The Big Picture: The Earth at RiskFrom: www.environmentadefense.org

www.iucnredlist.org

Four Laws of Ecology

• Keep these laws in mind as you view the slides and information that follow:

1. Everything is connected to everything else.2. Everything goes somewhere – possibly in a

different form but virtually nothing goes totally out of existence

3. Nature knows best – all molecules constructed by nature are biodegradable – not all molecules made by humans are.

4. There’s no such thing as a free lunch – every action has consequences that ripple out triggering other actions.

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)

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)

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.

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.

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 plant’s restricted and fragmented range further imperils the panda, which is one of the world’s best-known and best-loved endangered species.

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.

White Rhinoceros

• The world’s 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.

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 it’s still there. Rising sea levels and more intense storms resulting from climate change further imperil already-declining sea turtles.

African Elephant

• An icon of Africa’s 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 planet’s largest mammal, the African elephant needs vast lands to supply its plant-based diet.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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)

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.

Rising Sea Level

• A "fifty-year" flood deluged this Hoboken, NJ underground train station when the 1992 Nor’easter 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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

Forest Fires

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

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)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.