Frozen landscapes at risk due to climate change
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Just like the heart rate of a human, ice cover is a vital sign of the health of our planet. At the earth's poles, the picture is unmistakable: the planet is warming, its ice cover receding year-by-year, bringing about rising sea levels and adverse change to living organisms around the world. As we move towards the equator, the picture is no longer as simple as a "warmer" climate, but rather a rapidly changing one: from changes in precipitation patterns and sudden flooding to extreme droughts, from more intense heat waves to more frequent ice storms. Pictures of starving polar bears unable to hunt in the absence of large ice sheets, go hand-in-hand with news of coral reef death in the tropics, and the resulting wide-scale loss of marine habitat.
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The root causes of such monumental change are numerous and complex, but a universal scientific consensus (notably a group of 1300 independent scientific experts all over the world under the auspices of the United Nations) points to human activity over the past 50 years as a major driver, both accelerating and increasing the intensity of climate change. Our modern civilisation relies heavily upon industrial activity but the resulting increase in greenhouse emissions, including CO2, is unsustainable. Visiting remote places near or in the arctic region, such as the glaciers of Alaska and Iceland photographed here some years back, has a direct emotional impact that forces these truths home. And yet, even as a city dweller, the impact of climate change not just on the planet as a whole, but on humankind itself, is all-too-real: disruptions in agriculture, fisheries, water and food supply, coastal regions becoming uninhabitable; rising levels of ground level ozone resulting in a variety of health problems; these are just some examples of the detrimental effects of climate change, and they will bear disproportionately heavily upon those in need. Stepping up against climate change is probably the great challenge of our generation and, thankfully, experts have laid out concrete steps that we can all take now. Individuals can cut down on consumption of carbon-intensive goods and reduce their emissions footprint via lifestyle changes; indicatively, they can: reuse products like grocery plastic bags whenever possible (manufacturing new products is an emissions intensive process so single-use products have a major environmental impact) and recycle when not; efficiently insulate their home and invest in a programmable thermostat and LED light bulbs; eat locally whenever possible as shipping burns a lot of fuel; reduce traveling by car whenever possible and maintain one's car so that it runs efficiently when not; cut down, even slightly, on meat consumption. Volunteers can contribute to the conservation of natural habitat by reducing pollution and protecting wildlife which is coming under increased pressure by climate change. Companies can reduce their carbon footprint and utilise alternative sources of energy where possible; and, finally, nation states can bind each other in agreements such as the Paris Agreement to cut down on carbon emissions globally. The political will to achieve this shift in paradigm ultimately lies in the collective will of each and every one of us.
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All images and text © 2016-2022 Stella Kontarouda. All rights reserved.
All images and text © 2016-2022 Stella Kontarouda. All rights reserved.