Wildfires

Welcome back to Green World,

In the last few months, wildfires have been raging across the globe. Hawaii, Canada, the USA, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Tunisia and countless more have been affected. But what are the environmental impacts of such a blaze?

The USA has had an average of over 70 000 wildfires a year since 2000. In 2020, Californian wildfires emitted more than 90 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, which is more than the state's power industry emits per year. It is estimated that humans start 87% of wildfires. Around the world, 4 million squ. km are hit by wildfires every single year. This emits vast amounts of carbon dioxide, which fuels climate change. The smoke causes air pollution in the entire surrounding area and can lead to respiratory problems in humans. The air pollution also kills birds, including those migrating through the area. Studies also show that socially vulnerable populations are more at risk of harm from wildfires, similary to the fact that the global south is more at risk from climate change than the global north.

Due to the mass loss of vegetation, erosion increases significantly causing waterways to become unstable. The soil contains less nutrients and there is a much higher risk of disease or pest outbreaks. Most surviving animals are left without food or shelter. Forest vegetation is a vital carbon sink and with that gone, the amount of CO2 that the forest can extract from the atmosphere is lessened. The burned vegetation is full of nitrogen and phosphorus, which can lead to blooms of harmful algae. The soil absorbs less water, putting the surroundings at risk of floods and flash floods. The water also contains more nitrogen and dissolved carbon dioxide, which reduces the drinking water quality for over a decade.

There are actually a few benefits of wildfires. They are an important driver of natural selection and evolution as only the strongest and most resourceful species can survive. Some bird species benefit from the burnt wood for foraging and fleeing animals are an easy target for birds of prey. There are also some plant species who require fires to be able to produce and disperse their seeds. So wildfires are a natural occurrence similar to floods. However it’s the size and frequency of them in recent years that is so destructive.

However, all in all wildfires do a lot more harm than good as they destroy the biodiversity of the forest. And we can't forget the thousands of people that die in the blazes every year or lose family, friends and homes.

Your Green World Blog Team💚

Sources:
https://earth.org/environmental-impact-of-wildfires/
https://earth.org/impact-of-wildfires/
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/where-europe-wildfires-locations-summer-countries-b1099384.html
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02707-1
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/09/230919154844.htm

Images:
Forest Wildfire, owned by Project LM (on flickr.com), is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
Idaho wildfire, owned by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Headquarters (on flickr.com), is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Comments

December Top Tips | 10 ways to re-purpose a plastic bottle

Welcome to December! We thought it would be cool to find 10 ways you can use a plastic bottle even after you have refilled it gazillion times, so you don't waste all the plastic . Because, even if you try to avoid plastic bottles at all costs, you will inevitably end up using hundreds of them throughout your life. The impact on the environment is undisputed, from the land animals to the creatures of our seas, plastic bottles can have a detrimental impact. But we can reuse them in lots of fun ways, here are our ten favourites. Have a good December and a great new year, you'll hear from us! 1. Bird Feeder At one of our blog meet-ups, we actually made a bird feeder out of an old plastic bottle, so this is definitely one we can vouch for. It's super simple, as long as you have some good scissors to cut the bottle and a suitable place to hang it. Below is a photograph of ours for some inspiration, and there are plenty of resources online to ...

100 amazing animal facts | 100th post special

Hi! This is our 100th post and to celebrate, we have decided to present you with 100 absolutely random facts about animals. Enjoy! The loudest animal in the world is a 2cm long prawn, the pistol shrimp. Hummingbirds are the only birds that are known to fly backwards. One bite from the world's most powerful snake can kill 100 people, the inland taipan. Mosquitoes kill 725 000 people a year making them the most dangerous animals in the world. The mayfly has the shortest known lifespan in the world, only 24 hours. The horned lizard can shot blood from its own eyes. Koalas can sleep for 22 hours a day. Swifts can fly for almost an entire year without landing. Garden snails have 14 000 teeth. The tongue of the blue whale weighs as much as a car. ...

Heatwaves - what's so bad about them?

Hi everyone, Today we’re talking about heatwaves and what effects they have on us and the environment. Heatwaves are becoming ever more common, with 2023 breaking multiple world records. In China, 52.2°C were recorded at one point and the coastal waters near Florida, USA, were as warm as a hot tub. This is because of the combination of climate change and El Niño , both of which make the effects of the other worse. But we can’t push the blame onto El Niño. When analysed it became clear that without human made climate change the USA heat records would have been almost impossible. So what exactly are the effects of such high temperatures. A study in Europe found that the 2022 heatwave possibly caused over 70 000 heat related deaths. Although it is sometimes hard to tell whether or not someone died from the heat or from something else, after analysing the data the team found that their original estimate of 62 000 people (which is still a lot) was probably ...

Announcement: Factfile

This image is owned by a blog editor.

23.08.2020 Animal of the week: Little Egret

Hi everyone, This week's animal is the Little Egret. This is a less well-known bird, so we are excited to share it with you! Habitat Little Egrets are a species of small heron and live in many different places across the world such as Africa, Australia, southern Asia, Europe and the UK. Like herons, Little Egrets live in open spaces that have a lake or river running through them. Some of the ones that live in Europe migrate to Africa. Diet Because it is an aquatic bird, the Little Egret feeds on a range of fish, amphibians, small reptiles and birds, insects and worms. They aren't fussy! Some Little Egrets have made use of humans and have been known to throw bread into the water to attract fish for it to eat. Dangers Little Egrets are classed as Least Concern , so their numbers aren't declining like many other amazing birds are at the moment. That's all for this week, we hope you have learnt some new facts! Images: 1...

How well do you know the Arctic and the Antarctic? - Quiz

Welcome back to Green World, As announced last week, we're starting our new monthly series: quizzes! This post contains the questions, you have to write down the answers and compare them with the solutions right at the bottom of this post. Questions: True or False? The Arctic is not actually a land mass, it's a frozen ocean. How many people live in the Arctic circle? a) 500 000 b) 4 million c) 10 million True or False? Narwals don't actually have unicorn-like horns. That's just a legend. What percentage of the world's freshwater is frozen within the Arctic's ice? a) 10% b) 15% c) 20% True or False? The Arctic covers parts of 15 different countries. Scientists exploring Antarctica have measured winds of up to... a) 100 km/h b) 150km/h c) 200km/h True or False? The driest (natural) place on Earth is in Antarctica...

13.12.2020 Animal Of The Week: Lark

Hello, Today's post is all about a rather interesting bird I don't know much about and so I can't wait to discover more! Habitat There are many different species of Lark so they are quite widespread. Different websites say different figures but most agree that there are between 90 and 100 different species of Lark. They live in open countryside from deserts to mountains. Their colour is adapted to their environment and so they can vary in appearance. Diet Larks are omnivorous animals and eat many species of insects as well as seeds, leaves, grasses and fruits, especially in Winter as insects are scarce. Some species will also eat snails which they break open on rocks. Lark Song The lark is reputed for its song, especially when it is in flight. This is the reason that they are sometimes represented in poetry. I love poetry and I haven't read any Lark themed poetry yet but writing this has made me want to. However, the wi...

Metamorphosis

Hello! Today we thought it would be good to explain exactly how metamorphosis works. It's a term that we often use when talking about frogs, butterflies or other animals, but we've never actually explained what it is or how it works. What is metamorphosis? Metamorphosis is the term used to describe the changes that some animals undergo when turning into adults. It is a physical change that happens after birth/hatching. There is a brilliant quote from the website a-z animals that I just couldn't put any better: unlike the typical subtle developments in animals, metamorphosis is dramatic. It’s controlled by a release of hormones in the cells. Mammals usually move from adolescence to adulthood and old age gradually, maintaining their form and shape. However, in metamorphosis, an animal moves through those stages and changes from one form or shape to another. How does metamorphosis work? Let's take the classic butterfly example./d...

Maria Sibylla Merian

Hello, Today we wanted to tell you all about Maria Sibylla Merian. Maria was born in Germany on 2nd April, 1647. Like many young girls at that time, she loved to paint. Every day she would gather flowers from her garden and paint them. Sometimes, the flowers would have caterpillars on them and she would paint them changing, day by day, into butterflies. At that time, not much was known about insects, and people thought that butterflies magically sprouted from the mud. Maria knew from what she had seen while she was painting, that this was not true, but no-one believed her. As time went by, Maria became a great watercolour artist. She wrote about her discoveries, but scientists only took books written in Latin seriously, and Maria wrote hers in German. When Maria and her daughter were living in Amsterdam, Maria found display cases in museums filled with exotic insects collected from South America. Maria thought that if she could study the bu...

Communication - how important is it in the natural world?

Hi everyone, So today we're talking about communication in the natural world. As humans, we tend to think that we are superior to the rest of the organisms on this planet. We also think that we are the only ones who can communicate. While it's true that we probably have the most complexe form of communication, not one but thousands of languages, we are by far not the only ones that communicate on a daily basis. First of all, we need to define communication. Most people only think of speaking and writing (emails, texts, letters, and so on). But communication is much more than that. The word 'communication' describes the transfer of information from one organism (sender) to another organism (receiver) or multiple organisms (receivers). Different species go about doing this in many different ways. Animals communicate through sounds, visuals, chemicals, movements, touch, scents, electrical signals or a combination of the above. Sound...

Green World

Search This Blog