BaCCC/Module 2/Lesson 2/Part 2
Why is climate change an urgent emergency for the rest of nature (plants and non-human animals)too?
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It is clear, from world news and perhaps your own experience, that it is not just people that are impacted by climate change. Other animals (humans are animals too) and plants are being impacted as well.
Here are some striking examples:
The 2019−2020 “Black Summer” bushfires (known elsewhere as wildfires or forest fires) in Australia – besides burning the trees and other plants on 24.3 million hectares (60 million acres or 243,000 square kilometres) of land – are believed to have killed, injured or displaced 3 billion animals:
- 2.46 billion reptiles
- 181 million birds
- 51 million amphibians (frogs)
- innumerable freshwater fish and crayfish
- 143 million mammals, including 61,000 endangered koala bears, 1 million wombats, 5 million kangaroos and wallabies, 5 million bats, 39 million possums and gliders, 50 million native mice and rats, 5½ million bettongs, bandicoots, quokkas and potoroos (BBC, 2020; Readfearn, 2020)
This has been called one of the “worst wildlife disasters in modern history” (Dermot O’Gorman, chief executive of World Wildlife Fund – Australia). “Even if resident animals were not killed outright by fires and managed to escape, they will surely have experienced higher subsequent risk of death as a result of injuries or later stress and deprivation of key resources,” the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Australia (2020) report says.
In June 2021, a “heat dome” (stalled heatwave) in the Pacific Northwest region of North America was responsible for the hottest day ever in Canadian history (and nearly 600 human deaths). After reaching 49.6ºC (121.3ºF), the small town of Lytton in British Columbia burned to the ground the next day, killing two people.
About 300 kilometres away, along the Pacific coast, it was estimated that hundreds of millions, if not “more than a billion marine animals may have been killed by the unusual heat,” according to Christopher Harley, a marine biologist at the University of British Columbia.
Snails, sea stars and clams were decaying in the shallow water. “It was an overpowering, visceral experience,” he [Harley] said. . . . The mass death of shellfish would temporarily affect water quality because mussels and clams help filter the sea, Harley said, keeping it clear enough that sunlight reaches the eelgrass beds while also creating habitats for other species. (The Guardian, 2021)
(These secondary, unintended effects are called knock-on effects, like a domino game.)
Next came bad news out of Kenya: More than 200 elephants were among the thousands of animals killed by drought in Kenya between February and October of 2022 (ABC News). The drought in East Africa, the worst in 40 years, “has caused mortality of wildlife . . . because of the depletion of food resources as well as water shortages,” said Kenya’s tourism minister. By February 2023, 11 million livestock had already died in the Horn of Africa, according to the WMO.
Species and ecosystems also have tipping points. As you have learnt, once past a tipping point, there is no coming back. It is that risk of irreversibility that makes climate change an urgent emergency for the rest of nature, as well as human beings.
References
- ↑ BBC Word News, 2020. BBC World News Australia
- ↑ WWF, 2020. 3 Billion Animals ...
- ↑ The Guardian, 2021. Devastating 61,000 Koalas ...
- ↑ New York Times, 2021. Marine Heat Wave
- ↑ Seattle Times, 2021. Crushing Heat Wave ...
- ↑ The Guardian, 2021. Heat Dome Canada ...
- ↑ ABC New, 2022. Hundreds of Elephants and Other Animals Die in Kenya Drought
- ↑ WMO, 2023. Another poor rainy season forecast drought-hit horn of Africa
