A new UN report (click here) is set to issue a stark warning on the impact of climate change on oceans and frozen areas, amid a push to ratchet up efforts to tackle the crisis.
The latest in a series of special reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is being published in the same week as countries meet at the UN for a summit aimed at upping ambitions on tackling global warming.
The study, which examines the oceans, coasts and the cryosphere or frozen areas of the world, is set to warn of huge increases in flooding damage, melting ice caps and glaciers and more ocean heatwaves that bleach and kill coral.
A draft of the report leaked to AFP suggested that if global temperatures rise to 2C above pre-industrial levels, 280 million people could be displaced by rising seas....
...The Nature Conservancy's global reef systems lead and IPCC report contributor Dr Elizabeth McLeod said the study "reinforces the urgency of the climate crisis"....
Plants and trees will vary, but the greatest asset to prevent coastal flooding are wetlands. Healthy wetlands will stem storm surges and prevent coastal flooding. The damage to the wetlands off Louisiana is exactly why the Ninth District was hit with a wall of water as never before. For decades authorities were warned about destroying the wetlands and the people were waiting for the "Big One." No state or federal authority would believe the marine botanists when they stated the wetlands were too disrupted and then came Katrina.
The country needs to listen to it's professionals. They are well educated and have been predicting disaster after disaster correctly for decades. If the USA is to end this climate crisis, it has to stop the reactionary government and instead a government that knows the best way forward.
Wetlands also provide benefits to industry. For example, they form nurseries for fish and other marine life and are critical to commercial and recreational fishing industries. More than one-third of the United States' threatened and endangered species live only in wetlands, and nearly half directly use wetlands at some point in their lives. Therefore, when a wetland is compromised, it can wreak havoc on entire ecosystems, to the point of collapse.
Causes of Wetland Loss
Like many other environmental issues that we face in our world today, much of the root causes of global wetland depletion are anthropogenic, resulting from the influence of human beings on nature. For example, one of the leading causes of wetland impairment is urbanization, which has resulted in direct loss of wetland acreage as well as degradation of wetlands. Other major sources of wetland loss and degradation include hydrologic alterations, industry (including industrial development), marinas/boats, agriculture, silviculture/timber harvest, mining, and atmospheric deposition....
