By Sanya
Khetani-Shah, Thu, 19/11/2015 - 08:51
Human-induced
climate change is happening. It is happening so fast that many species will
struggle to adapt and survive in the near future, unless we act now.
Already,
we can see the impact that rising temperatures are having on nature and people
and the benefits that nature provides to people. Birds, being the best-studied
group of organisms, are powerful sentinels for the natural world: They tell us
how biodiversity is responding to changing climate. All this has been
documented in a new joint report The
Messengers by BirdLife International and the National Audubon Society, which comes out before the
climate change summit in Paris (read the foreword by the heads of both
organisations here).
The
report – a synthesis of hundreds of peer-reviewed studies – explains with
real-world examples how climate change has and will continue to affect birds
and people. The outlook is bleak: from forced migration due to loss of habitat
to greater threat from diseases, more competition for food and more frequent
extreme weather events. (Read BirdLife International's official position on
climate change here.)
Most
scarily, people will experience similar threats, and their responses – such as
clearing forests to create new farming and living areas, or creating
storm-surge barriers against rising sea levels – could have a substantially
negative impact on nature, including loss of habitats and species
extinctions.
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