Impacts of climate change on Africa

DESERTIFICATION

Annotate your large map of Africa to illustrate the imapcts of climate change faced on this continent.

 

Your notes should cover the following:

Water issues

Food insecurity

Natrual resources

Health

Development of coastal zones

Desertification

Poverty

 

Use your imagination to present this well.

 

Your own textbook has some information on p55 and the smaller Contemporary Case Study book also has a section on p32. There are some other good online sources.

 

The BBC has articles which would be a good starting point. The WWF has written two very good papers on the impacts in East Africa. The Stern Report into climate change also had a chapter referencing the impacts of climate change on Africa. It is very long - but try just reading the Executive Summary.

 

Calculating your Carbon Footprint

Calculate your carbon footprint using the ‘Act on CO2’ web site
Draw a divided bar chart to show your footprint
Draw a divided bar chart for the national average footprint
Create a ‘plan’ to begin to reduce your carbon footprint
Sort the actions by ‘Easiest to do’. Complete the table to show three actions you could take in each of the categories – Home, Appliances and Travel

Guess answers to the questions you are not sure about as best you can
If you would like to, 'share' this post with your family and they can e-mail you their results back!

Hacking the planet

Geoenginerring - the ultimate mitigation - large sale intevention in the earth's climatic system. There are some crazy ideas out there!

Read this article from the Guardian

Choose two of the proposed options for 'hacking the planet' and create a PowerPoint slide for each including the following things:

• A title
• Pictures from the web illustrating the idea
• A description of how the scheme is proposed to work
• Any problems with the idea
• Include the Practicality Rating / Apocolypse Rating / Cost scores

Make them look good and we will display them

Post them up onto moodle when you are finished.

Sea-level rise

Use this link to take you to a flood simulator.

1. Change the sea-level rise to +20m
2. Zoom in on the UK and on your map of the UK, shade the areas which will be flooded
3. Do the same on the world map - check out New York / Bangladesh / Shanghai / The Netherlands in particular

Impacts of climate change

In 2010, the UK Governement released a new map showing the predicted impacts of a 4oC global temperature increase worldwide. View the map here.

Use the map to complete the sheets you have been given.

Natural climate change

Is climate change natural?

BBC sunspot article

Video - causes of climate change

Using this article and your own research, investigate the impact of volcanoes on climate change

Guardian article on impact of volcanoes

Research how Mt. Pinatubo impactes the earth's climate when it erupted in 1991

Carbon footprint

Calculate your carbon footprint using the ‘Act on CO2’ web site
Draw a divided bar chart to show your footprint
Draw a divided bar chart for the national average footprint
Create a ‘plan’ to begin to reduce your carbon footprint
Sort the actions by ‘Easiest to do’. Complete the table to show three actions you could take in each of the categories – Home, Appliances and Travel

How can businesses help reduce climate change?

Use these links to complete the sheet on what businesses are doing to help address climate change:

ASDA cutting it's carbon footprint
Tesco aiming for a greener business

Explore the Edinburgh Council environment pages to note some of the initiatives that are happening in our local area to address some of the climate change isses we have studied.

Climate change policy timeline

Use this website to complete the climate change timeline.

Stern Review

Investigate the Stern Review using the following guidelines

What was the Stern review?

• Summarise its findings
• Include a table similar to that on p62 of the text book detailing the possible effects of temperature rises on life on earth

The whole report is available here, but as it is hundreds of pages long, I suggest looking at the Executive Summary.

The BBC Business pages summarised the findings. Wikipedia also has it's review.

The Guardian newspaper (among others) reported on the release of the review extensively.

Natural causes of climate change

Is climate change natural?

BBC sunspot article

Using these articles and your own research, investigate the impact of volcanoes and sun spots on climate change

Guardian article on impact of volcanoes
Impact of volcanoes on climate - research

Include an example of a volcano which has impacted the climate

Climate change policies

Listen / watch this animation of the history of climate change
Use this website to complete the climate change timeline.
Coppenhagen - where countries stand
2012 conference in Doha
BBC Doha outcome
Doha review

Carbon Footprint

Calculate your carbon footprint using the ‘Act on CO2’ web site
Draw a divided bar chart to show your footprint
Draw a divided bar chart for the national average footprint
Create a ‘plan’ to begin to reduce your carbon footprint
Sort the actions by ‘Easiest to do’. Complete the table to show three actions you could take in each of the categories – Home, Appliances and Travel

Impacts of climate change on Scotland

Use this web site to research the impacts of climate change on Scotland. Create a similar presentation or report as you did for the Antarctic.

Look at habitats / species / landscapes and what this means for the people in Scotland and the economy.

Post your work onto moodle

Impacts of climate change on the Antarctic

Use the article on moodle and these links to help you create a presentation on the impacts of climate change on Antarctica. Look at the impacts on the ice, sea level and life on the continent.

Impacts of climate change
British Antarctic Survey

Video clips showing evidence of climate change

Clips from BBC Learning showing the evidence for climate change

Evidence of climate change - overview
Ice cores
Ice caps
Glacial retreat

Natural causes of climate change

Is climate change natural?

BBC sunspot article

Using these articles and your own research, investigate the impact of volcanoes on climate change

Impact of volcanoes on climate - Met Office
Guardian article on impact of volcanoes
Impact of volcanoes on climate - research

Include an example of a volcano which has impacted the climate

Carbon trading

BBC Radio 4 - Costing the Earth: Carbon Trading

What is your carbon footprint?

• Calculate your carbon footprint using the ‘Act on CO2’ web site