Every now and then, a new story is made by the media about Climate Change. The idea that humans evolved over the time from other species is the “Theory of Evolution”, and is the subject of controversy. Another controversial science topic often talked about by the news media is, global warming or global climate change. The average temperature of the Earth is increasing every year. So how does one affect the other? The majority of scientists believe both global climate, and evolution change to be true.
Global climate change
Before connecting the two controversial scientific subjects, it is first important to understand what they are? Every year the average temperature of all places on Earth increases. This increase in temperature seems to be causing many potential environmental issues like larger areas are becoming affected by droughts, melting of the polar ice caps more extreme natural disasters like tornadoes and hurricanes. To keep some heat trapped in our atmosphere Greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide, are necessary. Specialists have linked the jump in temperature to an overall increase in the number of greenhouse gases in the air.
Controversy
The average global temperature of Earth is increasing and It would be really hard to dispute that. Some scientists are suggesting it is still a controversial subject because many people do not believe that humans are causing global climate change to speed up. Earth cyclically becomes hotter and colder over long periods of time, which is true and many opponents of the idea claim that.
On the other hand, current human lifestyles do add greenhouse gases into the air at a very high rate. Some greenhouse gases are expelled from factories into the atmosphere. Many types of greenhouse gases are released by Modern automobiles including carbon dioxide, and that’s when it gets trapped into the atmosphere. Humans are cutting Forest down to create more living and agriculture space and that is how forests are disappearing these days. It is quite an easy thing to understand that more we cut down the trees more the forest will disappear, If the mature trees are less will have less Oxygen because of the process of photosynthesis.
The effect on evolution
As we all know, Evolution is simply defined as the change in species over the years, how does global warming change a species? Charles Darwin has driven through the process of natural selection. In other words, within a population, the individuals that have traits that are better suited to whatever their immediate environment is will live long enough to reproduce and pass down those favorable traits and adaptations to their offspring. if the individuals who have less favorable traits for the environment will either have to move to a more suitable environment, or they will disappear and those traits will never be available in the gene pool for new generations of offspring. This would create the strongest species to live long lives in any environment.
Polar bears and other endangered species
Due to global climate change, polar bears are currently on the endangered species list. Northern polar regions of Earth areas where there is very thick ice are where the polar bears live. They hold very dense coats of fur and layers upon layers of fat to remain warm. The Polar bear has grown skilled ice fishermen in order to survive they rely on fish that live under the ice as a primary food source. Unfortunately, because of the melting polar ice caps, the polar bears are finding their once favorable adaptations to be obsolete and they are not adapting quickly enough. The temperatures are increasing in those areas which makes the extra fur and fat on the polar bears more of a problem than a favorable adaptation. The thick ice that was once there to walk on is now too thin to hold the weight of the polar bears nowadays.
There will be no more polar bears If the current increase in temperature keeps up or accelerates. Those polar bears who have the genes to be a great swimmer will live a bit longer than those who do not have the genes. But, eventually, all will most likely disappear since evolution takes many generations and there just is not much time.
There are many more other species all over the Earth that are in the same sort of predicaments as polar bears. Other animals need to adjust with the changing temperatures, and still, others have to deal with their changing due to human interference and habitats disappearing or there is no doubt that change in global climate is causing problems and increasing the need for a quicker pace of evolution in order to avoid mass extinctions all over the world.
