Children born in 2100 may never see animals such as penguins

Numerous studies predict extinct of species, if humanity doesn't change its ways towards fossil fuel consumption. If it doesn't, future children will have no knowledge of previous species.

Tasmanian tiger, went extinct 80 years ago, Credit, Smithsonian Magazine

Emperor penguins will likely disappear by the end of the century from the Antarctic, along with sixty-five percent (at best 37%, at worst 97%) native species, if the world fails to amend its ways in relations to the environment, according to a recent report.

Ten percent of land animals could disappear from particular geographic zones by 2050, and almost 30 percent by 2100, according to a research a few days before the publication of the penguin study, more than doubling previous predictions about land animals in the next few years.

About 30 percent of Africa’s savannah elephants disappeared in eight years, according to a 2016 report, but if they continue to decline at this rate, half of elephants would disappear by 2025.

Children born by the end of this century will never see an African savannah elephant or thirty percent of  land animals currently in existence, or experience seeing an emperor penguin in the Antarctica, if the world fails to ensure a sustainable use of the environment.

South east Asia lost about 80 million hectares of forests between 2005 and 2015, and experts fear that by 2050, South East Asia’s forests may shrink by 5.2 million hectares. In Africa, nearly four million hectares of forests get cut down each year, almost double the speed of the world’s deforestation average. In South America, the annual rate of forest loss between 2010 and 2020 reached 6.4 million hectares. Though the deforestation forest loss in South America fell, it still comes at 2.6 million hectares per year.

The sea ice coverage of the Southern Ocean in the Antarctica shrunk below two million square kilometers for the first time since satellite measurements began more than 40 years ago. The November 2022 average Arctic sea ice extent reached 9.7 million square kilometers, the eighth lowest in the satellite record for the month. Between 1979 and 2021, sea ice cover at the end of summer shrunk by 13 percent per decade relative to the 1981-2010 average.

Meanwhile, global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels may increase by one percent in 2022, hitting a figure of  37.5 billion tonnes. In 2021, fossil fuel emissions rebounded in relation to 2020 through a 5.3 percent increase by totaling 37.9 billion tonnes, just 0.36 percent below 2019’s figures, meaning the world refuses to significantly cut down on the use of fossil fuel.

The inability to cut down fossil fuel usage could mean global temperature rises, bringing down the amount of sea ice cover in both the Arctic and Antarctica, as well as fuelling the increase in habitat loss in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and other places. With the combination of habitat loss and climate change in full operations, more of the land animals will keep disappearing, giving rise to grievous consequences.

During a last survey in August and early September 2021, 618 became the total population of  polar bears in Churchill, touted as the polar bear capital of the world, a figure down from 842 five years earlier, suggesting that the Western Hudson Bay polar  bear population may be decreasing in numbers, with alarming signs emerging of a considerable fall in the number of adult female and sub-adult bears between 2011 and 2021.

A team found that 60 percent of Latin America’s large mammals (weighing more than one kilogram) disappeared in the past 500 years. Nearly 30,000  African elephants disappear due to ivory poaching and climate change each year, with the biggest disappearance taking place in Tanzania, Mozambique, and Angola, while major national parks and wildlife reserves across the continent lost 60 percent of their lions, giraffes, buffalo, and other animals between 1970 and 2015.

Though Southeast Asia is home to almost 15 percent of the world’s tropical forests, climate change and habitat loss could lead to the disappearance of over 40 percent of its biodiversity by 2100.

With Southeast Asia losing 40 percent of its biodiversity by 2010, and Africa losing its elephants and giraffes at an alarming rate, and penguins having disappeared from the  Antarctic and the Arctic by 2100, children born by then will never experience their existence, and stories about lizards, frogs to iconic mammals such as elephants and koalas would sound like fairy tales.

If the world stops its business-as-usual ways and tackles planet-warming fossil fuel emissions, then children born today will not see iconic mammals such as elephants and koalas disappearing in their lifetime. For instance, if emissions continue to be high, the East Antarctica Ice Sheet (EAIS) could contribute around one to three meters to global sea rise by 2300, two to five meters by 2500, thereby fuelling habitat loss. With a dramatic reduction in emissions, EAIS could contribute only about two centimeters to sea level rise by 2100, meaning the survival of many land animals threatened with extinction in the present era.

What to Eat

Jamaican Jerk Cauliflower, Credit, Healthier Steps

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