My Science School

Bushfires happen almost every year across the island-nation of Australia. However, this time around, it has been one of the worst-ever. What began in September 2019 has continued well into 2020. It has claimed more than 25 lives while reducing millions of acres to ash. And New South Wales was hit the hardest – in this State alone, more than half-a-billion creatures, including mammals, birds and reptiles, are feared to have perished. There are reports that thousands of kangaroos and koalas have been consumed by the fire across the country. The last few decades have seen an increase in the number of bushfires, and may be attributed to global warming. As for Australia, the bushfires season seems to be beginning earlier and lasting longer. In a chilling revelation, the U.K. scientists have said that the recent fires in Australia are assign of what the world will go through as temperatures increase.

 

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A telling identity of our planet’s biodiversity, the tiger is also a keystone species. And its population the world over, and especially in India, has been of particular concern. However, July 2019 brought with it some comforting news. The findings of the Tiger census, conducted in our country once in every four years, showed that the tiger population had increased from 2,226 in 2014 to 2,967 in 2018. With that, India is estimated to be home to around 70% of the world’s tigers. Following an alarming decrease in the tiger population since the early 20th Century, the government had put in place stringent laws in the 1970s to protect the national animals, and this seems to have been paying off over the last decade or two. However, human-animal conflicts continue, and conservationists have repeatedly called for an increase in protected areas for the tiger.

 

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Between September and October 2018, the Gir forest sanctuary – the only place to find the Asiatic lion in the wild today – lost nearly 25 of its most popular inhabitants. The death of lions is believed to have been caused by a potent combination of canine distemper virus and babesiosis, a disease caused by tick-borne parasites, according to government officials. The officials also said that the lions belonged to one pride. Following the deaths, 33 lions from the area were rescued, quarantined and vaccinated and kept under observation. Interestingly, answering a question at the legislative Assembly in early 2019, the Gujarat government said that over 200 lions had died in the Gir forest region in the previous two years (2017 and 2018).

Canine Distemper is a viral disease that is frequent in dogs, foxes, wolves, big cats and even primates. It is caused by a single-stranded RNA virus of the family Paramyxoviridae (the family of viruses causing measles, mumps and bronchiolitis in humans). It infects the spinal cord and brain and also the respiratory and gastrointestinal tracts. The virus is believed to have a 50% fatality rate in dogs.

In 1994, the CDV was responsible for an epidemic in the Serengeti region of Africa, where 1,000 lions died in three weeks. Its prevalence in India has not been studied and only a few reports are available regarding its detection in wild carnivores.

 

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It’s not Al Gore. It’s not DiCaprio. It’s a teenager that’s undeniably the face of the environment chapter in the book of impactful stories from the decade. Swede Greta Thunberg’s story begins on August 20, 2018, when the 15-year-old skips school to protest outside parliament for more action against climate change, with just a placard in hand. Within a week, she is joined by students, teachers, parents, and has the attention of the media. Soon enough, she marks Fridays for climate protest, and suggests students everywhere take up the “Fridays of Future” campaign by staging walkouts at their own schools. How she made an entire world hear her out is history. When a few world leaders undermined her concerns, determination and impact, she came up with witty updates on her social media pages, showing them – and us – that she’s more than just a concerned teenager asking irresponsible adults “How Dare You?”

 

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The U.S. suffered three hurricanes – Hurricane Harvey, Irma and Maria in just two months, August and September 2017. It would also turn out to be among the five costliest-ever to hit the country. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that together they cost the country USD 265 billion. The storms brought widespread death and destruction to Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Since the hurricanes killed hundreds of people and brought misery and hardship to millions of people and brought misery and hardship to millions of Americans, the World Meteorological Organization decided to retire the names of these hurricanes.

NOAA said the dollar amounts are "the estimated total costs of these events — that is, the costs in terms of dollars that would not have been incurred had the event not taken place. Insured and uninsured losses are included in damage estimates." 

In all, 2017's hurricanes caused more than a quarter-trillion dollars in insured and uninsured losses, the National Hurricane Center reported. 

 

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On June 1, 2017 the U.S. President Donald Trump announced his decision to pull out of the Paris Agreement that his predecessor had signed. The agreement had come into force on November 4, 2016. Trump claimed it “gives undue advantage to India and China at the cost of the United States’ interests”, and that it “is less about the climate and more about other countries gaining a financial advantage over the U.S.”. He also insisted that the accord would have negative impacts on job growth, manufacturing and industries. His speech suggested that he was open to negotiations to “make a deal that’s fair”.

To date there are only two other countries that have not yet signed on to the Paris Agreement: Syria and Nicaragua. Syria, which remains in the throes of a destructive civil war, noted that it was not in a position to sign such agreements because of ongoing sanctions from Western countries. The government of Nicaragua, however, refused to sign on for different reasons. Nicaragua believes that the Paris Agreement does not go far enough to reduce emissions, arguing that wealthy countries such as the United States should have been forced to make deeper commitments.

 

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In October 2016, a vast stretch of ocean off Antarctica received international protection to become the world’s largest marine reserve. Over 15 lakh sq.km of water in Ross Sea is protected, thanks to the decision of the international body that oversees the waters around Antarctica- the Commission for the Conversation of Antarctica Marine Living Resources, comprising 24 countries. The nutrient-rich waters of the region are the most productive in the Antarctic, and the protection will guard everything from krills to penguins and whales. Unfortunately, only two years later, Russia, Norway and China would stop global efforts to turn a huge tract of pristine Antarctic Ocean into the world’s biggest sanctuary of about 1.8 million sq.km.

 

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Due to higher-than-normal water temperatures in 2015 and 2016, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef suffered its worst-ever coral bleaching event on record. According to a November report by researchers at ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies in James Cook University, about 67% coral had died in the worst-hit northern part. However, those in the southern part were in good health, while the central part of the Reef witnessed a six % die-off, the report said. Since coral bleaching (or die-off) usually occurred as a result of continuous warm water temperatures, scientists were concerned about the recovery of the corals.



The Great Barrier Reef is made by trillions of tiny invertebrate creatures known as coral polyps, which have built it over the past 600,000 years. The polyps, which excrete calcium carbonate to make reefs, are extraordinarily sensitive to changes in water temperature. When it rises by two to three degrees Celsius above normal levels many species of coral are forced to expel the multicoloured algae that live within its tissues, an effect known as “bleaching”.  The white coral skeletons that remain can regenerate if temperatures fall and water quality conditions are good. But in many instances entire reef systems can be destroyed if water temperatures remain elevated for several months. 

 

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June 2015 was a terrible month to be a human. Anew study in the journal “Scientists confirmed what only the discerning had perhaps expected all along – that the sixth global mass extinction was happening and humanity’s existence was being threatened. The researches had used conservative estimates to prove that “species are disappearing faster than at any time since the dinosaurs’ demise”. We are wiping species off our planet at a rate at least 100 times faster than historical levels. They called for swift action to conserve threatened species, populations and habits, and also cautioned that the window of opportunity was closing really fast.

The impacts of a still-avoidable sixth mass extinction would likely be so massive they’d be best described as science fiction. It would be catastrophic, widespread and, of course, irreversible. In the past, it has taken life ten to thirty million years to recover after such an extinction, 40 to 120 times as long as modern-looking humans have been telling tales by firelight. Moreover, Williams and his team argue that future changes driven by humanity may go so far as to create not just a new epoch in geologic history – such as the widely-touted Anthropocene – but a fundamental reshaping of Earth on par with the rise of microbes or the later shift from microbes to multicellular organisms.

 

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Also known as Paris Climate Accord, this historic and landmark climate pact was forged in Paris in December 2015, under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (an international environmental treaty). Nearly all the countries of the world adopted it. Considered the world’s first comprehensive climate agreement, it focuses primarily on bringing down increasing global temperatures by at least two degrees Celsius over pre-industrial times; reducing the amount of global emissions; and strengthening the abilities of countries to deal with climate change. With the signing of the Agreement, the then U.S. President Obama is believed to have hoped for “a world that is safer and more secure, more prosperous, and more free”. However, his successor would soon pull the rug out from under the world’s feet.

 

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December 2014 turned out to be a horrific end to the year for Sundarbans, the largest contiguous tidal mangrove forest in the world. On the morning of December 9, a tanker carrying furnace oil and a cargo vessel collided in Sundarban’s Shela river, the former sinking and spilling over 3.5 lakh litres of oil into a region popular for its rich biodiversity, including the endangered Irrawaddy dolphin, the Ganges river dolphin and the royal Bengal tiger. Within days, the impact of the toxic oil spill was visible – oil-coated marine creatures (dead or barley surviving) and sharp drop in the diversity of phytoplanktons and zooplanktons, among other signs. Thus, however, would not be the last disaster this region would witness – a ship with fertilizer and two vessels with coal would all sink in the next few years because of shipping bans being withdrawn as quickly as they are imposed.

 

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In November 2014, the U.S. and China (President Barack Obama and President Xi Jinping) unveiled a deal to reduce their greenhouse gas output, with China agreeing to cap emissions for the first time and the U.S. committing to deep reductions by 2025. China, the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, agreed to cap its output by 2030 or earlier, if possible. The agreement was seen as being a significant boost to international efforts to reach a global deal on reducing emissions beyond 2020, at a U.N. meeting in Paris the following year.

Administration officials acknowledged that Mr. Obama could face opposition to his plans from a Republican-controlled Congress. While the agreement with China needs no congressional ratification, lawmakers could try to roll back Mr. Obama’s initiatives, undermining the United States’ ability to meet the new reduction targets.

 

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In the last two to three decades, hill-State Uttarakhand in the Himalayan region has seen several natural disasters. However, in June 2013, the disaster-prone area witnessed one of its worst natural disasters in the form of torrential rains and resultant flashfloods, claiming the lives of thousands of people and animals while not-so-quietly altering its landscape. The flashfloods also wiped out settlements and decimated livelihoods. The National Institute of Disaster Management, in one of its first reports in 2015 blamed “climatic conditions combined with haphazard human intervention” for the disaster. Environmentalists point out that adequate steps haven’t been taken to prevent or handle such disasters, including the recurrent Brahmaputra floods that have decimated several regions, especially Assam, over many years now.

 

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REDD+, elaborately known as “Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks” in developing countries, is a programme under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Though the talks began in 2005, the key aspects of this programme were finished by 2013. It is an important part of global steps to control climate change, and seeks to encourage developing countries to contribute to climate change mitigation efforts by “reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) by showing, halting and reversing forest loss and degradation; and increasing removal of GHSs from the earth’s atmosphere through the conservation management and expansion of forests”.

It creates a financial value for the carbon stored in forests by offering incentives for developing countries to reduce emissions from forested lands and invest in low-carbon paths to sustainable development. Developing countries would receive results-based payments for results-based actions. REDD+ goes beyond simply deforestation and forest degradation and includes the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks.

 

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An Arctic record was broken on August 26, 2012 and it was not good news. According to the U.S.-based National Snow and Ice Data Centre, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, and Norwegian, Danish and other government monitoring organisation that was the day the Arctic sea ice hit its lowest extent ever recorded since the beginning of the satellite record in 1979 – satellites showed it had shrunk to 4.1 million sq.km. The record it broke was 4.3 million sq.km. set in 2007. The heat and the subsequent melting have continued over the years, and 2019 was in line for the second lowest Arctic sea ice extent record.

If the Arctic begins to experience entirely ice-free summers, scientists say, the planet will warm even more, as the dark ocean water absorbs large amounts of solar heating that used to be deflected by the cover of ice. The new findings were published as climate negotiators in Poland are trying to reach a global consensus on how to address climate change.

 

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