[ CLIMATE CHANGE ]
[ What is Climate Change? ]
Allo, I’m Johora singaporensis, a Singapore freshwater crab.
But you can just call me Jo.
You might have heard of me, but I doubt you’ve seen me.
There aren’t many crabs like me left.
Oh and I might look big, tough and scary on screen,
but I’m tiny, no bigger than your thumb.
Like you I’m Singaporean (er.. the clue's in the name) but unlike you I only live in Singapore.
Sadly, I might soon live absolutely nowhere.
I may be extinct.
You see...
Singapore freshwater crabs are among the most endangered species in the world.
You might think that's not your problem but it’s everybody’s problem.
I want to tell you why, how you can help me, and help your own species from becoming extinct too.
Maybe you’ve already heard about climate change and wondered why there’s such a fuss about the weather?
After all, a nice sunny day is a great excuse to put on your coolest shades and hang out at the beach, right?
Heavy rain...
…then stay indoors, play stuff online or watch videos.
What’s not to like?
Let’s be crystal crab clear, climate change isn’t just a bit of bad weather.
It’s serious regional or global change in average temperature, humidity and rainfall,
up or down, and measured over at least 30 years.
It matters because animals like me and humans like you have adapted over millions of years to live comfortably in tropical, temperate or polar climates.
But recently, and pretty suddenly, the temperature of the Arctic has increased.
This is already affecting lots of animals, but particularly my furry friends there.
Almost 40% of sea ice has disappeared in the last 30 years.
So polar bears must work a lot harder and swim much further for food.
As any smart polar bear knows, ice reflects heat while oceans absorb it.
As the ice melts, more and more heat is retained on Earth,
raising temperatures even more,
and making the ice less likely to form again.
But it’s not just bad news for polar bears.
If the average temperature rises just a single degree,
mountains will lose their glaciers and rivers will vanish.
Within just 85 years there’ll be no freshwater for a third of the planet.
If the temperature continues to rise, a lot more ice will melt at the Poles and mountains,
causing a rise in sea levels and more extreme weather conditions like serious flooding, typhoons and hurricanes! Woahhhh!
In only 80 years, scientists predict that sea levels could rise by 2 metres.
For crabs like me, and humans like you, living in low-lying places like Singapore,
where a third of the island is only 5 metres above average sea level,
that’s definitely not good news.
So why is this happening now?
What’s stopped us from becoming deep fried, deep frozen or in deep water for millions of years…
…are greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Greenhouse gases are really good guys.
Made up of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, water vapour and ozone.
They form a protective layer around the Earth,
trapping the sun’s heat and keeping the climate habitable
for crabs, humans and millions of other species.
A bit like a cosy blanket using your own body heat
to keep you snug and warm at night after the sun goes down.
Only the Earth’s blanket is BIG!
510 million square kilometres big!
Trust me that’s a lot of knitting!
Without these good-guy greenhouse gases,
the average temperature of the Earth’s surface would be as low as minus 18 degrees Celsius.
If you don’t think that’s cccccold, then the last time the average temperature was that low was 20,000 years ago
and a third of the Earth was covered by ice.
The problem is that good-guy greenhouse gases have been messed up
and there’s way too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Just as if you’d piled on too many blankets, and things started getting rather hot,
sticky, smelly and generally unpleasant under the covers.
Good-guy greenhouse gases have become bad-boy blanket gases.
So how did this happen?
A few hundred years ago humans started something called the Industrial Revolution.
Basically your ancestors stopped making stuff by hand,
and started making a lot more stuff with big machines.
Big machines need lots of fuel to keep running, especially fossil fuels like oil, coal and gas.
When fossil fuels burn, they release carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and other greenhouse gases, which trap the heat in our atmosphere.
Since the Industrial Revolution, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased 45%,
upsetting the balance of the good-guy greenhouse gases and turning them into the bad-boy blanket gases.
So how can you stop these bad-boy blanket gases?
You can’t return the Earth’s atmosphere to the way it was before the Industrial Revolution,
but you can stop things getting worse by cutting the amount of carbon dioxide
and other bad-boy blanket gases being released into the atmosphere.
That means burning fewer fossil fuels,
using renewable energy and improving ways of storing carbon by restoring and protecting nature.
All of which I’ll be talking about in the next episodes.
In the meantime, please don’t sigh, shrug your shoulders and start scrolling or taking selfies.
The future of the planet is out of my claws and in your hands.
You can help me, polar bears, and yourselves
by changing the course of climate change.