Study: Warming May Spark Mass Extinction

[leftchick]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=624&ncid=716&e=7&u=/ap/20040107/ap_on_sc/global_warming

<snip>

A sweeping new analysis enlisting scientists from 14 laboratories around the globe found that more than one-third of 1,103 native species they studied could vanish or plunge to near extinction by 2050 as climate change turns plains into deserts or alters forests.

Among the already threatened species that could go extinct are Australia's Boyd's forest dragon, Europe's azure-winged magpie and Mexico's Jico deer mouse.

The researchers concede there are many uncertainties in both climate forecasts and the computer models they used to forecast future extinctions. But they said their dire conclusions may well come to pass if industrial nations do not curtail emissions of greenhouse gases that trap heat in the atmosphere.

"We're already seeing biological communities respond very rapidly to climate warming," said Chris Thomas, a conservation biologist at the University of Leeds in England, and the study's lead author.

[kayell]

1. * "I think we should do some further studies on this, no one really knows

what the effects of global warming (if it exists) could be."

2014 Deer mouse and magpie extinct. pRes. Jeb "Well, those were very minor species. It can't be proved that global warming was responsible. Perhaps some more studies."

2024 Several major plant species extinct. Emperor Jenna "Well, perhaps global warming is causing this, but it doesn't seem to effect people. Think about the economic repercussions. Let's fund a study."

2034 Corn and palm trees thriving only in Siberia and the Yukon His Supreme Bushness, "Does it seem hot to you? We really should consider some more studies. Nothing seems real definative yet."

2044 *sizzle*

[KansDem]

2. The only kind of "sound science" that Bush will consider...

are the studies that "sound" good to him.

[damnraddem]

3. And there's no guarantee that the species becoming extinct won't include:

homo sapiens.

[missile_bender]

4. Well, if we go

can Bush survive? To the Moon!

[worldgonekrazy]

5. There ain't no "maybe" about it

Global warming will lead to mass extinction. It has happened in the past on Earth and it will happen again in the future. The only issue is that we are speeding up the process so much with pollution.

[treepig]

6. looks like another example of the liberal press

slanting things again - for example, the headline

"Study: Warming May Spark Mass Extinction"

notice how the wording

1. leaves some degree of uncertainty whether it will happen
2. makes it look to be a future, not current, event

by contrast:

Mass Extinction Underway, Majority of Biologists Say
Washington Post
Tuesday, April 21, 1998
Page A-4

By Joby Warrick
Staff Writer

A majority of the nation's biologists are convinced that a "mass extinction" of plants and animals is underway that poses a major threat to humans in the next century, yet most Americans are only dimly aware of the problem, a poll says.

more

http://www.well.com/user/davidu/extinction.html

[Dogmudgeon]

7. I was gonna say!

If, in 200 million years, long after the stinking sticky stain called Humanity is scrubbed clean from the cotton-white underwear of Life, another sentient species emerges, will they look back on the fossil record and think that a huge asteroid smashed into the Earth, released huge amounts of lethal vapors, and caused so many of its species to be snuffed out in a single, cataclysmic, universal release of cosmic flatus?

Well, will they?

--bkl

[Gin]

8. are Neo-Cons one of the species that wont survive? (fingers crossed)

man...I hope they get raptured if global warming doesn't get them.

[Ferretherder]

9. A-friggin'-men, Gin! A-friggin'-men!

n/t