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I came across this book today, and all I can say is wow. It describes how the five mass extinction events of the past worked. Four of the five, including the one that killed all the dinosaurs, involved greenhouse gases reaching a level that we could reach in 100 years if we're not careful. That would mean the death of over half of earth's inhabitants.
The way things work now, there's a cycle in the ocean, with water moving around enough to be oxygenated, allowing the right creatures to live. If it gets hot enough, that cycle will stop, the water will no longer be oxygenated, and those creatures will be replaced by bacteria. These bacteria will produce hydrogen sulfide, and much of the ocean's life will die. Worst case scenario? In 100 years, humans will have caused the 6th mass extinction event, and the sky will be green.
So this got me thinking. If we've got all the evidence, and all the reason in the world to change our destructive ways and clean up
This article explains how scientists working at the University of York have found that four of the five previous mass extinction events, including the one that killed the dinosaurs, coincided with a phase of increasing greenhouse gases. This led to less global biodiversity, which could be on the horizon for us.The predicted global temperatures for the next 100 years match levels required by this new evidence to eliminate more than 50% of all life on earth.There's already been news on some species teetering on the brink of extinction. It looks like the threat of global warming is gaining definition and visibility.
clipped from news.mongabay.comWarming temperatures could trigger a ‘mass extinction event’, warn scientists writing in the latest issue of Proceedings of the Royal Society B.Comparing ancient records of marine and terrestrial diversity with historical temperature estimates, researchers from the Universities of York and Leeds found a close correlation between Earth climate and extinctions over the past 520 million years: higher extinction rates occur at higher temperatures."We found that over the fossil record as a whole, the higher the temperatures have been, the higher the extinctions have been," lead author Peter Mayhew, a University of York ecologist, told the Associated Press.The researchers note that four of the five historical mass extinction events are associated with warm greenhouse phases. The largest mass extinction event of all, the end-Permian when 95 percent of animal and plant species disappeared, occurred during one of the warmest-ever climate phases.
This must be a sign of our incredible trend toward monocultures in worldwide agriculture - the first global survey of livestock breeds reports that one goes extinct every month. That’s more extinctions by far than I’ve seen reported anywhere else.
Previous studies have cited a fungus as the reason for population declines, but this study found declines of populations free of the fungus. Global warming seems to be the next fall guy in line, though the synopsis of the evidence doesn’t sound at all conclusive.
One statistic I hadn’t seen yet: 100 frog and reptile species have gone extinct in Central & South America since 1980.
Here we seem to have a some predictions of what the predictions will be. A third of all species will have to move to new ecosystems or they’ll become extinct. The only extinctions cited so far are 17 species of frog. So first we’ll what the actual report predicts, and then how those predictions play out…
The mystery of what killed Australia's giant animals - the so-called 'megafauna' - during the Last Ice Age is one of the longest-running and most emotive debates in palaeontology. Scientists have now published clear evidence from south-eastern Australia to show that climate change was not the driving force behind the extinctions, which took place between 50 and 40 thousand years ago.
This refocuses attention on humans as the main cause. The latest study, published in the January 2007 issue of the respected international journal Geology, is unique in providing - for the first time - a long-term perspective on the responses of the megafauna in the Naracoorte Caves (info) region of south-eastern Australia to cyclical swings in Ice Age climates.
"Climate change was certainly not the main culprit in the extinctions. Our data show that the megafauna was resilient to climatic fluctuations over the past half-million years", said team leader and palaeontologist Dr Gavin Prideaux from the Wes
The recent wave of super typhoon that has rampaged through the Philippines could partly be explained by global warming. If one has noticed it, Milenyo and Reming had more winds that are stronger than ever before than rain which explains why so many houses and infrastructure were blown away instead of being submerged in floodwater.
Recalling my ecology class, if the planet is warmer, and it is, it causes more typhoons, cyclones and tornadoes because a warmer planet leads to a warmer atmosphere, which in turn yields to faster winds. Simply because warmer air is less dense and therefore is more easily carried around the planet thanks to its rotation and other factors.
We humans suffer this ugly end of global warming, already we are easily overwhelmed and could barely cope with its damages to material and human life. How you ever wondered though, how global warming affects the other animals and plants that share this planet with us?
The video below is just one of the most visible and earli
The recent wave of super typhoon that has rampaged through the Philippines could partly be explained by global warming. If one has noticed it, Milenyo and Reming had more winds that are stronger than ever before than rain which explains why so many houses and infrastructure were blown away instead of being submerged in floodwater.
Recalling my ecology class, if the planet is warmer, and it is, it causes more typhoons, cyclones and tornadoes because a warmer planet leads to a warmer atmosphere, which in turn yields to faster winds. Simply because warmer air is less dense and therefore is more easily carried around the planet thanks to its rotation and other factors.
We humans suffer this ugly end of global warming, already we are easily overwhelmed and could barely cope with its damages to material and human life. How you ever wondered though, how global warming affects the other animals and plants that share this planet with us?
The video below is just one of the most visible and earli
University of Texas biologist Camille Parmesan reviewed 866 studies, concluding that extinctions caused by a rapidly warming world have begun, citing the extinction of 70 species of mountain-dwelling frogs. No other specific extinctions are referenced, but they may include more mountain-top-dependent species like the frogs, and possibly polar species like emperor penguins and polar bears, she predicts. She acknowledges that evolutionary changes are underway to compensate for the changing environment, but that they can’t keep pace with the rapidity of the environmental changes. I wonder how long it will be before the changes are dramatic enough to enter our common consciousness?
Modern human mothers are probably happy that they typically have one, maybe two babies at a time, but for early hominids, low birth numbers combined with competition often spelled extinction."The lineages of primates have some traits that make it hard for them to respond to rapid perturbations in the environment," says Dr. Nina G. Jablonski [1], professor of anthropology and department head at Penn State. "Through time we see a lot of lineages become extinct when environments where the species are found become highly seasonal or unpredictable."Primates evolved in the Paleocene and Eocene when worldwide climate was less seasonal. The beneficial environment allowed primates to evolve as relatively brainy animals that reproduce slowly. However, when climate changed so that tropical forests shrunk and the environment became patchy, many species including primate species became extinct."While past primate populations moved with the forest, early hominid cultures 2.5 million years ago show s
