The world is warming. This is something that is now essentially settled. Despite fossil fuel companies arguing the reverse, it was their research 40 years ago (and more) that brought the concerns of global warming first to the attention of humans (though initially they kept these discoveries quiet, and it has only come to light in recent years).
This new research shows that the world is now trapping twice as much energy as it was just 15 years ago.
As around 90% of this energy ends up in the oceans, this is a big problem. While the southern ice cap sits largely on land, the Northern icecap floats on the oceans. This is unfortunately one of the feedback loops that we know about. Ice reflects sunlight (and therefore heat) back into space. As the oceans warm this ice melts, replacing white reflective surface with deep blue absorbing surface – meaning that the oceans then absorb still more heat.
The unfortunate conclusion of the study was that unless this uptake of heat slows fast bigger shifts in climate should be expected.
Home to one of the two remaining populations of mountain gorillas as well as eastern lowland gorillas and chimpanzees. It is one of the best protected central African rainforest, yet satellite imagery shows significant amounts of deforestation.
In April last year, 12 Virunga rangers and 5 civilians were killed in clashes over this environmental destruction.
As in other places, the locals see little benefit from the park, rather they see large amounts of land that they have lost access to. Locals must benefit from the park, as well as efforts made to feed the local population
While currently only exploratory, oil projects in the ecosystems of Namibia and Botswana potentially threaten the survival of 130,000 elephants – one of Africa’s last great wildernesses.
The Okavango delta from space. This exploration could destroy one of Africa’s last great wildernesses
The company ReconAfrica is going ahead with its search despite the threats. At the current time, there are roughly 450,000 elephants in Africa, but that is down from millions just a few short decades ago.
As water warms up, its ability to hold oxygen decreases. This is unfortunate for the plants and wildlife that live in these waters as they cannot survive without oxygen.
Unfortunately in a recent study it became clear that this is occurring in lakes around the world.
It is true that this impact is not being had at all levels of lakes to the same degree. Unfortunately, the majority water life is very depth sensitive and are uncapable of changing their habits to survive this change.
This is a new, and less considered threat of global warming. Unfortunately it could have significant negative effects on the world.
It is unfortunately possible that in the short term this is irreversible, it is merely one more signpost to require us to change our ways faster.
Yesterday I was writing about a series of dams that have collapsed in Brazil. We need to remember that there are two imminent threats that we are facing in the natural world.
The world is warming. This is going to make life far harder for our children
We are loosing much of the wilderness on the planet. Unfortunately we rely on this to survive in the long-term
We need to cut carbon emissions dramatically, we know as the human race that if we do not cut emissions dramatically and very fast, our planet will go through horrific change from the loss of the ice caps (and the resulting sea level rise) to the desertificion of large parts of the planet – some of this previously being rainforest.
If we cannot halt the loss of areas such as rainforests, the problem becomes even larger as we destroy one of our largest carbon sinks.
In the west, we have a responsibility to not only cut our own emissions to net zero in the space of a few decades, we must also help developing countries grow their own economies and increase the standard of living for their citizens without destroying what remains of the ecosystems that still exist.
Dams are often talked about as a fantastic way to cut carbon emissions. Aside from the fact that many dams in the world are more like a battery (water is pumped up when electricity is cheap and then flows down when it is expensive creating electricity) dams built in rainforests have such a huge initial carbon footprint from the destruction of the rainforest that sat on the land that in some cases the carbon savings will never make up for the carbon loss.
I am not saying that dams are useless. Far from it. However, if your dam is there to cut carbon emissions, it is in the wrong place.
Brazil has gone into dams in a large way. Unfortunately, these are so poorly constructed that they are collapsing. This means that land downstream gets hit twice – firstly loosing most of their water supply as the dam fills and then again as they are deluged with months or years of water in one go. What is worse here, is that many dams here are holding back toxic mud, left over after mining work. As such even after the flood of water has gone down, much of the land it has touched will be less productive.
It is not an either or choice for countries like brazil. They aim to cut carbon emissions by 45% by 2030, however 28-33% of that will come from non-hydropower sources (70%). Indeed in Brazil wind power is generating increasing amounts of their power. Indeed, in terms of installed wind power, Brazil now ranks just 8th in the world. Also given it is a country lying in the tropics, it gets a great deal of sun – there are currently 8.5GW of solar installed meeting 1.5% of Brazils needs. However 3.4GW were added just in 2020. It is therefore highly likely that assuming this acceleration continues perhaps 20% of Brazils electricity needs could come from solar by this date.
We need to cut our emissions dramatically in the next 10 years, however political pressure is often meaning that these efforts are going in the wrong direction.
It is thought that between global warming and habitat loss, 90% of the remaining great ape range will be lost – potentially as early as 2050!
Wild Bonobo resting in a tree Photo taken by Alexander Georgiev
The loss of these rainforests will make climate change mitigation far harder, and I do not wish for my grandchildren to grow up in a world where there is no such thing as a large rainforest. As elsewhere, the loss of the apex species such as great apes both makes conservation harder, and imperils the ecosystem as a whole, as less visitors come so there is less money for protection.
Elon Musk has just announced that Tesla will no longer allow buyers to pay in bitcoin. Why is this relevant to a wildlife and environment blog?
Tesla is there to transition the world to sustainable transport, as a goal. of the roughly 4.1 trillion kwh of electricity used in the USA last year roughly 500 went on bitcoin (roughly 1 in 8) or 13%.
Apart fro areas of the Congo and Amazon rainforests, and areas of Siberia canada and the Sahara, virtually all other ecosystems have been adversely affected.
Many ecosystems look intact, until we realize that important members from these ecosystems are missing. It is unfortunately true that humans are almost always responsible for these holes in the food web.
After the Chernobyl nuclear accident an exclusion zone 2660 square kilometres (just over 1000 square miles) hod to be abandoned.
Bears are an apex predator, so their return to Chernobyl is a good sign, this photo was taken elsewhere
Now while the area is horrifically damaged by the the nuclear waste, the absence of humans has been such a boon that wildlife populations in the exclusion zone are doing phenomenally well.
The area hosts several dozen wolves, and bears returned for the first time in 2014 – having been absent from the area for more than a century.
Indeed what is fascinating about the area is the clear evidence that the damage caused by nuclear radiation is nowhere near as damaging as the human population.
Whether this can change and we can allow small pockets of wilderness in the heart of Europe is a question that most would answer no. However given how many benefits will genesis like this give to the area around them, perhaps we should be aiming to create more.
