Diversity of species faces 'catastrophe' from climate change

[muriel_volestrangler]

Tens of thousands of animals and plants could become extinct within the coming decades as a direct result of global warming.

This is the main conclusion of a study into how climate change will affect the diversity of species in the most precious wildlife havens of the world.

Scientists believe that if atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide double from pre-industrial times - which is expected by the end of the century - then biodiversity will be devastated.

"It isn't just polar bears and penguins that we must worry about anymore," said Lee Hannah of Conservation International, which is based in Washington.

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article356995.ece

[phantom power]

1. You are just a grumpy atheist goat.

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. Bah, humbug - where's my coffee?

[phantom power]

4. I've had my coffee, but I still think we're doomed. Humbug.

[jrw14125]

2. Yesterday the Telegraph ran an untruthful op/ed by Bob Carter - GW skeptic

Here's this lying SOB's op/ed from yesterday: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/04/09/do0907.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/04/09/ixworld.html

first, note that his writing is distributed (ie: funded) by Lavoisier Group, which is "concerned about the cost of Kyoto to Australia's resource-intensive economy." - http://www.spinwatch.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=287

His premise in the op/ed is that global warming actually *stopped* in 1998 - he states that the years after that were cooler.

Of course *he leaves out 2005* which was tied with 1998 for the warmest year ON RECORD.

He also fails to mention that 2002 and 2003 were the 2nd and 3rd warmest years ON RECORD.

He also fails to mention that the last 3 5-year periods are the warmest ON RECORD.

No mention of the heatwaves in 2001 and 2002 that killed 10s of thousands of people.

No mention that since 1980, the earth has experienced 19 of its 20 hottest years ON RECORD.

No mention of the increasing rate of polar cap and glacial melting (which only increasingly fuels the feedback loop b/c dark water absorbs more heat while ice reflects 90% of the suns rays back into space).

Oh, and did I mention that I'm not a scientist, but it only took me 2 minutes on the website of the organization from which he pulls his facts out of his a$$, to figure out that this info was available to him, and that the organization's reports clearly demonstrate the spike in teperature for 2005?

1998 0.4920 0.0047
2005 0.5223 0.0051
(http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/)

Exxon should be so proud.

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. That was the Telegraph - a right wing newspaper

No longer owned by Conrad Black, but now by secretive twin businessmen the Barclay brothers. It's not surprising to find warming denial there. Good background expose on Carter, by the way. The OP, on the other hand, comes from The Independent - which is certainly the best paper in the UK (and maybe in the English-speaking world) for taking the environment seriously. It's centrist in its politics.