CLIMATE CHANGE SLOWLY CREEPING INTO WV MOUNTAINS

(04/07/2020)

COVID-19 has brought many people outdoors, but just like this pandemic, climate change is also a problem that could make our world into one that can’t be enjoyed during times like these. “It’s really interesting that whenever people learn about climate change," said Sara Crayton, a wildlife biologist and PhD student at WVU. "They’re usually learning about how the polar bears are losing their ice and we hear about wild fires in Australia, but a lot of people don’t know how climate change is affecting us here,” she said. The US government has withdrawn for international climate change accords, politically defining it as a hoax. Here in West Virginia, Crayton said it is predicted that the northern and southern part of the state will become warmer by approximately five degrees in the next 40 to 50 years. “The climate is going to change, our weather will change, we’ll have droughts, we’re expected to have more severe storms and flooding,” she said. “It will impact all of us and it will impact us in ways that we can’t necessarily predict yet and maybe that we’re not thinking about,” she said. “West Virginia is an incredibly beautiful state it has an amazing diversity of plant and animal species and we do expect that we’ll lose many of those animal and plant species with climate change,” Crayton said.

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