The six slides provide evidence of various environmental impacts and issues related to climate change, including extreme weather events, droughts, heat waves, pollution, and species extinction. The slides show images and descriptions of flooding in Finland, lack of snow in the Pacific Northwest, drought in New Zealand, pollution in India, damage from a cyclone in Samoa, and predictions of more frequent and intense weather events due to climate change.

1. Planet Under Pressure Look carefully at the next 6 slides titled ‘case studies’. Use the six slides as EVIDENCE. What do the 6 slides provide evidence of???? WHY???

2. Planet Under Pressure Cape Town is still one of the most beautiful places on Earth, but this early morning look shows the smog and concrete that have reformed the landscape of this Eden. CASE STUDIES

3. Planet Under Pressure "The ongoing winter in Finland has been extremely freaky: very mild, with record storms, culminating in a rise in the sea level of nearly two metres in Helsinki. "The city erected flood barriers of cardboard bales, but they didn't do much to help; the water reached the streets." CASE STUDIES

4. Planet Under Pressure "This picture of Mount St Helens was taken on 18 December 2004. "It has been a very dry year here in the Pacific Northwest. "So far, the snow pack is 79% below normal, and we've had unseasonably warm weather this winter. "In a normal year, all of the surrounding mountains in these areas would be white. "Most of the ski resorts are closed now, when it should be peak season." CASE STUDIES

5. Planet Under Pressure "This picture is of the parched hills just south of Christchurch, New Zealand, during the summer heat wave and drought of 2003-2004." Europe also suffered a major heat wave in 2003, with temperatures soaring to unprecedented heights in some places. According to climate scientists, heat waves in the 21st Century will become more frequent, more intense and longer lasting. CASE STUDIES

6. Planet Under Pressure "This picture is of the Jal Mahal (Water Palace) in Jaipur, India. The appearance of fog suggests the photo was taken in the morning. "That is not the case. It was taken in the afternoon, and the 'fog' is actually pollution." CASE STUDIES

7. Planet Under Pressure "A house damaged when cyclone Heta hit Samoa in January 2004." It is possible that global warming may trigger more violent weather in the future. According to some scientists, the ferocity and frequency of hurricanes in the Caribbean last year were caused by warming water in the Atlantic. CASE STUDIES

8. Planet Under Pressure We are a successful breed. Our advance from our hominid origins has brought us near-dominance of the world, and a rapidly accelerating understanding of it. Scientists now say we are in a new stage of the Earth's history, the Anthropocene Epoch, when we ourselves have become the globe's principal force. But several eminent scientists are concerned that we have become too successful - that the unprecedented human pressure on the Earth's ecosystems threatens our future as a species.

9. Planet Under Pressure Most experts agree that a crisis is brewing: Food: An estimated 1 in 6 people suffer from hunger and malnutrition while attempts to grow food are damaging swathes of productive land. Water: By 2025, two-thirds of the world's people are likely to be living in areas of acute water stress. Energy: Oil production could peak and supplies start to decline by 2010

10. Planet Under Pressure Climate change: The world's greatest environmental challenge, according to the UK prime minister Tony Blair, with increased storms, floods, drought and species losses predicted. Biodiversity: Many scientists think the Earth is now entering its sixth great extinction phase. Pollution: Hazardous chemicals are now found in the bodies of all new-born babies, and an estimated one in four people worldwide are exposed to unhealthy concentrations of air pollutants.

11. Planet Under Pressure 1. Population and Food resources More of us are eating more and better than ever before. World cereal consumption has more than doubled since 1970, and meat consumption has tripled since 1961. The global fish catch grew more than six times from 1950 to 1997. None of this happened by magic, though, but only by giving Nature a massive helping hand. The World Resources Institute said in 1999 that half of all the commercial fertilizer ever produced had been applied since 1984.

12. Planet Under Pressure 2. Water The world's water crisis is simple to understand, if not to solve. The amount of water in the world is finite. The number of us is growing fast and our water use is growing even faster. A third of the world's population lives in water-stressed countries now. By 2025, this is expected to rise to two-thirds. There is more than enough water available, in total, for everyone's basic needs. The UN recommends that people need a minimum of 50 litres of water a day for drinking, washing, cooking and sanitation. In 1990, over a billion people did not have even that.

13. Planet Under Pressure The first problem with energy is that we are running short of traditional sources of supply. The International Energy Agency says the world will need almost 60% more energy in 2030 than in 2002, and fossil fuels will still meet most of its needs. We depend on oil for 90% of our transport, and for food, pharmaceuticals, chemicals and the entire bedrock of modern life. But oil industry experts estimate that current reserves will only last for about 40 years. 3. Energy

14. Planet Under Pressure 4. Climate Change Climate change is our biggest environmental challenge, says the UK Prime Minister, Tony Blair. His chief scientific adviser, Sir David King, calls it a far greater global threat than international terrorism. There is wide though not unanimous agreement from scientists that they are right. It is certainly possible that warming temperatures could take the Earth into uncharted waters, even though nobody can say exactly how fast it may happen and who will be most affected.

19. This map, from the UK’s Hadley Centre, assumes that current emissions trends continue, with moderate economic growth and few measures to reduce emissions. It predicts the greatest rises in northern polar regions, India, Africa and parts of South America.

20. Planet Under Pressure 5. Species Extinction FIVE MASS EXTINCTIONS Cretaceous (About 65 million years ago) Triassic (About 208 million years ago) Permian (About 245 million years ago) Devonian (About 360 million years ago) Ordovician (About 438 million years ago) All the creatures we share the Earth with are important in some way, however unprepossessing or insignificant they may appear. They and we are all part of the web of life. From the dawn of time, extinction has usually progressed at what scientists call a natural or background rate. Today the tempo is far faster.

21. Planet Under Pressure 6. Pollution Cutting waste and clearing up pollution costs money. Yet time and again it is the quest for wealth that generates much of the mess in the first place. Living in a way that is less damaging to the Earth is not easy, but it is vital, because pollution is pervasive and often life-threatening. The World Health Organization (WHO) says 3 million people are killed worldwide by outdoor air pollution annually from vehicles and industrial emissions, and 1.6 million indoors through using solid fuel. Most are in poor countries.

22. Planet Under Pressure Divide into 6 groups. Take one issue of resources and population ie Food, Water, Energy, Pollution, Species extinction or Climate change and prepare a group presentation using PowerPoint to explain the key facts. Keep the presentation to 7 slides and 10 minutes maximum. Presentations next lesson. For now consider each of these questions Is enough being done to combat global warming? Does climate change affect your life? Are you worried about the effects of global warming? "How I'd change the world..."

23. Planet Under Pressure