Slashdot Mirror
"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."
If species are losing their living space it's due to increasing populations of humans burning their habitat, not from a little CO2. Or from humans using the wrong farming practices, but again not due to CO2 levels.
for your Grandchildren. Those ignoring or making fun of it don't care about their
descendants. I guess Slashdotters may be clever, but not very respectful of science
itself. Very sad indeed !
John Eadie [JE46] http://www.c-art.com `one of these days the dogs aren't going to eat the dog food' - Bill Joy
I'm surprised about how Slashdot seems so overwhelmingly anti-science on this issue. Only a few posts in and I've already won ""idiotic anti-global warming arguments bingo".
Seems we're suffering from a bit of Climate Change Fatigue... which suggests that the less than 1% of credible scientists who doubt AGW have managed to sow enough seeds of dramatic dissent for the rest of us to lose interest.
Or perhaps, it is something a little simpler in the human psyche. Whilst we bemoan politicians who have no more future vision than the end of their current term, it seems that we too are particularly short-sighted about the future of this planet. I suspect that the majority of us look little further than how we're going to satisfy the physical aspects of Maslow's Heirarchy of needs.
When our life expectancies are extended to 1000 years (or more), and we face the very real prospect of living on the planet we are currently terraforming, we may take a slightly different view. Somehow, I doubt it. Most of the people alive today will live to see an increase of 4-6 degrees C... and yet, we're far more interested in gun control and the Kardashians.
I feel sad for our children (and their children) when I think about the world they will inherit from us.
You mention cherry-picking, but seem to be doing the exact same thing yourself. Well, except you're not even providing citations so we know WHICH models you're talking about and can provide the dozens of responses refuting the claims you are making. So it's more like "talking about a cherry on a tree in a vast orchard without specifying which one."
Your post shows a general misunderstanding of science. The hallmarks of science are fasifiability and predictability. Studies predict things so others can check the numbers and do their own calculations. By doing many calculations and comparing results (here predictions) we get a better understanding. Scientists don't do one study, predict one result, then sit back and wait for the result. The prediction is simply a statement that using these numbers and this analysis we get this result do others agree? No, you don't? Why not? Oh, that makes sense the prediction should be adjusted according to the new data and analysis. Each prediction is not it's own sure-to-be world. You're thinking of psychics who say "this will happen." Scientists just say this is likely what will happen but we'll update this prediction as new evidence comes in. Science doesn't demand every prediction be right, only that the general consensus be updated with new data.
A more recent poll showed that 2/3rd of statistics are made up.
How about you get labeled a Climate Hysteric? There are too many of those for my liking.
People who don't care one way or the other are not 'denialists' they just might have diferent priorities, and not consider GW the MOST IMPORTANT THING EVER, as opposed to, keeping their job, keeping their house, not getting cancer, etc.
"With us, or Against us" has been used many times in history; but it's not always true.
No, "they" didn't 400 ppm has always been the big concerning level, after which positive feed back systems may be triggered. The truth is nobody really knows - although we are about to.
The statement that 'plants breath CO2 so extra CO2 is good' indicates that you've been smoking way too much of your ganga to understand that an ecosystem is a bit more complex than your hydroponics setup.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
CO2 levels of more than 4000 parts per million (ppm) occurred during the Ordovician-Silurian (450 million years ago). There is also evidence of a glacial event occurring during this period.
from: http://www.climatechange.gov.au/climate-change/understanding-climate-change/understand-cc-long-term.aspx
And how were mammals handling those environmental conditions? What's that? They didn't exist yet? I'm sorry, what? Yes, apology accepted. No, no, it's okay, we put up with demonstrations of subpar intelligence around here all the time. All is forgiven. :)
And yet.... your insurance company IS taking this seriously. THEY have access to a whole pile a data too showing how often floods, tornados, storm surges etc etc occur and they see a trend of them happening more often which is why insurance premiums are increasing.
You can deny all you want, they will on the other hand look after themselves and charge accordingly , and if they decide large parts of the populated USA are too high a risk they WILL pull out or make the premiums so expensive that it amounts to the same thing.
Thats is the nice side of the free market, they are free to make their own assessment, and they are. They are changing policies, making things like fences, driveways, pools, etc uninsurable, they are putting up premiums, putting up excesses.
Insurance companies are not in either camp of denial or belief in global warming, they are in the business of risk management and at the moment the facts are telling them global warming is producing higher risks, so they are managing their risks accordingly. So one way or another, those who deny global warming is happening WILL pay for it because the increased insurance costs for businesses will get passed on, lower crop yields means higher food prices, more frequent more severe storms means more social disruption and costs, higher crime, etc etc etc, all of which will cost in taxes,insurances, etc.
Thing is, if global warming is WRONG, the worst that can happen is we end up with a cleaner planet.
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.
The interesting part is that they looked at the "habitats that these species now live in". They did not look at habitats that are not currently suitable for the species to live in. For all we know there could be more area that species could live in when the climate changed. By concentrating on current species ranges the scientists are skewing the results. One should look at the whole system before coming to a conclusion.
I had put this as an article but it was declined.
2-3 million years ago 300km inside the arctic circle CO2 levels were 400 ppm and temps were 8C above present. This according to an article published last week in the journal Science covered by Scientific American (link to journal in that article). Lake sediments find 7 varieties of fir tree pollen. This verdant period doubtless had countless bacteria, plants, insects, mammals now extinct because between then and now have been a whole lot of very cold years interspersed with some brief 10-15000 year periods of temperatures like the current. These species failed to adapt to the climate that is our current day. Firs don't grow there now. Humans are not to blame for that - there weren't any. This condition had likely persisted for millions of years prior, though intermittent rapid cold/hot spells did punctuate the climate cycles and cause widespread extinctions.
Life adapts. That's what it does. Life is a plague that cannot be stopped short of a supernova or the impact of something the size of Mars that sterilizes the entire surface by turning it to magma to 4km depth - and I'm not even sure about the latter as such an impact will kick the life off to circle the sun to land again when the planet has cooled enough to accept it. Species go extinct all the time and new species are born every minute. Every corner that has any form of energy will be populated by forms of life that use that energy and higher forms that feed on those, ultimately capturing carbon in stable forms. That is another thing that life-as-we-know-it does that has led to our current bitterly cold climate.
Humans use intelligence and common effort to surmount environmental challenges - that's what we do. There are humans that live on Antarctica and in the furthest terrestrial reaches of the arctic circle. If the Arctic Circle rises in temperatures by 8C again - or even 16C - then Mankind gets more arable land and living space, not less, because polar temps increase disproportionately to equatorial temps. Plants and animals move north quite rapidly. The vast Alaskan, Canadian and Russian permafrost becomes cropland. We move freight over the poles year-round, opening ports and resorts on the northern shores. And we lose Florida, New Orleans and South Texas. That's inconvenient. People have to move. The US probably has to annex Canada. I'm not buying the whole coral reef thing since those reefs are over 3 million years old and have survived the descent into the cold and back again very many times. That means they evolved in a climate that wasn't as crisp as our current era and should thrive when their natural habitat is restored.
You can complain about this if you want to but you cannot change the outcome. For every person on Earth who cares enough to act to reverse climate are fifty who either stand to benefit from climate change or have too many more pressing issues to care, and their efforts are more than enough to counteract any green movement that could occur short of a world government with levels of control that is not to be wish'd. Do you think Canadians and Russians live in fear of global warming? Do you think if the US converts entirely to hydro, nuclear, geothermal, solar and gas that we will stop digging up the coal? No. We will just export it to absolve ourselves of the guilt of burning it and the CO2 will still happen someplace where our clean burning regulations don't apply. Those coal mines have debts to pay. Same with high-sulfur oil.
These cycles are how nature motivates humans to evacuate equatorial regions and inhabit a wider world. It's what drove us out of Africa time and again. And the relapses to the cold drive local populations to equatorial regions for long times, increasing differentiation in the isolation periods, which leads to competition and strife when warmth and commerce resumes and finds a winner amongs
Help stamp out iliturcy.
majority of our global warming issues
Except he didn't say that. He believes that global warming has something to do with desertification, but doesn't have a model that explains the data -- just something that he thinks is worth looking into. Besides, he is an expert in other fields.
I hope you're not too lazy to watch all twenty-two minutes of it
Ain't it true that a man sees what he wants to see and disregards the rest.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
That is it in a nut shell. Al invented the internet. Al just saved us from rebellion. Al flies in his private jet to GW conferences yet tells everyone they need to do without. Al is not your best front man if you didnt know already.
Yeah, Al is just this *horrible* guy, you see, and since he is for something, then we should be against it. 'Cause that's how us republicans roll.
FACE-PALM.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Important? or convenient excuses for people who make lots of money from carbon, and have bought of the media, think-tank, and political system.
Remember, tackling the ozone whole was going to *destroy* the us economy. So was tackling acid rain. Now taxing carbon is going to *destroy* the economy, so it *must* be true that global warming is no big deal. Except that it is a big deal, and doing something about it will have negligible (or positive) effect on the economy, as *evidenced* by countries that have done something, such as Germany, China, Australia, and northeastern USA.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Back in 1975 we were supposed to be freezing by now. Anyone remember that?
As in some scientists asked the question, studied it, and rejected the theory after 5 or so years. There was never consensus, but the story was too good not to run in major newspapers.
Do YOU remember it?
More Big Scare tactics. These articles belong in the Science Fiction category so far. We don't know what's going to happen, we've never been there before, but we're assured that it's going to be bad and only by taking and transferring hundreds of billions of our tax dollars to someone else who is more Progressive than ourselves can we save us all.
The only big scare tactics I see are those who preach that the economy was crash if we tax pollution. It is baloney of course. There is empirical data that shows that the effect on the economy is * negligible*. The effect on the Koch brother's political influence will be non-negligible, but that's crony capitalism for you.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
I am not talking about evolution but that other areas will support plants and animals that it currently can not. There are areas where it is currently to cold to support Maize. When it warms up it will be hot enough. The point is the old area will be unsuitable but other areas will be suitable. Since this study did not look into new areas that can support the plants it only shows part of the picture. I live in Canada and global warming will lengthen our growing season and broaden the kinds of food we can grow here. The study concentrated on decreased suitability of current ranges and ignores increased suitability of currently unsuitable ranges.
"Life adapts. That's what it does."
Actually the fossil record suggests otherwise, if the amount of change is too abrupt. In that case most higher life forms go extinct because they are too dependent upon specific lower forms of life that often can not adapt. Most organisms have very specific environmental requirements. Go outside of those physiological limits and they die. Humans aren't much different in many respects. We do a lot of things, but seldom do we really get too far out of our physiological comfort zone. A world that in 80-100 years has temperatures of 130-140 degrees F in the shade for weeks on end will be a whole experience.
Keep in mind that this time its totally different, because of the rate at which CO2 is rising. Its going up more than 26 times faster than during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal maximum, which changed the forests of what is now northern Wyoming from redwoods to palm trees in a couple of thousand years. It will be hard to imagine many organisms surviving that kind of change over the course of a few hundred, much less most of their pollinators.
"Do you think Canadians and Russians live in fear of global warming?"
They should. The vast bulk of the warming that will be seen is occurring in the Arctic and generally speaking even Russians and Canadians need to eat. With food crops under threat, they may well find themselves stressed as well. Some 56,000 Russians died in the heat wave in 2010. Some 40,000-50,000 Europeans died from a similar heat wave in 2003. If the Lake El’gygytgyn results are a direct indication that the global climate sensitivity is 8 degrees Celsius which it appears to, rather than what people have been indirectly inferring and using in their climate models, then its pretty clear that we can expect many more to die as we now move into the Arctic amplification phase of global warming.
As for the high latitude North providing more arable land, don't count on it for several reasons. 1) Arctic soils are very poor, 2) few commercial plants can tolerate the long winters so most crops that require more than one year to produce, such as fruit trees won't be among them, 3) just because the Arctic is warming doesn't mean that it may not yet see many days with freezing temperatures, so most plants adapted to more southern latitudes simply won't be able to adapt to growing conditions which are interrupted by severe frost in an unpredictable way, 4) it may be almost impossible to take pollinators with them given the different wind and percipitation/abruptly changing temperature regimes. Keep in mind many plants used for human consumption, such as corn, rice, coffee are tropical or tropical highland species, 5) many others such as wheat are highly susceptible to rusts and fungi and will likely fare poorly as there is too much moisture in the atmosphere such as in early spring, and 6) simply because you have high latitude does not mean that abundant, year around sources of freshwater will be uniformly available throughout the entire landscape.
Obviously, a lot depends on how fast the change.
Yeah, it does. Life will survive this as it survived worse things than that.
But our societies and economies as they are will not. That's the point. You can have "life" adapt perfectly well in the long run and still have global mayhem happening while it is adapting.
Also, "life will adapt" just ignores the fact that changes that happen over thousands of years are easier to adapt to than changes that happen within decades. There's no time for slow migration, ecosystems and economies gradually changing and adapting. Fast changes are incredibly hard to adapt to and the changes we're looking at are happening really quick.
It's the typical jump from "nothing is happening" to "life will adapt" while totally ignoring all the major shit happening to real people and real economies that makes me wonder about the will to face reality in many people. First they close their eyes while pretending "it's a lie, nothing is really happening", then they jump to "life will adapt". Yeah, but life may adapt by you and your children starving.
Life adapts, but only given the opportunity. There are 5 massive epochal die-offs that prove your point. They also prove that you're not thinking this through very well. Many of the humans you're talking about adapt using rather violent tactics. It's called war. If you believe that the geopolitical considerations will just sort themselves out, then you haven't read much history. The logical limits to growth are also the logical variables that lead to armed conflict if and when diplomacy fails.
Currently a good portion of the cause for the success of the world's dominant economic powers revolves around the development of technology, but it's also predated by the accident of unimpeded access to abundant natural resources. Accidental in the sense that water, arable land, lumber and minerals existed as those political powers developed their technologies. The modern construct of ownership has always been enforced through warfare.
What do you think will happen when climate challenges the ability of the current geopolitical regimes? It's not going to be orderly or pretty if, "humans (attempt) to evacuate equatorial regions and inhabit a wider world." The Maldives and other island populations are the first to confront such a reality, but they'll easily be able to integrate into other areas. What do you think will happen if most of the existing population below 30 degress latitude in both hemispheres is forced to evacuate?
Therefore in effect our civilization is RETURNING the carbon into the air. Therefore, when the fossil fuels were formed it must've been much warmer than today, but not warm enough to harm life on earth. Most living things generally do better in warmth that in freezing cold. Therefore if mankind managed to liberate ALL carbon now stored as fossil fuels, the cycle would repeat itself.
You are completely ignoring the speed this change happened in the past (geological scale, millions of years) and the speed global warming is moving now (tens or hundreds of years). Yes, in the past earth was indeed warmer. Antarctica was a green continent full of life but also areas around equator were dry deserts without life.
Note that there were also periods of time when earth was much colder then today. Even equator was frozen and life survived only in oceans. See Snowballl earth on wiki.
Whenever in the past, there was sudden change of temperature like we are seeing today, it was accompanied by massive extinction of species (90%+ of species died, generally everything larger then mouse). Sure, live will probably prevail but if we don't prepare for this change it will cause big problems. Large areas of the earth will become uninhabitable, nations will move, territorial wars will erupt, seaside cities will be slowly flooded etc.
In my opinion it is very reasonable to study climate changes, the implications they will have on life on earth and try to adapt to them or prevent the biggest problems if possible.
McWilliams has an ax to grind, he's an anti-meat fanatic.
I would like to see him attempt to explain why the American prairies weren't turned to deserts by the buffalo in the thousands of years when herds could be seen that often stretched from horizon to horizon.