What do wine, baseball, french fries, frogs, polar bears and guacamole all have in common?
They are all threatened to be wiped out by global warming.
“Now wait a minute,” you think to yourself as you scan my list. “Global warming can wipe out french fries?!”
That’s right! When youth think global warming, we tend to think thirty, forty or fifty years from now before the effects are really present. We think global warming will affect our children or maybe even our grandchildren or their children. The problem is, global warming can have less than favourable effects on life as we know it. Take a look below:
Bye-Bye French Wine:
Changing rain cycles and intense temperatures due to global warming are shifting designated wine-growing areas
towards the poles, coastal areas and higher elevations. These regions are becoming limited, making it difficult to mass-produce wine. Further, change in temperature means that grapes develop their sugar too quickly, before other flavours. To avoid this, growers either leave the grapes on the vine longer (dramatically increasing alcohol content), or they pick the grapes too soon, making overly sweet wine that tastes like jam! Bye-Bye Wine, and Hello Liquid Jam!
Bye-Bye Baseball:
Did you know all baseball bats are made from ash tree? These glorious trees are in danger of disappearing due to the deadly combination of global warming and killer beetles.
Bye-Bye to Skiing and Ski Competitions:
I was saddened to read that the International Ski Federation had to cancel their Alpine skiing World Cup,
because of unusually warm winters. Skiers are having trouble find spaces for year-round training, and are worried about the future of the sport. Also, ski resorts have been losing as much as a third of their season, because of warmer weather. There goes my winter ski vacation.
Bye-Bye to That Snorkeling Vacation
Thinking about substituting your annual ski trip with a tropical vacation?
Think again. Not only are some of the coral in the Caribbean nearly gone -”victims of pollution, warmer water and acidification from the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide seeping into oceans,” but Indonesia’s Environment Minister announced in 2007 that scientific studies show 2,000 of the country’s tropical islands could disappear by 2030 due to rising sea levels.
Bye-Bye Polar Bears
A recent study completed by the U.S. Geological Survey shows that many polar bears are unable to swim within the increased spaced between melting sea ice. Two-thirds of them may be gone by 2050!!
Bye-Bye to Ice in the Arctic
The amount of ice in the Arctic at the end of the 2005 summer “was the smallest seen in 27 years of satellite imaging, and probably the smallest in 100 years.” Experts said it’s the strongest evidence of global warming in the Arctic thus far.
Bye-Bye to the Great Barrier Reef
According to the U.N., the Great Barrier Reef will disappear within decades as “warmer, more acidic seas could severely bleach coral in the world-famous reef as early as 2030.”
Bye-Bye Guacamole:
Mexican food not the same without guacamole?
Find another dip for your tortilla chips!
Scientists from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory predict hotter temperature will cause a 40 percent drop in California’s avocado production over the next 40years.
And that change is in California alone!
Bye-Bye to French Fries:
McDonald’s is going to have to come up with a new line, because “Would you like fries with that?” isn’t going to work any longer.
Scientists say warmer temperatures are killing off wild relatives ofpotato and peanut plants, “threatening a valuable source of genes necessary to help these food crops fight pests and drought.” No potatoes means no more fries!
(You can view the whole article here. Credit goes to the source.)
I, for one, am not about to give up my French Fries!
Most importantly, think of it this way: humans use nature and the environment extensively – for food, shelter, resources, minerals, day-to-day activities, etc. If something as small as potatoes are being effected by global warming, just imagine the kinds of effects that global warming is having on a large scale – on ecosystems, animals, plants and humans as a whole…
So tell me, what are youth going to do to make a difference?
- Fariya Walji
CEO and Founder of Change Tomorrow’s World
