Climate change is a problem for animals and the places they call home. The weather is getting weirder, and it is getting harder for animals to survive. Their homes are changing fast and they are having a tough time keeping up. Which means it is getting harder for them to find food, water, and safe places to live. It is not only animals that are struggling, people are too.
Some animals are in a lot of danger, like the ones that only live in one place, like the Vancouver Island Marmot.1 As the climate changes, species that are Endemic to regions are especially vulnerable. Endemic species are the ones that live in a specific region, like Vancouver Island. These are the most vulnerable species when the only home they have ever known starts to change in ways they might not be able to keep up with. Animals that migrate long distances come in contact with more changing ecosystems. The Humpback Whale travels about 10,000 kilometres as they migrate.2
Climate change is also affecting how animals communicate with each other and their surroundings. For example, when the seasons change, flowers might start blooming before the bees are awake or birds might get to where they are going after their food source is all gone.3 Problems that effect one animal population might cascade into issues that effect the larger environment. When one part in a group of living things gets out of whack, it affects everything that is connected to it.4
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human activities from pollution to
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overpopulation are driving up the
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earth’s temperature and fundamentally
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changing the world around us the main
The Greenhouse Effect
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cause is a phenomenon known as the
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greenhouse effect gases in the
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atmosphere such as water vapor carbon
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dioxide methane nitrous oxide and
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chlorofluorocarbons let the sun’s light
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in but keep some of the heat from
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escaping like the glass walls of a
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greenhouse the more greenhouse gases in
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the atmosphere the more heat gets
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trapped strengthening the greenhouse
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effect and increasing the earth’s
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temperature human activities like the
Increasing Earths Temperature
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burning of fossil fuels have increased
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the amount of co2 in the atmosphere by
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more than a third since the Industrial
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Revolution the rapid increase in
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greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has
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warmed the planet at an alarming rate
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while Earth’s climate has fluctuated in
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the past atmospheric carbon dioxide
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hasn’t reached today’s levels in
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hundreds of thousands of years climate
Changing Weather
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change has consequences for our oceans
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our weather our food sources and our
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health ice sheets such as Greenland and
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Antarctica are melting the extra water
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that was once held in glaciers causes
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sea levels to rise and spills out of the
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oceans flooding coastal regions warmer
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temperatures also make weather more
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extreme this means not only more intense
Challenges
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major storms floods and heavy snowfall
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but also longer and more frequent
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droughts these changes in weather pose
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challenges
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growing crops becomes more difficult the
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areas where plants and animals can live
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shift and water supplies are diminished
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in addition to creating new agricultural
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challenges climate change can directly
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affect people’s physical health in urban
Health
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areas the warmer atmosphere creates an
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environment that traps and increases the
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amount of smog this is because smog
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contains ozone particles which increase
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rapidly at higher temperatures exposure
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to higher levels of smog can cause
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health problems such as asthma heart
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disease and lung cancer while the rapid
Conclusion
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rate of climate change is caused by
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humans humans are also the ones who can
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combat it if we work to replace fossil
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fuels with renewable energy sources like
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solar and wind which don’t produce
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greenhouse gas emissions we might still
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be able to prevent some of the worst
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effects of climate change
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[Music]
Animals are losing their homes, getting sick easily, and not interacting with each other like they used to.5 All of these things are really bad for animals. It is not just animals that are hurt by this people are too. When the world around us is healthy, it helps people have access to food, jobs, and ways to connect with nature that we need every day. Climate change is a problem for animals and for people. We need to think about climate change and how it affects animals and people.
Activity: Fill in the Blanks: Climate Change and Animals
References
- Le Brun Robles Gil, L. (2026). Animals Only Found in Canada. In The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved from https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/animals-only-found-in-canada ↩︎
- Parks Canada. (2024). Six champion travellers: Parks Canada’s longest-migrating species. Government of Canada https://parks.canada.ca/nature/science/especes-species/voyageurs-travellers ↩︎
- Bairlein, F. (2016). Migratory birds under threat. Science, 354(6312), 547–548. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aah6647 ↩︎
- Cahill, A. E., Aiello-Lammens, M. E., Fisher-Reid, M. C., Hua, X., Karanewsky, C. J., Yeong Ryu, H., Sbeglia, G. C., Spagnolo, F., Waldron, J. B., Warsi, O., & Wiens, J. J. (2013). How does climate change cause extinction? Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 280(1750), 20121890. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2012.1890 ↩︎
- Foden, W. B., Butchart, S. H. M., Stuart, S. N., Vié, J.-C., Akçakaya, H. R., Angulo, A., DeVantier, L. M., Gutsche, A., Turak, E., Cao, L., Donner, S. D., Katariya, V., Bernard, R., Holland, R. A., Hughes, A. F., O’Hanlon, S. E., Garnett, S. T., Şekercioğlu, Ç. H., & Mace, G. M. (2013). Identifying the World’s Most Climate Change Vulnerable Species: A Systematic Trait-Based Assessment of all Birds, Amphibians and Corals. PLoS ONE, 8(6), e65427. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0065427 ↩︎