Geese! They’re everywhere!!!!!! As someone from a slightly cooler and snowier part of Ontario, the presence of these flying feathered fowl is a bizarre occurrence in what should be the dead of winter. I can understand the occasional furry mammal scampering across my path or the lone deer standing on the side of the road. But geese! Really, they’ve got to be kidding me! Remember the times when geese flying south in their long V’s was a Canadian signal to batten down the hatches, because winter was about to arrive? It turns out that, thanks to climate change, the dead of winter is not so dead after all. With increasing temperatures comes increasing activity on the parts of wildlife. Wildlife that used to migrate to warmer climates at this time of the year are staying put with an alarming frequency, making do with only the slight hardships of a warmer winter.
What does this mean other than the fact that geese are now making students compete for the right to walk in public spaces even in mid-January? Climate change has always been happening. Evidence keeps piling up, from the various stages of the Ice Age and the discovery that at one point the African safari was a lush forest. The world has always been changing, but now experts are asking, how fast did it change before? The most harmful affect humans have on climate change may be the speed at which we contribute to changing temperatures and, by extension, creating micro-climates where very specific ecosystems existed. All those burnt fossil fuels and aerosols seem to be increasing the global temperatures at an alarming rate. According to some sources, the global temperature has risen more rapidly in the last several decades than any time in the last 1000 years. You might be wondering what the problem is with this temperature rise. Unfortunately, this temperature rise is causing sea levels to rise as well, and many species simply can’t adapt fast enough. Maybe not even us.
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