Global warming

Overview: Humanity is confronted with a warming planet that is experiencing rising peak temperatures, increased desertification, more extreme weather events, wildfires of increasing severity and frequency, increasing loss of the cryosphere – glaciers, polar ice, permafrost, etc. – and the resulting rise in sea levels. Global warming is occurring because of increasing levels of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere, as a result of rising production levels that exceed the natural capacity of the microbial world to capture, metabolise and bury them. But microbes not only capture and bury GHGs but also produce them, for example in the rumen of cows and sheep, and thus play key roles in the fluxes of GHGs. Reducing the release of GHGs to the atmosphere requires that we take action to increase microbial capture and decrease microbial production of GHGs. Let’s learn about the roles of microbes in global warming!