Environmental Issues, global warming, climate change
2 galleries
Tom Dempsey's environmental galleries:
The majority of glaciers are melting fast wherever I visit around the world, from Switzerland to Glacier National Park (Montana). Photographs help illustrate this ongoing environmental story which affects everyone.
Our strong drive for travel has filled every corner of the earth with humans, who now dominate the earth. Our surging population of 7 billion people must now protect other species and sustain the natural world from which we ascended. Since the industrial revolution began, humans have increased atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration by 35% through burning of fossil fuels, deforesting land, and grazing livestock. The overwhelming majority of the world's climate scientists agree that human-caused carbon-compound gas emissions are accelerating global warming, causing climate change, rapidly melting glaciers, and raising ocean levels and ocean acidity worldwide (see www.ucsusa.org).
The majority of glaciers are melting fast wherever I visit around the world, from Switzerland to Glacier National Park (Montana). Photographs help illustrate this ongoing environmental story which affects everyone.
Our strong drive for travel has filled every corner of the earth with humans, who now dominate the earth. Our surging population of 7 billion people must now protect other species and sustain the natural world from which we ascended. Since the industrial revolution began, humans have increased atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration by 35% through burning of fossil fuels, deforesting land, and grazing livestock. The overwhelming majority of the world's climate scientists agree that human-caused carbon-compound gas emissions are accelerating global warming, causing climate change, rapidly melting glaciers, and raising ocean levels and ocean acidity worldwide (see www.ucsusa.org).
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79 imagesThe overwhelming majority of the world's climate scientists agree that human-caused carbon-compound gas emissions are accelerating global warming, causing climate change, rapidly melting glaciers, and raising ocean levels worldwide (see www.ucsusa.org). Since the industrial revolution began, humans have increased atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration by 35% through burning of fossil fuels, deforesting land, and grazing livestock. Sea level is currently rising by 1.3 inches (3.2 centimeters) per decade. Since the industrial revolution began, excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has acidified the oceans by almost 30%, with possibly drastic affects on shellfish and fisheries. Climate change may be most dire for subsistence farming societies in Africa and Asia. Humans have forced a grand warming experiment affecting all life on earth, with unknown consequences. The majority of glaciers are melting fast wherever I visit around the world, from Switzerland to Glacier National Park (Montana) to Antarctica.
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228 imagesImages below by Tom Dempsey stimulate thoughts on how people have impacted world ecosystems over human history. People have long modified vast ecosystems by burning ancestral forests into grasslands, industrializing agriculture, and paving and building to support today's worldwide population of 7 billion. Human destruction or transformation of nature is often irrevocable, as when species are forced into extinction. Plant and animal pioneers can quickly reclaim areas left alone by people, but the invasive weed species usually overwhelm previously-diverse natural environments.