The%20Big%20Picture:%20The%20Earth%20at%20Risk

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The Big Picture The Earth at Risk

• From www.environmentadefense.org
• www.iucnredlist.org

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Four Laws of Ecology

• Keep these laws in mind as you view the slides
  and information that follow
• Everything is connected to everything else.
• Everything goes somewhere possibly in a
  different form but virtually nothing goes totally
  out of existence
• Nature knows best all molecules constructed by
  nature are biodegradable not all molecules made
  by humans are.
• Theres no such thing as a free lunch every
  action has consequences that ripple out
  triggering other actions.

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Moose

• A warming trend in Alaska over the past three
  decades - higher temperatures that last longer
  during the year - is evidenced in the melting of
  the permafrost. This change in habitat means
  trouble for animal species such as moose.
  (Credit U.S. Geological Service)

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Polar Bears

• Polar bears in the southern range, for instance,
  who hunt for much of their prey on sea ice,
  experience shorter hunting seasons now that sea
  ice melts earlier in the spring and freezes later
  in the fall. (credit Gene Augustine/NOAA)

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More on Polar Bears

• The most carnivorous of the worlds bears, the
  polar bear has long reigned at the top of the
  arctic food chain. Superbly adapted to prowling
  for prey on the ice, this bear has met one enemy
  it cannot vanquish climate change. As ice packs
  thin and melt earlier, bears go hungry.
  Scientists have already noted population declines
  and more bears drowning as they try to swim for
  their prey.

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Sea Otter

• In some areas of Alaska, sea otter populations
  are plummeting, and their plight underscores the
  complexity of marine ecosystems. Scientists are
  finding that killer whales are increasingly
  preying on otters, likely because fewer sea lions
  are available. Sea lions decline along with
  their prey fish. Fish numbers are dropping,
  scientists believe, not only because of
  overfishing, but also because their food source
  plankton is scarcer in warming ocean waters.

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Monarch Butterflies

• Some butterfly populations have already shifted
  north as the planet warms. For others, the risk
  is even higher. Our best-known butterfly, the
  monarch, has breeds all over North America. Yet
  it depends on a few critical spots on the
  continent for winter habitat. Millions of
  eastern monarchs migrate to high-altitude nyamel
  fir trees in Mexico that are threatened by
  weather extremes belived to be accelerating under
  climate change.

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Giant Panda

• About 1,600 giant pandas live in the wild in
  China, where earlier surveys showed only 1,000.
  Yet immediate threats continue poaching, habitat
  loss and fragmentation, as human populations
  press into its forest habitat. Eons ago, the
  panda was carnivorous, but it now subsists almost
  entirely on vast quantities of bamboo. That
  plants restricted and fragmented range further
  imperils the panda, which is one of the worlds
  best-known and best-loved endangered species.

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Ocelot

• Only 50-100 endangered ocelots remain in the
  U.S., most along a 50-mile stretch of South Texas
  coast. After losing 95 of their habitat to brush
  clearing, these cats are further imperiled by
  climate change. Rising seas could cover most
  remaining habitat and migration north is not an
  option no habitat remains there. An additional
  climate change concern is increasing weather
  extremes droughts, flooding and severe
  hurricanes, any of which could wipe out the tiny
  population.

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White Rhinoceros

• The worlds second largest mammal, the white
  rhinoceros of Africa, is named not for its color
  but probably for the mud in which it wallows.
  Two subspecies exist. Once close to extinction,
  the southern population Is now relatively secure,
  but its critically-endangered northern
  counterpart numbers only about 30. Poaching
  threatens both subspecies.

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Leatherback Turtle

• Largest of the sea turtles, weighing up to 2,000
  pounds, the leatherback begins life as a tiny
  hatchling making its way from a sandy beach to
  sea. Few survive to reproduce, and only nesting
  females ever return to land. Most sea turtles are
  believed to nest on their natal beach if its
  still there. Rising sea levels and more intense
  storms resulting from climate change further
  imperil already-declining sea turtles.

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African Elephant

• An icon of Africas rich wildlife, the elephant,
  faces a new challenge loss of its forest and
  savannah habitat to climate change. Already
  endangered by poaching and habitat losses to
  human population increases, the African elephant
  is expected to lose yet more habitat in a warmer,
  drier Africa. As the planets largest mammal, the
  African elephant needs vast lands to supply its
  plant-based diet.

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Pika

• Though they look like mice, pikas are actually
  small-eared kin of rabbits. They live on rocky
  slopes at alpine and sub-alpine altitudes, where
  they scurry about to the delight of hikers. This
  remote habitat once provided security for pikas,
  but their survival is now imperiled by climate
  change. As the world becomes warmer, biologists
  are finding that some U.S. populations are moving
  to higher altitudes and others are disappearing
  entirely.

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Snow Leopard

• The beautiful and elusive snow leopard is
  imperiled by increasing poaching and conflicts
  with human land uses in its high altitude homes
  in Central Asia. Now a new threat has appeared in
  these mountains climate change. As the snow line
  recedes, imperiled snow leopards which are
  adapted to hunt on snowy terrain move higher,
  where vegetation is scarcer. Fewer plants mean
  less prey, and ultimately fewer snow leopards.

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Giant Bronze Gecko

• The Giant Bronze Gecko is endemic to the
  Seychelles islands of Silhouette and Praslin. In
  2005, the total population was estimated at
  3,184-3,594 animals. Currently listed as
  Vulnerable because the species has a very
  restricted range and it will be vulnerable to any
  degradation of its habitat, for example through
  the spread of invasive species.

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Oceanic Whitetip Shark

• The Oceanic Whitetip Shark is one of the most
  widespread of shark species, ranging across
  entire oceans in tropical and subtropical waters.
  The Vulnerable species is subject to fishing
  pressure virtually throughout its range. It is
  caught in large numbers as a bycatch in open sea
  fisheries, with longlines, probably gillnets,
  handlines and occasionally open sea and even
  bottom trawls. Its large fins are highly prized
  in international trade although the carcass is
  often discarded. Fishery pressure is likely to
  persist if not increase in future.

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Manta Ray

• The Manta Ray is has a wide range in tropical and
  semi-tropical shelf waters. Only a few directed
  fisheries exist. Recent demand for branchial
  filaments, which are dried and exported for the
  Asian medicinal market, has resulted in dramatic
  increases in fishing pressure for mobulids,
  including mantas, throughout South East Asia and
  Eastern Africa. Population declines have been
  observed in the Philippines, Mexico, Sri
  Lanka/India, Indonesia. Anthropogenic pressures
  (i.e., direct/indirect fisheries, pollution, and
  exploitation of coastal environments) in areas
  supporting critical habitats like breeding,
  birthing, and nursery grounds threaten the
  species.

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Glaciers

• Two centuries ago, ice blanketed Glacier Bay,
  Alaska. Renowned naturalist John Muir wrote in
  1879, "I saw the berg-filled expanse of the bay
  and the imposing fronts of five huge glaciers.
  A solitude of ice and snow and newborn rocks,
  dim, dreary, mysterious." The retreat of
  non-tidewater glaciers in Glacier Bay is related,
  scientists believe, to climate change. Satellite
  images help NASA study changes in the area.
  (credit NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center)

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More on Glaciers

• Worldwide, glaciers are shrinking. As melting
  accelerates, we lose more than scenic vistas For
  millennia, drinking water and agriculture for
  millions of people and critical ecosystems have
  been supplied by glaciers melting at sustainable
  rates. For decades, arctic ice fields have
  safely locked up long-living pollutants brought
  by winds from distand, industrialized areas. In a
  warmer world, coastal regions are likely to
  experience catastrophic flooding and erosion from
  rising ocean levels.

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Rising Sea Level

• A "fifty-year" flood deluged this Hoboken, NJ
  underground train station when the 1992
  Noreaster storm hit. This kind of flooding will
  occur much more frequently as rising sea levels
  generate higher storm surges and more extreme
  weather events cause more floods of this
  magnitude. (credit FEMA/USACE)

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The Everglades

• Environmentalist and author Marjory Stoneman
  Douglas wrote in 1947, "There are no other
  Everglades in the world. They are, they always
  have been, one of the unique regions of the
  Earth remote, never wholly known." But
  scientists today recognize this delicate,
  low-lying ecosystem -- and all of southern
  Florida -- is threatened by sea level rise.
  (credit EPA)

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Eroding Coastlines

• Global warming causes a rise in sea levels, which
  erode coastlines and destroy ecosystems and
  habitats for people and animals. According to the
  EPA, sea levels along the Florida coast are
  already rising at rates 6-10 times faster than
  those over the past three millennia, and are
  likely to rise as much as 20 inches above their
  1990 levels by the year 2100. (credit Army Corps
  of Engineers)

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Beaches

• Global warming is also contributing to beach
  erosion, which puts a huge drain on local, state,
  and federal government resources to reconstruct
  some of the country's favorite vacation spots
  such as Savannah, Georgia's Tybee Island pictured
  here. (credit Army Corps of Engineers)

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Increasing Insect-borne Diseases

• As the Earth heats up, the risk of insect-borne
  diseases such as malaria and Lyme disease, is
  expected to rise. This mosquito which carries
  dengue fever, for example, may be able to spread
  into more habitats, breed in higher numbers, and
  thus become a greater risk to a more widespread
  human population. (credit Centers for Disease
  Control and Prevention)

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Droughts

• Droughts also make vegetation more vulnerable to
  pest infestations and disease. As the climate
  heats up, droughts are expected to become more
  frequent and severe in some locations. During a
  drought in the summer of 2000 Lake Michigan water
  levels receded considerably. Social impacts of
  such severe conditions include reduced food
  availability, compromised water quality, and
  conflicts around water rights. (Credit Jaye
  Lunsford, courtesy of U. S. Geological Survey)

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Forest Fires

• Sustained drought makes wildfires more likely.
  This blaze in June 2002, known as the Hayman
  Fire, was Colorados biggest wildfire ever.
  Management practices and development in addition
  to drought contribute to the severity of
  wildfires. (credit Michael Rieger/FEMA)

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Forest Fires (continued)

• Titanic forest fires such as the one that ravaged
  Mongolia in April 1996 add large amounts of
  carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, thus
  contributing to global warming. (credit NASA
  Johnson Space Center)

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Tropical Forests

• In the tropics, "slash-and-burn" land clearing
  practices -- an unfortunate, common method of
  clearing land for farms or cattle ranches -- can
  trigger large fires during extended droughts, as
  pictured here in Brazil during the 1970s.

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Why Tropical Forests are Better than Alternate
Land uses such as cattle-ranching

• It filters more pollution from the air.
• It produces more oxygen.
• It stores more carbon, reducing the amount in the
  atmosphere.
• It has greater biological diversity contains
  50 of the plants species on earth, many which
  may have much to offer us some day.
• It reduces precipitation runoff more, thereby
  reducing flooding.

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Coral Reefs

• Ocean temperatures have been warming over the
  last century, and water that is only 2 to 3 F
  warmer than normal has been linked to the
  bleaching of coral reefs. Other factors which
  may contribute to bleaching include nutrient and
  sediment runoff from waterways, coastal
  development, dynamiting of reefs and natural
  storm damage.

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More on Coral Reefs

• Biologically rich and complex, coral reefs are
  found in tropical waters worldwide. Already at
  risk from pollution, over-fishing, destructive
  fishing practices, and careless fishing
  practices, these colorful ecosystems now struggle
  to survive as ocean temperatures rise. Warmer
  water causes corals to release the algae that
  provide much of their food. Bleached coral reefs
  are the white ghosts that remain.

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The Earth

• When astronauts first viewed Earth from space a
  few decades ago, they were awed not only by the
  beauty of our planet, but its vulnerability.
  Today we know far more about the perils to our
  only home. Climate change has vast potential for
  planet-wide harm, not only for humanpopulations,
  but also plants, animals and the habitats upon
  which they depend.