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Dear
EarthTalk: I’ve seen those images of
polar bears stranded on small islands of ice and heard that
some are now dying by drowning. How are other wildlife populations
affected by global warming?
-- Jessie Walters, via e-mail
Most
researchers agree that even small changes in temperature
are enough to send hundreds if not thousands of already
struggling species into extinction unless we can stem the
tide of global warming. And time may be of the essence:
A 2003 study published in the journal Nature concluded that
80 percent of some 1,500 wildlife species sampled are already
showing signs of stress from climate change.
The
key impact of global warming on wildlife is habitat displacement,
whereby ecosystems that animals have spent millions of years
adapting to shift quickly. Ice giving way to water in polar
bear habitat is just one example of this. Another, according
to The Washington Post, is the possibility that warmer spring
temperatures could dry up critical breeding habitat for
waterfowl in the prairie pothole region, a stretch of land
between northern Iowa and central Alberta.
Affected
wildlife populations can sometimes move into new spaces
and continue to thrive. But concurrent human population
growth means that many land areas that might be suitable
for such “refugee wildlife” are already taken
and cluttered with residential and industrial development.
A recent report by the Pew Center for Global Climate Change
suggests creating “transitional habitats” or
“corridors” that help migrating species by linking
natural areas that are otherwise separated by human settlement.
Beyond
habitat displacement, many scientists agree that global
warming is causing a shift in the timing of various natural
cyclical events in the lives of animals. Many birds have
altered the timing of long-held migratory and reproductive
routines to better sync up with a warming climate. And some
hibernating animals are ending their slumbers earlier each
year, perhaps due to warmer spring temperatures. To make
matters worse, recent research contradicts the long-held
hypothesis that different species coexisting in a particular
ecosystem respond to global warming as a single entity.
Instead, different species sharing like habitat are responding
in dissimilar ways, tearing apart ecological communities
millennia in the making.
And
as wildlife species go their separate ways, humans can also
feel the impact. A World Wildlife Fund study found that
a northern exodus from the United States to Canada by some
types of warblers led to a spread of mountain pine beetles
that destroy economically productive balsam fir trees. Similarly,
a northward migration of caterpillars in the Netherlands
has eroded some forests there.
According
to Defenders of Wildlife, some of the wildlife species hardest
hit so far by global warming include caribou (reindeer),
arctic foxes, toads, polar bears, penguins, gray wolves,
tree swallows, painted turtles and salmon. The group fears
that unless we take decisive steps to reverse global warming,
more and more species will join the list of wildlife populations
pushed to the brink of extinction by a changing climate.
CONTACTS:
Pew
Center for Global Climate Change; Defenders
of Wildlife
Dear
EarthTalk: I see so much waste in packaging
every day--from water in self-serve bottles to all the foil
and cardboard you have to break through to get to a new
print cartridge. What is being done to make packaging more
“green friendly,” including cutting out as much
of it as possible?
-- Jeanne L., Canton, CT
Thanks to forward-thinking
action by the European Union (EU), people around the world
are beginning to recognize that wasteful packaging puts
unnecessary stress on the environment. In 1994 the EU issued
a “Directive on Packaging and Packaging Waste,”
putting the responsibility of waste reduction and reclamation
on manufacturers instead of on retailers, consumers and
local governments.
The program, popularly known as “Producer Pays”
or “Extended Producer Responsibility,” requires
product makers to either take back their packaging (consumers
can leave it behind in the store or send it back in the
mail at the producers’ expense), or pay a fee to an
organization called “Green Dot” that will handle
it for them. “Green Dot” is now the standard
take-back program in two-dozen European countries.
According to
Bette Fishbein of INFORM, Inc., a nonprofit environmental
research organization based in the U.S., the concept has
“spread like wildfire” and has been adopted
by many industrialized nations—including Poland, Hungary,
the Czech Republic, Japan, Korea and Taiwan—but not
yet by the United States, which could certainly benefit.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
annual generation of municipal solid waste in the U.S. increased
from 88 million tons in 1960 to 229 million tons in 2001,
with containers and packaging making up almost a third of
the weight.
Maine has followed
the European model and initiated its own “Producer
Pays” program; the first in the U.S. Maine requires
electronics makers to fund consolidation centers where used
TV and computer monitors are sent. According to the state’s
Department of Environmental Protection, “Maine’s
electronic waste recycling law…is a national model,
as it protects our environment, saves taxpayers money and
puts costs where they belong to encourage safe design and
recycling of electronic wastes.”
Some U.S. companies
are also taking initiative. Microsoft worked with Packaging
2.0, a packaging solutions company that recycles used materials
into new packaging, to develop an environmentally responsible
and reusable package for its line of GPS consumer electronics
products. And a number of other companies, including Unilever,
Johnson & Johnson, Kraft Foods, Microsoft and Nike,
have come together under the umbrella of the Sustainable
Packaging Coalition, a project of the non-profit GreenBlue,
and released a guide for designers and developers to assist
them in designing sustainable packaging.
In February 2008
Wal-Mart will implement a “packaging scorecard”
to measure and evaluate its entire supply chain. Goals include
using less packaging and using more sustainable materials
in packaging. According to Wal-Mart, the company is already
beginning to make headway. “By reducing the packaging
on one of our patio sets,” says the company website,
“we were able to use 400 fewer shipping containers
to deliver them. We created less trash, and saved our customers
a bundle while doing it.”
CONTACTS:
Green
Dot; INFORM;
Sustainable
Packaging Coalition
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