Conclusion

In conclusion I think that climate change and plastic has a significant impact on humans and animals' environment. Temperatures are rising, sea levels are increasing, changing weather patterns and bad storms. This is changing the habitat of many species, faster than they can evolve and adapt. The animals that can’t keep up with these fast changes are becoming endangered and eventually extinct. Source 11 outlines that Recent studies estimate about eight million species on Earth, of which at least 15,000 are threatened with extinction. The polar bears are suffering immensely from the melting ice caps, caused by climate change. They rely on the ice caps for survival. Furthermore, the marine turtle's population is decreasing rapidly due to their plastic consumption, which is choking and poisoning them. In addition to, the ice caps melting and the turtles dying, the Artic blue whale numbers are decreasing.  

So, what can we do to help? Firstly, we need to get to net zero carbon emissions so we can stop the increase in greenhouse gases, which cause the increase in temperature. This will not be easy and requires humanity to make huge changes. There are a number of things we need to change. We need to stop using fossil fuels to generate electricity, replacing them with a renewable source, such as solar, wind, wave, geothermal or nuclear power. We need to change the way in which travel – using electric to reduce carbon emissions and using the trains instead of aeroplanes. We need to change the way in which eat – being less reliant on factory farming, meat and dairy consumption to reduce the amount of methane produced. This is because methane is 120 times worse, as a greenhouse gas, than carbon. Going forwards we need to reduce, reuse and recycle things much more than we do today.  

We need to educate people not to throw plastic into the rivers and oceans around the world and to reuse it instead. It is important we find an alternative to plastic that is more biodegradable that has less impact on the environment and animals' habitats. We must clean up the plastic that is already in the worlds’ rivers and oceans if we are to minimize the impact on animals.