There can be no more covering, and no more denying that global heating is supercharging extreme weather taking lives everywhere.
At a stunning speed, visible in India and beyond, according to an article in The Guardian human-caused climate meltdown is accelerating the toll of extreme weather across the planet. People across the world are losing their lives and livelihoods due to more deadly and frequent floods, heatwaves, earthquakes, wildfires, and droughts activated by climate change. Climate change is displacing millions of people everywhere and destroying the economy too, with massive losses.
Earth’s nature populations have declined by an average of 69% in just under 50 years, according to a leading scientific assessment, as humans continue to clear forests, consume beyond the limits of the planet and pollute on an industrial scale.
From the open ocean to tropical rainforests, the abundance of birds, fish, amphibians, and reptiles is in freefall, declining on average by more than two-thirds between 1970 and 2018, according to the WWF and Zoological Society of London’s (ZSL) biennial Living Planet Report. Two years ago, the figure stood at 68%, four years ago, it was at 60%.
Many scientists believe we are living through the sixth mass extinction – the largest loss of life on Earth since the time of the dinosaurs – and sadly, this is being pushed by humans. The report’s 89 authors are urging world leaders to reach an enterprising agreement at the Cop15 biodiversity summit in Canada this December and to slash carbon emissions to limit global heating to below 1.5C this decade to halt the rampant destruction of nature.
Latin America and the Caribbean region – including the Amazon – have seen the steepest decline in average wildlife population size, with a 94% drop in 48 years. Tanya Steele, chief executive at WWF-UK, said: “This report tells us that the worst declines are in the Latin America region, home to the world’s largest rainforest, the Amazon. Deforestation rates there are revving, robbing this unique ecosystem not just of trees but of the wildlife that depends on them and of the Amazon’s ability to act as one of our most powerful partners in the fight against climate change.
”Africa had the second largest fall at 66%, followed by Asia and the Pacific with 55% and North America at 20%. Europe and Central Asia experienced an 18% fall. The total loss is akin to the human population of Europe, the Americas, Africa, Oceania, and China disappearing, according to the report.
The researchers underscore the increased difficulty animals are having to move through terrestrial landscapes as they are blocked by infrastructure and farmland. Only 37% of rivers longer than 1,000km (600 miles) remain free-flowing along their entire length, while just 10% of the world’s protected areas on land are connected.
The IUCN is also developing a standard to calculate the conservation potential of an animal, known as its green status, which will allow researchers to plot a path to recovery for some of the one million species threatened with extinction on Earth. The pink pigeon, burrowing betting, and Sumatran rhino was highlighted as species with good conservation potential in a study last year.
Robin Freeman, head of the indicators and assessments unit at ZSL, said it was clear that humanity is eroding the very foundations of life, and urgent action is needed. “In order to see any bending of the curve of biodiversity loss … it’s not just about conservation it’s about changing production and consumption – and the only way that we are going to be able to legislate or call for that is to have these clear measurable targets that ask for recovery of abundance, reduction of extinction risk and the ceasing of extinctions at Cop15 in December.”
Regions of the world warm at differing rates. The pattern is independent of where greenhouse gases are emitted because the gases persist long enough to diffuse across the planet. Since the pre-industrial period, the average surface temperature over land regions has increased almost twice as fast as the global average surface temperature. This is because of the larger heat capacity of oceans, and because oceans lose more heat by evaporation.
The thermal energy in the global climate system has grown with only brief pauses since at least 1970, and over 90% of this extra energy has been stored in the ocean. The rest has heated the atmosphere, melted ice, and warmed the continents.
The Northern Hemisphere and the North Pole have heated much faster than the South Pole and Southern Hemisphere. The Northern Hemisphere not only has much more land, but also more seasonal snow cover and sea ice. As these surfaces flip from reflecting a lot of light to being dark after the ice has melted, they start absorbing more heat.
Local black carbon deposits on snow and ice also contribute to Arctic warming. Arctic temperatures are increasing at over twice the rate of the rest of the world. Melting of glaciers and ice sheets in the Arctic disrupts ocean circulation, including a weakened Gulf Stream, further changing the climate.
Planting trees, building forests, buying energy-efficient products, using reusable biodegradable products, using bicycles, using less heat and air conditioning, switching off lights, and many other steps can help. Perhaps, the greatest step can be planting green everywhere. Just go green!