May 04, 2015

Global Warming: Weapon of Mass Destruction

editor:	Gurmeet Singh

Who else is sick of climate change? People moan about it all the time, and it’s not like anything’s actually happening. No ice age, no rising sea levels, nothing. Come on climate, I dare you, change. Do something surprising. Make cauliflowers bloom in the Sahara, or pineapples on the banks of the Thames; I bet you can’t even make Greenland actually green, you big wimp. Climate change, pah.

And the climate, in response to this hubris (indifference?) killed one in six of every plant and animal species on the planet.

Or at least that’s what Mark Urban, an ecologist at the University of Connecticut argued last week. In an article published in Science, Dr. Urban predicted that climate change will not only drive to extinction one in six of every plant and animal species, but will do so at an accelerating rate as the planet warms.

So that’s bye-bye to the Pika, tschuss to the polar bear, thanks for stopping by sea-turtle, (dare I say see you later alligator?) as well as a total of 7.9% of species on earth which will become extinct thanks to climate change.

Dr. Urban’s study has already raised questions in the scientific community, including a debate about whether he was too conservative in his estimates; not whether he was wrong, but whether he hadn't gone far enough. John J. Wiens, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona said the actual rate of extinction could be twice or three times as high.

Dr. Urban's study was in truth a meta-analysis that re-analysed the data from 131 general studies that looked at species threatened by climate change, and from this deduced that a 7.9% extinction rate was likely. The analysis is certainly not the final word in the debate, acknowledged Dr. Urban, but it is a good starting point. And we might be advised that if we thinking of “taking the hit” of 7.9% extinction rate and just simply getting on with our lives, that not doing anything about climate change wouldn't simply result in anything remotely so simple. Indeed, the report doesn't acknowledge the complexity and interconnectedness of the environment' – the impact of one species dying out on another, and potential chain reactions.

So what do we do? As always, promote active engagement with divestment causes, climate change activities and put our support behind greener, sustainable initiatives big and small. We might all be sick of climate change, but that won't stop the planet getting sick from climate change. As Dr. Urban says, “We have the choice. The world can decide where on that curve they want the future Earth to be.”

Image: http://scienceblogs.com/