Are humans the reason why our planet is dying?
Introduction: (Byler)
Over the past few centuries, our human activities have sped up the decline of our planet's health. Impacts on our atmosphere are causing rapid changes on the Earth’s surface that will lead to irreversible changes and even possible mass excitation event if we do not mend what we have broken. Gradually decreasing our planets’ carbon emissions by getting our power from renewable sources will fix what we have broken.
Body 1 (Chris) – Compare mass extinction events to more recent extinctions
The Ordovician-Silurian extinction event was a mass extinction event that happened approximately 443 million years ago and lasted around 5 million years (Muscato, 2003-2018). At this time, most land on Earth formed one supercontinent named ‘Gondwana’ which was mostly underwater (Team, 2017). Organisms that lived during the Ordovician period were mainly aquatic organisms including corals, molluscs and sea stars that inhabited shallow, warm waters (Team, 2017) (Muscato, 2003-2018). The most reliable theory for this extinction event was that the movement of ‘Gondwana’ into the south polar region caused global cooling, glaciation, and then a fall in sea level (Team, 2017). Since the majority of plant and animal diversity had adapted to shallow, warm waters, the drop in sea level was devastating (Muscato, 2003-2018). Numerous species were not able to survive the deeper, colder oceans and died out (Muscato, 2003-2018). 85% of all species were wiped out by this extinction (Muscato, 2003-2018).
Bees are extremely important to other living organisms and the ecosystem but have unfortunately become endangered (HALTIWANGER, 2014). Bees have become endangered mainly because of pesticides and climate change, both of which are strongly connected to humans (HALTIWANGER, 2014). Pesticides cause bees to go insane, leave their hives and then forget how to return home, essentially abandoning their hive (HALTIWANGER, 2014). It is suspected that climate change disturbs the synchronization of bee hibernation and flower opening causing bees to die (HALTIWANGER, 2014). Bees are important as they pollinate over 250,000 plant species allowing organisms that make up the food chain to survive (Bardroff, 2014) (BBC, 2014). Ultimately, without bees, plants that need pollination would die out, followed by herbivores and then carnivores due to lack of food (BBC, 2014).
It is clear that the organisms during the Ordovician-Silurian extinction event went extinct because of climate change, similar to what is currently happening to Earth and its organisms like bees. The Ordovician-Silurian extinction event was caused by natural occurrences which included declining sea levels however, what is happening now to the Earth and its organisms is mainly due to human actions such as using pesticides and burning fossil fuels.
Body 2 (Kieran) – Impact of climate change on biodiversity
Climate change is a sudden change in weather patterns or base temperature in the atmosphere. Climate change can affect the earth in many ways, it can rise the sea levels, melting ice caps, for example Antarctica, all that ice would melt, and all that water would make its way to the ocean, it could also affect the biodiversity of the earth. Biodiversity is the variety of living things on earth or in a natural habitat or biome. On Earth, there is an extensive biodiversity incorporating humans, nature, animals, and all other living organisms. Biodiversity is what makes human life possible. Biodiversity is the number of species of plants, animals, and microorganisms, the enormous diversity of genes in these species and the different ecosystems on the planet. A smaller biodiversity can make the food chain much smaller, less plants to convert carbon dioxide to oxygen, this brings down overall oxygen in the earth’s atmosphere, humanity and other species can die off. Without living organisms there would be no food for those who sit above in the food chain. Similarly, without plants and smaller ecosystems animals would be without a food source (Global Education project, ‘Animals at risk of climate change) (n.d). So how does climate change effect biodiversity? Some animals that are more likely to be affected by climate change are those species that live in snow biomes due to climate change melting ice caps in their home. if heat is to continually rise then it can be expected that arctic regions will not be able to accommodate and as such the ecosystems and life forms that inhabit these regions will become endangered and at risk of exposure to death. Climate change can affect biodiversity in very extreme ways, whether the effects are direct or indirectly killing off species.
Body 3 (Josh) – Model a cycle in the biosphere
The water cycle is one of the main parts of the earth’s biosphere. The water cycle is the only cycle that provides water to the earths floors and to animals drinking holes and even to our taps (NASA, 2011). The first part of the cycle called Evaporation this is the part where the water from rivers and the ocean are drawn up by the sun into clouds. The seconded part of the cycle is called condonation, with this part the water from the oceans are turned into a gas of water making clouds providing shade for the earth. The third part of the water cycle is call precipitation, this part of the cycle involves the clouds because not only the clouds provide shade for the earth it also provides the water it evaporated back down to the earths floor providing the earths animals and humans with water one again (Berkey, 2018). The water cycle provides plant life with one of the most important resources need for a plant to grow, this also is included for humans and animals. Humans are made up of 70% water, meaning humans can’t go for more than three to four days without water and only three weeks without food. That means if there was no water for humans making the human race extinct from the earth for ever because we would only last three to four days without water (insider, 2018).
Body 4 (Tyler) – The enhanced greenhouse effect
Our sun emits shortwave radiation which enters our atmosphere and gets absorbed. This is known as the greenhouse effect and occurs on every planet with a star and an atmosphere. The enhanced greenhouse effect is the fact that our human activities enhance it (Bagley, 2016). This means that our average surface temperature is rising which comes with a lot of problems that we must face if we don’t help fix what we have caused. Since we are the main cause of the enhanced greenhouse effect, we must be the ones to fix it as it would be catastrophic when average surface temperatures skyrocket. They will eventually reach a point when all the ice caps melt. Our water levels will rise around 5 feet which will cause a majority of the islands in the Pacific Ocean to be submerged which results in a massive loss of life. The enhanced greenhouse effect will not necessarily be fixed, but it can be mended to the point where it will not cause the planet to be in jeopardy (lcsun news, 2018). Eventually, the earth will become uninhabitable no matter what we do, but for the next couple billion years humanity should take care of our planet as it is all we have. Since we are at the point where we need to take extreme measures to stop the enhanced greenhouse event, we should aim to get our power from other forms such as water or wind, instead of getting it from burning coal. If Earth’s surface temperature rises by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, the changes will most likely be irreversible which means a huge step in the wrong direction for humanity. It has already risen around 1.8 degrees since the late 19thcentury, as a result of the enhanced greenhouse effect. A lot of the changes that have already taken place are not reversible, though, a lot of them can be stopped if most countries decide to cut down drastically on carbon emissions (unfccc, 2018).
Recommendation (Kieran)
We can all agree that this is a big issue, it may be impossible to stop but not improbable to slow down. For us to slow this down every country must work together, how do we do this? May I present to you the Paris agreement. The Paris Climate Agreement is a written contract that countries may enter with the intention and promise to the best of their abilities reduce the creation of and limit the emission of green-house gases into the environment. Australia is one of the countries that have already signed and is trying to make a movement with this agreement, by the year 2030, using coal fired electricity would be a federal offence and could be punishable by jail time and the company having to pay a $10 million fine. (Courier mail, 2018)
Conclusion (Chris)
Recently, human practices like burning fossil fuels have done more harm to the Earth than good. Because of us, global warming has sped up and animals like the dodo have been going extinct. If we don’t change our ways, the atmosphere will keep getting warmer, sea levels will rise faster and species will continue to go extinct. Through reducing the amount of greenhouse gases we release into the atmosphere and by using renewable resources like sunlight and wind, we can help improve the health of our planet for the future.