Living on Earth: Weathering Climate Change (The climate is already changing, ecosystems need help.)

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http://www.loe.org/shows/shows.htm?programID=09-P13-00004#feature3

Weathering Climate Change

CURWOOD: It's Living on Earth. I'm Steve Curwood.

The rise in greenhouse gas emissions means that the earth's climate is already changing.

How much will vary from place to place - from profound to subtle. Some locations will suffer more severe floods and storms, other places will become drier. Some will get hotter, and some could even get colder, for a time. But while there is no way to avoid some degree of climate disruption, we may be able to help ecosystems adapt. Living on Earth's Bruce Gellerman recently took a hike with four experts to learn what is being done to adapt one forest to the effects of a shifting climate.

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SCANLON: And people have to understand when it comes to climate change it doesn't have to be huge changes. One or two degrees change in temperature can mean what was going to be a snowstorm can become an ice storm giving us this tremendous damage.

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And you know, let's be honest about this. There are some habitats we probably can't do anything about. So there are some hard decisions coming up. You know we can all talk about here are the various things we can do but climate change is going to have fairly serious impacts on our ecosystems and we have to come to terms with that.

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