An assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Studies and the Sciences at Ithaca College, Jake Brenner shows a deep appreciation for the land in which we live. He's studied landscape change, why they changed, what the changes look like, what the patterns of change are and what changes occur overtime.
"The human relationship with nature has become a real central question for the human race right now. Humanity has a noticeable effect on the biosphere. Society's responsible for global warming through carbon emissions primarily, but also through landscape change," he said.
He believes that global carbon emissions, which come from the burning of fossil fuels, are one of the biggest ways humans harm the earth. He went on to explain that global carbon emissions cause climate change, and climate change contributes to landscape change.
"Lots of individual species can be adversely affected by climate change," he says, "but the first thing that happens though, is that the temperature of the earth increases. What this means for us is, if you live…near the coast, you're at risk of losing your home, losing your city due to rising sea levels…"
Rising sea levels happen due to temperature increases. As temperatures rise, they melt the ice caps and glaciers, which then pour into the ocean. Due to this, ocean sea levels rise, and vegetation and communities get rearranged. On the other hand, increased carbon dioxide is not all that for agriculture.
"For a while, increased carbon dioxide will benefit certain crops, but thereafter, increased temperature will hurt them. Yields of things like corn, wheat and rice will go down, which means a decrease in global food supply."
An altered climate also means biological invasion. In terms of vegetation, this means that different places would be suitable for different kinds of plant life, in easy that they are normally not. For ex., climate change would make plants that are normally grown down south, grow up north. In other words, according to Brenner, "north and south of the globe will see a shift in habitat suitability for different plants and animals."
Climate and landscape change interestingly has a major effect on people's social life. One type of landscape change that has this effect is urbanization, the growth of cities. However, it isn't because of the land they occupy why urbanization is a factor of landscape change, it is because of the demands of the people.
"…the decrease in global food supply will push up prices and tends to disproportionately hurt the poor," says Brenner.
Sometimes, urbanization leads to gentrification, in which poor neighborhoods are rid of the bad influences of the society such as drug dealers and liquor stores, in exchange for parks and pricier, nicer homes. Pricier homes tend to force out the poor residents who can't afford to live there. This, like Brenner said, is how "urbanization tends to marginalize social groups." Also, gentrification plays into landscape change in the sense that, there are usually new parks built for the environment. Therefore, cities aren't only safer and wealthier, but they become greener as well.
It is very interesting how urbanization, gentrification, agriculture and climate change all play a role in the changing of landscapes. It is a topic that branches off into many different topics of many different sorts, but in the end, it all wraps into one.
"It's impossible for me to encapsulate this in a little nutshell," says Brenner. Speaking of crop depletion, biological invasion and climate change left him to one conclusion:
"It's very, very, very, very complicated."
No comments:
Post a Comment