevent our ability to change. Al Gore writes about a call to action that will take commitment on our part. Link.

Prevent Climate Change discusses a few different ways to slow down the rapidly changing environment. A few ways they mention are making your home more energy efficient, how to make your lifestyle greener, changing habits at work, and eating less meat. Link.