THE UNIVERSITY OF ZAMBIA

SCHOOL OF EDUCATION

DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL SCIENCE, ENVIRONMENTAL

NAME : ZANGI KULUKULU

COMPUTER NUMBER : 2019001110

COURSE : INTRODUCTION TO ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION

COURSE CODE : EED 1010

LECTURER : DR. CHILESHE

TASK : ASSIGNMENT ONE

DUE DATE : 15TH MAY, 2020

QUESTION

“Significant environment change, such as climate change, poses risks to species, ecosystems, and
the services that humans rely on. Consequently, identifying measures to minimize, cope with or
respond to the negative impacts of climate change is necessary to reduce biodiversity loss and to
sustain ecosystem services”

Write a five-page essay to explain what climate change is, risks it poses to ecosystems, and
the measures to minimize, cope with or respond to its negative impacts.
INTRODUCTION

During the 20th century, climate change posed major threats on species and ecosystems. As
climate change continues and accelerates, the impacts are expected to increase in frequency and
severity. While climate change is global, its impacts are more severely felt by poor people and
poor countries. They are more vulnerable because of their high dependence on natural resources
and limited capacity to cope with climate variability and extremes. Before going deeper and
broader, this academic paper will define key terms which are: climate, climate change and
ecosystems. Thereafter, will discuss the risks climate change poses on ecosystems and the drastic
measures to minimize or cope with the negative impacts of climate change. Lastly, a conclusion
will be drawn from what will be discussed.

According to Benson (2008), the term “climate” can be defined as the long term weather pattern
in an area, including general patterns and extremes of drought, rains, storms and freezing
temperatures. On the other hand, “climate change” is the long term change in global weather
patterns, associated with an increase in temperature, precipitation and storm activity. Climate
change is a direct consequence of continued increase in the atmospheric carbon dioxide resulting
from emissions from fossil fuel burning. After having defined climate and climate change, the
terminology ecosystem will lastly be defined. Odum (1971) defines an “ecosystem” as a basic
unit of ecology which includes both the organisms and the nonliving environment, each
influencing the properties of the other and each is necessary for the maintenance of life.

CLIMATE CHANGE RISKS ON ECOSYSTEMS

Climate change risks on ecosystems vary and are based on their type, location, structure, etc.
Understanding the risks is a step towards implementing climate change mitigation and adaptive
measures.

Loss of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services

Biodiversity is the fundamental unit for all ecosystem processes. It provides ecosystem services
and boosts the nation’s economy. Various ecosystem services rendered by natural ecosystems
can be classified into four categories: (i) supporting services (pollination, nutrient cycling, etc.),
(ii) regulating services (climate regulation, air and water purification, flood control, etc.), (iii)

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provisioning services (food, timber, medicine, etc.) and (iv) cultural services (educational
services, etc.). Climate change has already caused significant loss of biodiversity and has thereby
disrupted ecosystem services and goods. Although natural ecosystems can recover and resume
their ecological functions, the loss in biodiversity that is visible may not be reversible hence,
many species are facing extinction. It is expected that changes in temperature would affect
species’ traits, vegetation structure and composition. Freshwater ecosystems are the most
endangered ecosystems as they are fragmented habitats and therefore freshwater species have
limited ability to disperse. Increasing temperature of oceans, ocean acidification by sea water,
rise in sea level are some factors that bring about changes in community and composition in
marine ecosystems. Coral reefs are shields against ocean and tidal waves. They are projected to
decline over the years. Hence, biodiversity and ecosystem services will continue to be impacted
and impaired for years to come because of climate change (Reed, 2012).

Drought and Forest Fires

An impact of climate change that is gradually spreading across the globe, is the desertification
caused by superheating and failed rainfall. Droughts are characterized by clear sky, high
temperature and low humidity. Extremely severe droughts can cause mortality in huge trees and
carbon starvation. High temperature and drought increases fuel loads for forest fires and thus, the
fire frequency. Often, dry atmospheric conditions, especially in areas with sub-humid conditions,
are main triggers forest fires. Natural forest fires play a crucial role in maintaining structures of
the forest, nutrient cycling, etc. However, when a natural fire regime gets altered due to climate
change and global warming, the consequences are often drastic. A forest fire not only alters
ecosystem functions and releases stored carbon dioxide, but also emits particulate matter
detrimental to both biodiversity and human habitations. Aerosol particles emitted from the forest
fired tend to scatter solar radiation and therefore affect the uplifting of water vapor. Since climate
change would increase drought and desertification, there exists a high risk for occurrence of
forest fires in the future (Pravalie, 2018).

Disease Outbreaks

Climate change remains a big threat to forest ecosystems by causing drought stress to plants and
greater surviving potential to insects due to increased temperatures. The innate resistance of trees

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to pests or pathogenic lessens due to drought. Increase in heat waves and floods trigger vector-
borne diseases and hence, high mortality among humans. Disease causing pests and their vectors
like mosquitoes and pathogens like bacteria and fungi could be carried off the desert dust to long
distance where previously absent. Therefore, disease outbreak impact of climate change among
forests and humans remains a major challenge (Abrams et al., 2018)

Extreme Weather Events

As climate change increases, there could be drastic change in temperature and rainfall regimes,
affecting several ecosystem services. This rapid alteration might be very difficult for humans,
animals and plants to cope up with. Alteration in temperature results in intense and frequent
weather events. Global warming would affect the season, duration, amount of precipitation and
temperature. A change in precipitation would affect vegetation distribution and growth. River
flow changes would also affect other abiotic characteristics such as water quality, sediment
transport, etc. (Adams et al., 2012).

CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION AND ADAPTIVE MEASURES

A successful way to tackle climate change and its risks is by incorporating adaptive strategies
into sustainable development in order to decrease pressure on natural resources. These strategies
will be discussed.

Use of Renewable Sources of Energy

Renewable sources of energy are natural and clean sources of energy. However, excessive usage
can lead to adverse effects on the environment and climate. They include: geothermal energy,
solar energy, hydropower, wind energy, wave and tide energy. The use of renewable sources of
energy provide good opportunities for controlling greenhouse gas emission and reduction in
negative climate change attributed to global warming (Ćetković & Buzoǵany, 2016)

Carbon Sequestration

This strategy entails keeping carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere by storing the gas or its
carbon component somewhere else, a strategy that is also known as carbon capture. A way to
keep carbon dioxide emissions from reaching the atmosphere is by planting more trees. Trees,

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especially young and fast growing ones soak up a great deal of carbon dioxide from the
atmosphere and store carbon atoms in new wood. Forests across the globe are being cleared at an
alarming rate, particularly in the tropics. This causes little growth as land loses fertility or is
changed to other uses such as farming. When trees are burned to clear land, they release stored
carbon back into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. Therefore, planting new trees can help limit
buildup of greenhouse gases (Manstandrea and Schneider, 2009).

Conservation of Natural Resources

There are various options for conserving the environment some of which include: biological
diversity conservation, forest conservation, soil and water conservation and energy conservation.
The goal of conservation is optimum protection of ecosystems or preservation of natural
resources by reducing their excess consumption and protecting them from contamination as well
as re-using or recycling them where possible (Hernes, 1998)

CONCLUSION

Climate change exerts a great deal of eco-biological and socio-economic impacts on almost all
sectors on any nation. An efficient climate change mitigation strategy would be to increase the
resilience of forest ecosystems and biodiversity to climate change. At this critical juncture,
carbon sequestration by forest ecosystems is of immense importance in climate change
mitigation. Understanding the crucial roles of different forest biomes and the various ecological
processes operating therein would help in framing management strategies that would enhance
their carbon sequestration potential. At the same time, it is also necessary to cut back on various
anthropogenic pressures placed on the forests. However, a country’s development inevitably
places pressures on forest ecosystems. Therefore, adoption of sustainable utilization of resources
and energy and conservation practices would help climate change mitigation in the long run.
Although several important measures have already been taken by international bodies, reviewing
on the effectiveness of the undertaken measures and devising of new strategies in accordance
with the climate change induced alterations in scenarios are essential. However, the effectiveness
of climate change mitigation projects will depend on the availability of funding as well as the
flexibility of mechanisms.

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 REFERENCES

Abrams RW, Abrams JF, Abrams AL, (2018) Climate change challenges for Africa. Encycl
Anthr 2: 177-194

Adams HD, Luce CH, Breshears DD, Allen CD, Weiler M, Hale VC, Smith AM, Huxman TE
(2012) Ecohydrological consequences of drought-and infestation-triggered tree die-
off:insights and hypotheses. Ecohydrology 5(2):145-159

Benson N. (2008): Climate Change, Effects. In Philander S. G. (ed): Encyclopedia of Global

Ćetković, S, & Buzoǵany, A (2016), varieties of capitalism and clean energy transitions in
the European Union: When renewable energy hits different economic logics. Climate
Policy, 16(5), 642-657

Hernes, H. (1998). A Climate Strategy for Africa towards Environmentally Sustainable

Manstandrea, M. D. and Schneider, S. H. (2009) Global warming. Microsoft Encarta Online

Odum HT. (1971). Environment, power and society. New York: Wiley

Pravalie, R (2018), Major perturbations in the Earths forest ecosystems. Possible

Reed, DH (2012) Impact of climate change on biodiversity. In Chen WY, Seiner J, Suzuki T,
Lackner M (eds) Handbook of climate change mitigation, Springer, New York, pp 505-530

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