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I find it very interesting that, today, more and more people understand the impact of climate change on our lives. When I was kid, many people thought global warming is something that scientists created to scare people. Even scientists were disputing the evidence. But now, with confidence, you can say that climate change is a real phenomenon and it is caused by human activity. You can point to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2021 report. The heart of this report is this statement: “It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land”.
You may be interested to know some facts about climate change:
The oceans are working hard to rescue us from this crisis by absorbing this extra heat and CO2 into their interior. But they need our help!
If we stop emitting CO2 completely today, the warming would gradually return to a normal state; however, it would take decades, if not centuries. For example, ocean surface temperature would reach a normal level but the deep ocean would continue to warm.
Air travel (aviation) contributes about 2% of global carbon emissions. Cows account for about 6%.
Energy production is by far the largest source of carbon emissions, so reducing fossil fuel use is the biggest priority, but because transport uses fossil fuel, that is also a sector that will need to change significantly.
In Australia, cows account for about 10% of carbon emissions, so more than the global figure, because Australia does produce a lot of beef. In Australia cars are responsible for about 10% of emissions as well, while aviation sits around the same level in Australia as globally, at 2%.
So reducing air travel, car travel and red meat consumption are all powerful ways to fight climate change, but reducing our reliance on fossil fuels and switching to renewable energy wherever possible is the biggest area to improve.
The case of the invasive long-spined sea urchins, Centrostephanus rodgersii, thriving and expanding around Tasmania, mostly due to climate change impacts, offers several valuable lessons, for example:
By learning from the success of invasive long-spined sea urchins around Tasmania due to climate change, we can better prepare and develop strategies to manage, adapt to, and mitigate the impact of invasive species in the context of broader climate-related ecological shifts.
Over the past decade people and governments around the world have come to realise the damage our waste can have on our wildlife, economies and well-being. To try and reduce the damages our waste can have, governments and organisations are rethinking the way we produce, use and importantly throw away our waste. In Tasmania (and in Australia), waste and recycling are managed at the local government level. So, the waste and recycling rules that you might follow in Burnie, might be different to the rules in Queenstown, St Helens, Launceston, or Hobart. Two big changes that have happened around Tasmania that improves the way we manage our waste a
1. Introducing a Container Deposit Scheme. This scheme allows you to drop-off your glass, metal and plastic drink containers at designated locations and received 10 cents back for every container. This scheme will discourage people from littering their waste and encourage people to pick up littered containers out of the environment.
2. Introducing a mandatory waste levy. A waste levy is a fee paid to the Tasmanian State Government by landfill and other licensed waste facility operators for every tonne of waste received. In Tasmania, many landfills are operated by local government (councils), so the waste levy is paid by our local councils. By 2022, all councils in Tasmania should have a waste levy in place. Some councils in Tasmania have already introduced a waste levy of $5 per tonne of waste that enters landfill. The waste levy fee councils pay is passed onto those who use landfill. So every time you go to dump your waste at landfill, you must pay. The waste levy money collected by the council is paid to the State Government. The money collected by the Tasmania State Government will be used to invest in new waste and recycling systems and infrastructure around Tasmania that will help increase the amount of waste we recycle and decrease the amount of waste entering landfill and the environment.
Climate change is an ongoing issue that is impacting all species across the planet. With warmer weather both on land and in the water, many different animals are becoming stressed in their environments or even losing their homes. I am from Canada, and one species that we worry about coming extinct is the beautiful polar bear (Ursus Maritimus). They live way up north in the arctic, and they are facing a very uncertain future as warmer temperatures are significantly impacting their icy habitat. As the summers get longer and warmer, the sea ice is melting quickly and not re-forming fast enough to allow the bears to have access to hunt seals. This is causing lots of bears to go hungry, which is a direct result of the warm temperatures from the effects of climate change.
A little bit closer to your home, another species that is impacted by the changing climate is the koala (Phascolarctos Cinereus). These cute, fluffy animals have a special diet of eucalyptus leaves but as carbon dioxide levels rise, the nutritional value of the leaves is decreasing, leaving the koalas malnourished and starving. Furthermore, we are seeing increased droughts and bushfires due to climate change, which will also have severe impacts on the koalas and their environment.
The good news is that some species might have the ability to adapt to climate change, but the real problem is how fast these changes are happening. While all animals will do their best to survive by moving to new locations or finding ways to try to control how their bodies react, not all of them can do it fast enough to keep up. However, one animal that has done an awesome job of dealing with our changing climate is the lungfish! As droughts become more frequent, lots of animals must learn to cope with water shortages. This animal lives in marshes and reservoirs and if the habitats dry up, the lungfish can actually make its bladder function as a lung! For a fish, this is super cool that they have adapted to be able to breathe air during the increasingly-long dry season.
Every species is being impacted by climate change in their own way and what we hope is that they will be able to find a way to survive, and thrive, under these circumstances. However, it is inevitable that some will not. The best thing that we can do is to try to minimize our impacts as humans to reduce the effects of climate change which will hopefully help all these amazing animals around the world!
We asked a wetland ecologist, a fire scientist, and a Tasmanian Aboriginal person to answer this question. Their answers may surprise you - because climate change is already affecting Tasmania.
Indigenous perspective
Tasmanian Aboriginal People have been seeing climate change effects for well over 15 years now, we have noticed these effects on our traditional cultural resources such as the marineer shells, Mutton Birds, and dog wood trees/saplings.
Marineer Shells are used in traditional shell necklace making (mental health, connection to country). The shells come in a variety of colours and sizes. They are an iridescent metallic green or blue colour and are often representative of status or valued highly as a trade item, depending on the quality, quantity, and shell variety.
Some of the climate change affects which has been seen on the shells are discoloration, spotted corrosion, thinning of the shell walls, and becoming more brittle because of this. Their numbers are reducing, the water they live in has become more acidic, the weeds they live in and on have reduced in number and coverage per hectare, in some cases being pushed out of the area by other weeds.
Mutton birds are being affected by micro plastics in the water, and the blockages are interfering with their energy levels for their long-haul migrations and breeding cycles. Dog wood (used for making spears and clap sticks) saplings are growing at a faster rate and are being shown to not grow as straight nor with the same internal strength qualities that have been apparent for thousands of years.
Antarctica is a continent of rock that is covered by ice and surrounded by the Southern Ocean – this sets it apart from the Arctic, which is all sea ice and no land. Human activities elsewhere are impacting upon Antarctica and in particular the Antarctic ice – for instance, traces of the industrial revolution can be found within ice cores from the Antarctic, dating to before humans had set foot on the continent. That means we were influencing the place before we even knew that it existed. Now Antarctica is one of the most surveyed places on earth, thanks to mapping, monitoring, and satellite technology. If there was no Antarctica at all, the world’s ocean currents would behave differently. There would be no circumpolar current, and no cold bottom water to drive the circulation of the currents from the south. The animals that live in Antarctica would not have a habitat, so we would have less biodiversity on earth.
It is important to take care of Antarctica because it is a home for many species of animals, such as penguins and seals, and the surrounding oceans are home to whales and krill. Antarctica plays a key role not only for the creatures that call Antarctica and the Southern Ocean home, but also for people who live in far-away places. For instance, melting ice sheets in Antarctica can contribute to sea level rise on distant tropical islands. That means it’s not only scientists who have a role to play in speaking up for and protecting Antarctica – we all have some responsibility. There are many ways to connect with Antarctica from back home – these include participating in citizen science projects (such as counting penguins on Penguin Watch), learning about the similarities between Australia and Antarctica (such as how to identify the trees that have been found in fossils in Antarctica), or enjoying books and films about the continent. The Antarctica that lives in the public imagination is shaped by these sorts of inputs and is super important because most people never visit the continent.
What will happen to animals? The answer is- it depends. Some will move around to find new places to live. Some will evolve to the new climate conditions where they currently live. And some species will die or go extinct. Let’s look at how species might respond and why this means that even with evolution and moving, some will still die.
Species are evolving and moving in response to climate change. Examples of evolution are changes in how a species can tolerate extreme temperatures – known as thermal ranges. Some species will die at particular temperatures. For example in late 2018 many flying foxes died in an extreme heat wave in northern Australia. Marine heatwaves result in mass coral reef deaths.
But if individual plants or animals within a species happen to have or abilities to survive at higher temperatures, then, over time, those traits will become widespread within the species, because those individuals survive and reproduce. In fact, scientists are selectively breeding coral reefs for their ability to tolerate higher temperatures and then farming these corals to improve the health of the Great Barrier Reef.
Some species can also move around in order to follow suitable climate conditions (like the right temperature or rainfall for them). Plants use wind to move seeds kilometres away, birds can fly long distances to find the next suitable tree hollow to live in, and mammals can follow habitat corridors like rivers and tree lined fences to find the next forest to live in. In this way, some species can continue to adapt and follow changes in their habitat to survive. Scientists call this ‘species on the move’ and it’s a big area of current research. These scientists estimate that so many species will move or redistribute themselves, the types of plants and animals you see out your back door today may well be different in the future.
But evolving, or moving, takes time. Evolution is a multi-generational process. And species tend to move anywhere from a few metres to 10s of kilometres each year depending on how big and how mobile they are. If climate change outpaces the speed at which species can move or change, then they are at risk of dying.
One study estimated that if we follow our current, business-as-usual trajectory of climate change, which is projected to lead to a 4.3°C temperature rise, climate change would threaten one in six species (16%). This could as much as double our extinction rates.
The species that are most likely to be at risk of extinction are those that are on islands (like New Zealand and Australia) where there’s not enough space for species to move or track their preferred climate. So here in Australia, we will have more species extinctions due to climate change relative to other parts of the world.
This is one of many reasons why people are calling for governments to limit climate change to 1.5°C, by ‘decarbonising’ our economy – or stopping emissions of CO2. If we do this, we can reduce the rates at which plants and animals become extinct.
It’s very important that we do whatever we can to help slow climate change, even if some of the climate effects are unavoidable.
But to answer this, let’s focus on a few key variables. By 2040, no matter what we do – aggressively reduce emissions or not – the amount of warming will be about 1.5 to 1.6°C. With this warming will come some changes in rain. It is predicted that southwest and eastern Australia will be drier, Tasmania probably about the same. Heat waves will happen about twice as often, and when they do occur, they will be hotter. Sea level will likely be about 10cm higher than it is now, but this is difficult to predict.
This is not very good news, but the important thing to realise is that anything we do now, will start to make climate change less worse after 2040.
Polar bears and penguins spend much of their life on the sea ice - a thin layer of frozen sea water that floats on top of the ocean. As sea levels rise, the ice moves up with the water. This means that rising sea levels aren't a big problem for polar bears and penguins. But, climate change is still a big problem for these animals, because the ice they rely on is melting.
That’s a great question and a tricky one to answer accurately, because it depends a lot on how we humans adapt and respond to change. We can be certain that things will be different, though. It’s likely there will be a lot more extreme weather events – droughts, floods, bushfires, cyclones, and storms. In some place the seas will have risen to flood homes and areas that are now dry land. Some species will suffer and go extinct as environmental conditions become unsuitable for them. Other species will thrive as conditions begin suit them better, their populations might grow, or they might start to live in places that were previously too difficult for them.
What life will be like for us is pretty uncertain, but here are some things I hope will change as humans adapt to a changing climate. People will share more with their communities – food, skills, transport (probably not cars as we know them!). Vegetable gardens and fruit trees will replace lawns in many homes. Building design will prepare for floods, fires, and storms. We will consume and waste less, recognising that the food and resources we take from the oceans and land are limited. Wealthier people and countries will share with less wealthy people and countries, to make sure everyone has the best chance of adapting to change. Governments will plan well for change and for unpredictable things like extreme weather events and pandemics, making decisions to help everyone and our natural environments.
Over time, if we do nothing to slow or reverse climate change, the average Earth temperature could rise by 8 degrees Celsius or more! This would eventually cause changes so profound that if you were an astronaut orbiting our planet, you’d be able to clearly see with your eyes the changes from space. This is ironic because the pollution we are creating that is causing the Earth to warm (mostly carbon dioxide, but also methane and other ‘greenhouse’ gases) is largely invisible. That means we can’t actually look up into the sky and see how this pollution is building up in our air – but watch this clever video that let’s you see how quickly carbon dioxide builds up in just one city (New York) from our everyday human activities! The main reason why climate is changing is that the pollution created from burning petrol, gas and coal to generate energy for humans is making our atmosphere increasingly effective at trapping energy from the sun on our planet at night rather than letting it escape back into space (see picture below). It is like each new year’s worth of pollution is adding more and more blankets to our atmosphere – gradually overheating the Earth.
Imagine that you are an astronaut orbiting the Earth. How does the Earth look now? And how would what it looks like change by 2050 if we do nothing to slow or reverse climate change? Let’s explore two examples.
One thing that really makes our earth stand out are its colours. Bright blue for the ocean, brown and greens for the land. And – at the north and south pole and surrounding areas (the polar regions) – bright white from the large areas of ice. The North Pole is surrounded by the Arctic Ocean so this ice is frozen sea water. The South Pole is actually on land (in Antarctica) so this ice is frozen fresh water. In fact, 70% of the world’s fresh water is frozen in ice sheets and glaciers! What happens to ice when the water or air around it gets warmer? It melts, of course! You can try this at home. Put an ice cube in a glass. Time how fast it melts when left at room temperature versus heated in the microwave, or when put in cold versus hot water. So far, the average earth temperature has risen by about 1.2 degrees Celsius and ice is melting at a rapidly increasing rate in both the Arctic and Antarctica. If the average Earth temperature rises by 8 degrees or more, from space you would notice that the white icy areas around the poles would drastically shrink in size. In the Arctic, they’d turn dark blue (what water looks like from space). In the Antarctic, they’d turn brown or green (land). See before and after pictures of this here. What does ice turn into when it melts? You got it – water! What do you think would happen to the oceans if more and more water gets added to them? The sea level will have to rise, of course. This means that land areas around coastlines that are currently not very high above sea level would end up under water. By 2050, this could include many of the world’s largest cities like Jakarta in Indonesia, Lagos in Nigeria and even New York City! And spare a thought for small island nations around the world who currently live less than 1 metre or so above sea level – their homes would completely disappear. What would this mean for you and where you live in Australia (see example below if all ice on earth melted)?
Find out what it means for you and where you live- put in your address and see whether your house would flood under different levels of sea level rise here. From space, if you could close your eyes and see 2022 and then close them again and see 2050, you’d notice that the shape and size of the land areas of Earth would change – smaller land areas and more ocean. Less brown and green and more blue.
These changes to how the Earth looks (less white due to ice loss at the poles, more blue and less brown as sea levels rise) are dramatic by themselves but also have further consequences for global weather especially extreme events like drought, floods, bushfire, heat waves and storms, which you can explore yourself or with your teachers.
If this makes you anxious, please know that people all over the world are working as hard as possible to convince leaders to act to slow and reverse climate change. It’s not too late to change the ending to this story. For example, 2,629 kids from 33 countries drew pictures of trees as a way to help cool the earth and a tree was planted for each of them. A giant banner of these drawings is being filmed at schools and in forests all over the world (https://www.kidscareaboutclimate.org) and a video of this will be shown at COP27 in the Australian Pavilion during the United Nations climate change meeting this month!!
