Category Environtal Studies

HOW ANTARCTIC FIN WHALE CAME BACK FROM EXTINCTION?

Often, within the pages of wildlife conservation stories lies that one spark, idea, or action that spawns dramatic positive changes. Here’s one such story on how one decision has resulted in a huge impact, practically bringing back a key species from the brink of extinction.

The recent filming of southern fin whales in Antarctic waters thrilled scientists, researchers, and conservationsists  no end.  And, why not? It’s a deeply encouraging sign that not only have these marine mammals returned to their historic feeding grounds but their numbers have increased too, albeit gradually. The species was earlier reduced to less than 2% of its original population, thanks to the usual suspect-unsustainable hunting for decades. And then came the whaling ban towards the last quarter of the 20th Century, positively impacting the course of the animal’s fate over decades. Slowly but surely fin whales have rebounded; slowly because fin whales give birth to only one calf at a time.

Over the last few years, researchers have recorded a hundred groups of these whales, including large ones comprising up to 150 animals. “Using data from their surveys, the authors estimate that there could be almost 8,000 fin whales in the Antarctic area.” Listed as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, fin whales have a tremendous impact on the environment. In fact, they are called “ecosystem engineers” because after consuming iron-rich krill, they excrete nutrients that help the “growth of tiny phytoplankton, the foundation of the marine food web”. In addition, the increasing number of this marine mammal – the world’s second largest animal-is also an indicator of the ocean’s good health.

While other threats cannot be ruled out for these ocean giants, the “increasing numbers of southern fin whales is an encouraging sign that conservation measures can work”.

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HOW CAN WE DEAL WITH CLIMATE ANXIETY?

Flash floods, storms, heatwaves, and drought… Extreme weather events are rocking the world, and are likely to leave you feeling anxious. Recent studies have shown that climate anxiety is for real. Here’s what you can do.

Madhuvanti S. Krishnan.

Climate change and eco-crisis are well known. But what is climate anxiety? No, it isn’t a figment of your imagination, and yes, it does exist. finds recent research. In September 2021, a survey was conducted across 10 countries, led by the University of Bath, in collaboration with five universities, and funded by Avaaz, a campaign and research group. It involved 10,000 people between the ages of 16 and 25 years, and discovered that more than half of them experienced climate anxiety. and thought that humanity was doomed, courtesy, climate change

So, what is climate anxiety? Brit Wray, a Stanford researcher and author, Generation Dread says. “Climate anxiety is an assortment of feelings that a person can experience when they wake up to the full extent of the climate and wider ecological crisis.”

She further explains that as the term implies, anxiety is one aspect of it, but there are other emotions that occur alongside. For instance, she elaborates, grief, fury, helplessness, hopelessness, and difficult feelings along similar lines, that point out people’s concern for the world. Succinctly put, it is a feeling of guilt or desperation, a sense of doom, about the state of the environment.

It has been attracting progressively more attention among climate and social scientists, especially due to its impact on people’s mental health.

Drivers

Constant media exposure, the tendency to incessantly access and consume content on social media, multiple studies that show species being threatened or becoming extinct, relentless news on coral reefs dying, melting glaciers, and more, heightens anxiety.

Then, there’s Nature, which plays an instrumental role in simultaneously exacerbating and keeping at bay climate anxiety. Events such as natural disasters, resource depletion among others, drive anxiety as people who are aware of the value of nature will be more sensitised to the risk of loss relates to climate change. However, the flip side to this is that it is only when they are exposed to Nature. will they be healed of such anxiety -research details how engaging with the great outdoors and actively involving oneself in environment-related activities will reduce the rising feeling of alarm one experiences.

Maximum impact

In 2020, Friends of the Earth, an environmental non-profit organisation, estimated that over two-thirds of people, between 18 to 24 years, experience climate anxiety. Indeed, as youngsters who will bear witness to the worsening after-effects of climate chaos, it is unsurprising that it is primarily they who are most anxious and concerned. In fact, Gen Z has been nicknamed the Climate Generation.

Does this mean others are unaffected?

Not really. While the older generations are undoubtedly disquieted about the crisis, they are more perturbed by the short-term impact of climate change. In other words, their consternation will not take a toll on their mental health and overwhelm them as much as it does Gen Z

There are digital tools that help combat eco-anxiety, and an interactive website, Hold This Space, does precisely this. Designed in collaboration with psychologists and environmental scientists, it conducts activities that target people experiencing anxiety. especially youngsters, and encourages them to channelise their feelings into effective climate action, which by extension, helps them develop resilience and coping mechanisms.

SOME TIPS

*It is normal to experience climate anxiety because you are constantly exposed to climate-related news.

*You are not alone. Do not let anxiety overwhelm you. *Talk about your feelings, make yourself heard.

*Connect with like-minded people who will understand where you come from, without brushing off your anxiety as

*Get involved in activities to do with nature that will not only lessen your anxiety by virtue of being actively involved, but will also help you develop skills and build resilience.

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TREES NOT A CURE-ALL FOR CLIMATE CHANGE

It’s inevitable that often its climate change that makes global headlines. For years, experts have been cautioning us about the impending doom of our planet if we do not mend our ways. Among the suggestions to save Earth is the expansion of green cover. But studies point to the fact that simply expanding green cover alone may not really rescue us from the dire situation we find ourselves in. Here’s why. It is an established fact that forests take in large quantities of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. So it would make sense to increase such areas to tackle the growing carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere. But it is important to note that due to global warming, there are increasing instances of wildfires and drought globally, killing off several trees. Such trees, dying in large numbers, are adding to the carbon in the atmosphere.

Further, it is assumed that more carbon dioxide for a tree translates to greater growth due to photosynthesis. However, a study has shown that rather than photosynthesis it’s the cell division that drives the growth of trees. And this process is severely affected by climate change impact such as drought.

Such studies appear to point to the fact that rather than only trying to increase forest areas for carbon offset, it is perhaps more urgent, pertinent, and wiser to protect what exists already. This calls for cutting down on emissions. thus bringing down instances of forests being lost to wildfires, drought, and tree-attacking insects that thrive in a warmer world.

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WHAT IS MEANT BY WORD TSUNAMI?

Tsunami is a Japanese word with the English translation, “harbor wave.” Represented by two characters, the top character, “tsu,” means harbor, while the bottom character, “nami,” means “wave.” In the past, tsunamis were sometimes referred to as “tidal waves” by the general public, and as “seismic sea waves” by the scientific community. The term “tidal wave” is a misnomer; although a tsunami’s impact upon a coastline is dependent upon the tidal level at the time a tsunami strikes, tsunamis are unrelated to the tides. Tides result from the imbalanced, extraterrestrial, gravitational influences of the moon, sun, and planets. The term “seismic sea wave” is also misleading. “Seismic” implies an earthquake-related generation mechanism, but a tsunami can also be caused by a nonseismic event, such as a landslide or meteorite impact.

Tsunamis are formed from earthquakes. Earthquakes can occur when two plates in the earth’s crust collide. The earthquake causes the seabed to move quickly and water is displaced causing waves. The half meter waves are out at sea. They travel at extraordinary speeds of 800 km/h. the waves, at this stage are hardly noticeable on the surface of the ocean. The waves slow down to about 300 km/h as the water becomes shallower. The waves then become closer together and only seconds between them. The waves become really tall as they reach the shore and pile onto one another. They can reach amazing heights of up to 35 meters. As they hit the land they engulf everything then suck the debris back into the ocean.

On the 27th of August, 1883 Krakatoo a volcanic island in Indonesia erupted producing a tsunami 35 meters high it traveled at 550 km/h destroying coastal communities in Java and Sumatra and killing more than 30, 000 people about 90% of tsunamis occur in the Pacific ocean. Tsunamis are quiet rare in the Atlantic ocean. The most active tsunamis are along the coast of Peru and Chile. Tsunamis are said to occur there once every two years * on the 17th of July, 1998. Three tsunami waves hit the west east coast of Papua New Guinea, near the town of Aitape and wiped out entire communities along a 30 km stretch of land. It was caused by two under sea earthquakes, measuring 7. 0 on the Richter scale. By the time the waves hit the shore line they reached a height of 10 meters. The communities had no warning and nowhere to go. Over 2, 000 people were killed many of them children. The few villagers who survived had lost everything * on the 21st and 22nd of May, 1960 almost 50 earthquakes produced a series of tsunamis. Which killed 2, 500 people and caused damage in Japan, New Zealand Hawaii. The first three waves killed 1, 700 people in Chili. When the waves hit Hilo, Hawaii 61 people were killed.

It is very difficult to predict tsunamis because the earthquake that causes them may occur underwater far away and the shock waves may not be felt on the land. if you are at a beach there is a way of telling a tsunami is coming. You might not have much time but when you see the water slowly draining away into the ocean I advise you to run. The water being drained away contributes to the giant wave that’s just about to hit.

Credit : Slidetodoc

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WHAT’S THE ORIGIN OF THE WORD MONSOON?

The word monsoon comes from the arabic word ‘mausim’ which means season.
In the context of india, monsoon refers to indian-asian monsoon which brings heavy rains during the summer months over widespread areas of india and southeast asia. These rains often lead to major flooding. On the other hand, they are vital to agriculture and the economy. As a lot of the world’s population lives in this region, a delayed or reduced rainfall season can have a devastating effect on the livelihood of a significant fraction of the world’s population.
Indian monsoon blows from the northeast during cooler months and reverses direction to blow from the southwest during the warmest months of the year in order to bring about crucial rains in the month of june and july.

There are three distinct areas of relative upper tropospheric warmth like above the southern bay of bengal, above the plateau of tibet, and across the trunks of the various peninsulas which are relatively dry during this time. They combine to form a vast heat-source region and the relatively warm area above the southern bay of bengal occurs mostly at the level of 500–100-millibar.

Credit : Vedantu

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WHAT THREATENS BIODIVERSITY IN THE RAINFOREST?

In protecting and preserving rainforests, we are merely preserving our future.  The year is 2070. Kids are on an expedition to a part of the Amazon rainforest and are clueless when their teachers throw around words such as “Spider monkey” and “Harpy eagle”. What else could they be, for, they have never heard about these erstwhile creatures that became extinct well before their time? Back to the present. Today, in 2022, did you know that about 17 % of the Amazon rainforest, the largest in the world, has been destroyed over the last five decades? It is time to wake up and smell the forest fire.

Rainforests are home to some of the most biologically diverse and important ecosystems in the world more than half of Earth’s plants and animals are found in them. June 22 was World Rainforests Day, and doesn’t it make sense that one of our most important natural resources has a day dedicated to it? In a bid to raise awareness and encourage action to protect the world’s rainforests, the first World Rainforest Day was celebrated on June 22, 2017, by the Rainforest Partnership, an international non-profit.

Fear factor

So, how serious is the threat to rainforests? In an interview, Gabriel Labbate, head, United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEPS) Climate Mitigation Unit, shed some light on the issue. “There are worrying signs that some of these systems may be close to tipping points. For example, an article I read in the last six months documented clear signs that the Amazon was losing resilience. The Amazon is like a gigantic recycler, a water pump. Water may be recycled up to five times as it travels from the southeast to the northwest of the Amazon. When rain falls on trees and vegetation, part of it is absorbed, and part of it goes back up into the air following evapotranspiration. You stop this water pump and the whole system may transform into a savannah because there is not enough water left to sustain a tropical forest. There will be a cascade of impacts following the disappearance of an ecosystem like that.”

While Labbate has spoken specifically about the Amazon Rainforest, the danger to other rainforests is just as real. Many of them have suffered from heavy logging for their hardwoods, slash-and-burn cultivation, and forest fires, throughout the 20th century. Consequently, the area covered by rainforests around the world is shrinking, and large numbers of multiple species are being driven to extinction

Almost 90% of West Africa’s rainforests have been ravaged, as have two-thirds of Madagascars. In fact, the situation turned so dire that several countries, most specifically Brazil, declared deforestation a national emergency, and it was instrumental in slowing down the damage from 2004 to 2012. deforestation reduced by about 80 % in the country.

While it is arduous to completely reverse the effects of rainforest destruction, here are a few steps you can take to tackle the problem:

  • Start by reading more about it and teach others about the importance of the environment and how they can help save rainforests.
  • Try and restore damaged ecosystems by planting trees on land where forests have been cut down.
  • Encourage people to live in a sustainable manner, one that won’t harm the environment.
  • While not all of us have the resources financial or otherwise to protect) rainforests and wildlife on a large scale, it is possible to support organisations that help minimise damage to the environment. The time is ripe. Spread the word.

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