Lives and Global Warming

By Junze Li, Yusi Zou, Zhantao Deng

Background

Since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, the average temperature of the Earth has increased more than 1.0 Celsius. However, in recent years, global warming and climate change have been the subject of a great deal of political controversy, especially in the U.S.. The U.S. president, Donald Trump, has criticized in his twitter that the global warming is "a hoax", "fictional", and even "bullshit".

While the world is overwhelmed with the COVID-19 pandemic, the earth is still warming and many lives are suffering from the heating planet. A recent news reports that Antarctica has hit the highest temperature on record of 18.3C in February 2020. The climate zone for lives now is shrinking.

Is global warming real? What are its causes and consequences? Especially, what are the impacts on lives?

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/418542137899491328
By Samuel Blanc

World Average Temperature

Click on the play button to show the evaluation of the temperature

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How much warmer is our planet?

The 20 warmest years on record have been in the past 22 years, with 2015-2018 making up the top four, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

If this trend continues, temperatures may rise by 3-5°C by 2100.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), if countries fail to act, the world will face catastrophic change - sea levels will rise, ocean temperatures and acidity will increase and our ability to grow crops, such as rice, maize, and wheat, would be in danger.

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CO2 and Deforestation

Click on the play button to show the evaluation of the CO2 emission

Click on the country to show the forest coverage v.s. CO2 emission

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How to erase carbon emissions? How much can forests fight climate change?

Many governments and advocates have advanced plans to plant vast numbers of trees to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in an attempt to slow climate change. In the line chart, we can see that the forest coverage rate of some countries increases significantly in the last two decades, such as China, France, and the United Kingdom. However, that of some countries near the equator decrease due to the deforestation of the rainforest, such as Brazil and Venezuela. Results from a decade-long study of greenhouse gases over the Amazon basin appear to show that around 20% of the total area has become a net source of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

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If tree-planting programs work as advertised, they could buy precious time for the world to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels and replace them with cleaner sources of energy. One widely cited 2017 study estimated that forests and other ecosystems could provide more than ⅓ of the total CO2 reductions required to keep global warming below 2 °C through to 2030.

Trees are supposed to slow global warming, but counting only on them is not enough. In some developing countries such as India and China, while the forest coverage rate is increasing, carbon emissions have also increased year by year for rapid development. In order to further control climate change, industrial model transformation and new energy research should be carried out.

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Urbanization

Click on green points to show data of a country

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Are cities bad for the environment?

Cities are home to 54% of the global population and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) sais that they consume approximately 70% of energy and 75% of global carbon emissions. By 2050, it is estimated that 68% of the global population will live in urban areas, meaning the use of resources in cities will rise.

In the scatter plot, we can notice that the points tend to move to upper right, which indicates a higher temperature and urbanization level of different countries. The process of urbanization also leads to a decline in forest coverage rate.

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Living things

Click on images to see data of a class of living things

What about the animals?

According to the IUCN, there are over 30'000 endangered species. 25% of all assessed species of mammals are in danger.

There are between 200 -2'000 extinctions that occur every year.

The current rate of extinction is 1’000x - 10’000x higher than the natural extinction rate.

There have been 5 big mass extinctions in geologic history, in which 4 are closely related to climate change and extreme meteor.

Polar bears are one of the first victims of climate change. The melting of the ice caps means their feeding ranges are restricted, while their homes are melting before their very eyes. Further polar bears extinction facts show that, if nothing changes for the bears quickly, their numbers will decline by 30% in the next three decades.

There are seven species of sea turtles. Of these seven species, six are endangered or threatened. The sea turtle extinction facts show that one of the major hazards for sea turtles is sea-level rise due to climate change.

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Before you go

Climate change is no longer some far-off problem; it is happening here, it is happening now. We need to be alert to global warming trends and take practical actions to do something for our planet.

As Albert Einstein said, 'The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.'

Credits

Meet the authors here. The project was created for the Data visualization course at EPFL.

Copyright © 2020 - Zalda