The world is a big, beautiful place. Let’s keep it that way. Here are 10 places that will never look the same if something isn’t done about climate change. Find out who’s stepping up and doing something about it in Years of Living Dangerously, premiering April 13th at 10/9c, only on Showtime.
1. The Alps
Warming at almost three times the global average, alpine glaciers are steadily being replaced with mountain plants, growing far above where they should be.
2. Kiribati
Kiribati is the first country to ask for help evacuating its population because climate change has made much of its (tiny amount of) landmass uninhabitable.
3. The Colorado River
It’s not just Southern California that faces a severe drought — lower rainfall in the Southwest region is expected to deplete water reserves in the Colorado, Rio Grande, and San Joaquin River basins by 8–14% in the next 40 years.
4. Great Barrier Reef
Not all climate change is as easy to see. The Great Barrier Reef is under threat of losing all its color and most of its life — unusually warm water causes algae to vacate, leaving the coral bed whiter and weaker.
5. The Gulf Coast
Louisiana’s coastline changes just about every year these days, and it seems that isn’t going to stop any time soon.
6. The Northwest Passage
One of the most pristine, untouched places on Earth, the Arctic’s melting will not just shave off more than 4,000 miles of the trip from Europe to Asia — it will also completely change tidal patterns.
7. Italy
Aside from the obvious, Venice, Italy (above) as a whole is already experiencing an increase in tropical diseases as a result ofmosquitoes coming over from North Africa.
8. The Everglades
Much of coastal Florida is already under extreme threat, with inland marshes in the Everglades being overtaken by seawater ponds.
9. New York City
Even as real estate costs rise, the Big Apple’s waterfront property is one of the highest-risk metropolitan areas in the country. And if recent events have shown us anything, hurricanes are only increasing in frequency and size.
10. The Amazon
Deforestation aside, up to 85% of the Amazon rainforest could die with even a four-degree Celsius rise in temperatures, and an increase of just two degrees would kill 20 to 40%.
