99% of every animal species to ever live on Earth has gone extinct, over 4 billion of them. The factors for extinction are constantly changing from meteors to volcanoes to pandemics trillions of animals have fought and lost to the claws of natural selection. As the most prevalent and survivable species of all time, we humans have found ourselves many rungs above the predators of yesterday in every ecosystem on Earth. Little stands in the way of our dominance, besides ourselves. Humans are simultaneously the world’s greatest builders and largest exterminators. These traits collided and merge to give us both current society and the storms that face it. Be it the pandemic or nuclear war, our innovation and collectiveness have given us our biggest threats. Climate change leading to global warming is quickly becoming the greatest reckoning humanity has ever faced: a purely human-made issue directly caused by what our predecessors did. But climate change is not just a human issue. It affects and likely will affect almost every species on Earth if our corrupting ways go unchecked. Oceans are expanding and heating up, deserts are drying further, and natural disasters are strengthening, forcing change on plenty of environments. Now close to a million species globally are on the brink of extinction from global warming. California is uniquely affected by global warming because we have many different environments here, so the effects are widespread to many species. After the largest recorded wildfires in California over the past few years, in addition to the larger than ever droughts and heatwaves, native plants and animals here have been dramatically affected. Natural habitats like redwood groves, Joshua Tree, Death Valley, and the Trinity Alps are all experiencing exaggerated climate shifts. Without the thousands of years of evolution normally given to native species in such shifts, there is a significant risk of eradication to the flora and fauna that make California’s unique land. The L.A. Times article “California builds a ‘Noah’s Ark’ to protect wildlife from extinction by fire and heat” linked details efforts to protect now endangered California species. Targeting climate change with policy and effort, like renewable energy solutions and carbon removers, is an important focus, but we are at a point where our inaction has irreversible consequences, so compromises are needed to sustain what we have now. Should it be humans’ job to protect other species from extinction regardless of if we are causing it? Should we only keep a few of each species alive or devote more resources to protect entire populations? Can we be the judges of what species should be saved? Whose responsibility would it be to protect them? Do you even care about climate change? What relevance does it have in your life? Should climate change and its effects be fought on a company level, county level, state level, etc, or should it fundamentally be at a global level?
1 Comment
Ann Diederich
10/14/2021 12:27:21 pm
Climate change is indeed the most pressing issue of our time. It will be important for us to read the recent reports that our leading climate experts have released and seek out community initiatives to address this.
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