The world is facing a huge climate issue as the earth continues to overheat. And along with this overheating planet comes the question of the survival of animals and plants. Many will have to adapt to global warming and based on how quickly climate change is evolving, the possibility for some of these species to adapt in the same amount of time is nearly impossible.
It would be false to believe that there is not a species that has adapted to past climate fluctuations, yet the rate of adaptation is extremely slow. With the rate that climate change is evolving now, it is expected to be dramatically warmer by the end of the century.
“Global temperatures are going to rise by about four degrees over the next 100 years as predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,” states Professor John Wiens, University of Arizona (The Guardian).
Most land animals will not be able to evolve so quickly to adapt to this dramatic change, thus: many species face extinction. For many species, simply evolving to match the new conditions of global warming may not be an option. Moving habitat for many of these species is also not an option.
Though many seem to believe that climate change is not an issue for much of the planet’s wildlife, there is a lot at stake for these creatures. Not only is there are melting icecaps, rising sea levels, and extremely drastic temperatures at stake, the speed at which these are occurring is inconceivable. This transformation is not so far away as we may think and we are the ones creating this transformation.
Let’s keep in mind what is at stake: much of today’s wildlife.
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