"Dramatic Decline" Warning For Plants and Animals

An anonymous reader writes "Worldwide levels of the chief greenhouse gas that causes global warming have hit a milestone, reaching an amount never before encountered by humans, federal scientists said. Carbon dioxide was measured at 400 parts per million at the oldest monitoring station in Hawaii, which sets the global benchmark. More than half of plants and a third of animal species are likely to see their living space halved by 2080 if current trends continue."

Comments

Re:350ppm

[singingjim1]

Isn't it about rising temps and sea levels? THAT'S what's supposed to reduce habitat. Not just CO2 levels by itself. Just sayin'.

Try reading the article

[Anonymous Coward]

"so I dont see how more co2 will harm plants". Yes you do, you just wanted to do a quick denial thing. From the article:

"An international team of researchers looked at the impacts of rising temperatures on nearly 50,000 common species of plants and animals."

"They looked at both temperature and rainfall records for the habitats that these species now live in and mapped the areas that would remain suitable for them under a number of different climate change scenarios."

"The scientists projected that if no significant efforts were made to limit greenhouse gas emissions, 2100 global temperatures would be 4C above pre-industrial levels."

"In this model, some 34% of animal species and 57% of plants would lose more than half of their current habitat ranges. "

So the models very much in line with the UN one at 4 degrees, it will expand the dessert along the equators and push species north into a smaller area presumably. But hey, if you deny it, it won't happen right?

FUDery indeed

[microbox]

This is what counts as evidence for you. Did you ever find some counter evidence? Almost certainly not, right?

For those who are interested, you can read about Beck 2008 here, here, and here.

For the full effect, make sure you actually read through Beck 2008.

Proof that you only need a few bits of junk our there, and that's enough for politics.