New Report: Melting Planet

[buzzsaw_23]

Melting Planet

Species are dying out faster than we have dared recognise, scientists will warn this week. The erosion of polar ice is the first break in a fragile chain of life extending across the planet, from bears in the north to penguins in the far south

By Andrew Buncombe in Anchorage and Severin Carrell in London

Published: 02 October 2005

Some of itsfindings include:

* Four out of five migratory birds listed by the UN face problems ranging from lower water tables to increased droughts, spreading deserts and shifting food supplies in their crucial "fuelling stations" as they migrate.

* One-third of turtle nesting sites in the Caribbean - home to diminishing numbers of green, hawksbill and loggerhead turtles - would be swamped by a sea level rise of 50cm (20ins). This will "drastically" hit their numbers. At the same time, shallow waters used by the endangered Mediterranean monk seal, dolphins, dugongs and manatees will slowly disappear.

* Whales, salmon, cod, penguins and kittiwakes are affected by shifts in distribution and abundance of krill and plankton, which has "declined in places to a hundredth or thousandth of former numbers because of warmer sea-surface temperatures."

<snip>

The science magazine Nature predicted last year that up to 37 per cent of terrestrial species could become extinct by 2050. And the Defra report presents more problems than solutions. Tackling these crises will be far more complicated than just building more nature reserves - a problem that Jim Knight, the nature conservation minister, acknowledges.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/article316604.ece

[salinen]

1. Earth will be a dead ball

in 12 years.

[tom_paine]

3. Well, I don't think it will happen THAT quickly

And I sure don't think it will become a dead ball anytime soon, long after humans have disappeared.

Think of how persistent and adaptable life is. There are microbes living in geysers that are a few degrees below boiling, microbes living in acid clouds.

And we couldn't kill the cockroaches if we tried.

Could the human species be extinct in a millenium or two? Most definitely.

But life will go on, I think.

[trotsky]

4. So true.

Life will survive - this planet has been through dozens of cataclysmic events and life adapted. Earth has not been sterile since the very first cell appeared in the muck. Life will go on, even if we humans wipe ourselves out.

[Redneck Socialist]

2. We are so fucked. n/t