Climate Change 101: The Basics of Biodiversity

As a dedicated Earth Ranger, we probably don’t need to tell you twice that climate change is a serious problem for plants and animals everywhere. It affects their homes, their health, and even their babies – but what is climate change and how exactly does it work?
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Scientists use “climate change” to refer to changes in the Earth’s weather patterns that happen over a long period of time. A summer heat wave or a green Christmas without snow are just short-term changes in the weather, not climate change – but when unusual weather happens again and again each year, scientists start to worry. A mild winter or extra hot summer might not raise any alarm bells on its own, but with 16 of the last 17 years ranking among the warmest on record, it’s safe to say there’s cause for concern.

So what’s causing Earth’s climate to change like this? In a nutshell, we are. Gases in Earth’s atmosphere trap the warmth from the sun and keep our planet at just the right temperature. But when we burn fossil fuels (like coal and oil) to drive our cars, heat our homes, or produce electricity, the smoke that comes out of chimneys, cars and trucks adds more greenhouse gases (like carbon dioxide and methane) into the air. More greenhouse gases trap more heat in the atmosphere, and this trapped heat is making our planet warmer. Warmer temperatures cause all kinds of strange things to happen, like melting glaciers that can lead to rising sea levels, more rain that can lead to flooding, or less rain that can cause drought. The specific impacts of climate change all depend on where you live.

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Greenhouse gases released when we burn fossil fuels trap air in the atmosphere, which causes the surface of the Earth to warm.

So now that we know what climate change is and the problems it can cause, what can we do about it?  Well, fortunately we have the power to both mitigate and adapt to climate change.

Mitigation: trying to slow down or prevent climate change before it occurs or while it’s happening by reducing the amount of greenhouse gases we add to the atmosphere.  Actions like carpooling or buying local products are examples of mitigation.

Adaptation: trying to adjust our behaviours to deal with climate change now that it’s occurring.  Things like planting trees to prevent erosion or using rainbarrels to collect excess stormwater are examples of adaptation.

Unfortunately, many plants and animals just can’t adapt quickly enough to climate change, which is causing big problems for Canada’s biodiversity.

Biodiversity: the variety of plants, animals, and other living organisms in a habitat or ecosystem

A tree that’s used to a cool fall can’t just pack up and move to a new location when it’s too hot in September, and a baby bird that hatches when the air warms up earlier than it’s supposed to in the spring can’t just make berries to eat when flowers haven’t even blossomed yet. In addition to these examples, climate change is also causing other serious problems in Canada for both animals and humans, including:

  • more forest fires, destroying important animal habitat and sometimes impacting cities and towns where people live
  • melting Arctic ice, making it more dangerous for people living in arctic towns to travel on the ice and making it harder for polar bears to hunt seals
  • more invasive plants and pests which spread quickly into new areas as the temperature warms and outcompete the native plants taking away important food sources for animals

We might already know some of the impacts of climate change, but others will take years and years to fully understand. One thing is for sure, though: if we don’t take action to prevent it and start figuring out how we can help species adapt to it, the plants and animals that we love might not always be around. That’s why we’re calling on all Earth Rangers to do their part by accepting our climate change Missions today!

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Sources:
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/201613
https://www.c2es.org/science-impacts/basics/kids
http://wwf.panda.org/?2143%252FSpeed-Kills-Rates-of-Climate-Change-are-Threatening-Biodiversity

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