Global Warming Impact --- Biodiversity

Global Warming Impact --- Biodiversity

Similarly, climate modeling of the tropical forests of Northern South America, Dr. Paul A. T. Higgins expects a regional decline in biodiversity due to lower levels of rainfall. He says habitat destruction will make it more difficult for species to persist in shifting forests. Meanwhile, research on birds indicated that up to 72 percent of bird species in northeastern Australia and more than a third in Europe could go extinct due to global warming. The WWF report, which reviewed more than 200 scientific articles on birds found that species most at risk included migratory, mountain, island, wetland, Arctic, Antarctic and seabirds. Last year, Britain's environmental protection agency (DEFRA) warned that climate change will disrupt breeding, hamper migrations, and increase disease transmission in migratory birds and animals. Finally, a series of studies published over the past few years have expressed dire concern for coral reefs. Among the most alarming was one by WWF and the Queensland government that said Australia's Great Barrier Reef could lose 95 percent of its living coral by 2050 should ocean temperatures increase by the 1.5 degrees Celsius projected by climate scientists. Ocean acidification, resulting from higher concentrations of dissolved carbon dioxide, is a further threat to corals and plankton that form the basis of the marine food chain.

Global Warming Impact

Global Warming causes Laundry list of Problems

Reuters 07(Jeremy Lovell “Global warming impact like "nuclear war": report” Sep 12, http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL1234809620070912)

Climate change could have global security implications on a par with nuclear war unless urgent action is taken, a report said on Wednesday. The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) security think-tank said global warming would hit crop yields and water availability everywhere, causing great human suffering and leading to regional strife. While everyone had now started to recognize the threat posed by climate change, no one was taking effective leadership to tackle it and no one could tell precisely when and where it would hit hardest, it added. “The most recent international moves towards combating global warming represent a recognition … that if the emission of greenhouse gases … is allowed to continue unchecked, the effects will be catastrophic — on the level of nuclear war,” the IISS report said. “Even if the international community succeeds in adopting comprehensive and effective measures to mitigate climate change, there will still be unavoidable impacts from global warming on the environment, economies and human security,” it added. Scientists say global average temperatures will rise by between 1.8 and 4.0 degrees Celsius this century due to burning fossil fuels for power and transport. The IISS report said the effects would cause a host of problems including rising sea levels, forced migration, freak storms, droughts, floods, extinctions, wildfires, disease epidemics, crop failures and famines. The impact was already being felt — particularly in conflicts in Kenya and Sudan — and more was expected in places from Asia to Latin America as dwindling resources led to competition between haves and have nots. “We can all see that climate change is a threat to global security, and you can judge some of the more obvious causes and areas,” said IISS transnational threat specialist Nigel Inkster. “What is much harder to do is see how to cope with them.” The report, an annual survey of the impact of world events on global security, said conflicts and state collapses due to climate change would reduce the world’s ability to tackle the causes and to reduce the effects of global warming. State failures would increase the gap between rich and poor and heighten racial and ethnic tensions which in turn would produce fertile breeding grounds for more conflict. Urban areas would not be exempt from the fallout as falling crop yields due to reduced water and rising temperatures would push food prices higher, IISS said. Overall, it said 65 countries were likely to lose over 15 percent of their agricultural output by 2100 at a time when the world’s population was expected to head from six billion now to nine billion people. “Fundamental environmental issues of food, water and energy security ultimately lie behind many present security concerns, and climate change will magnify all three,” it added.
Global Warming causes Laundry List of Problem

MSNBC 07(MSNBC “Climate report maps out ‘highway to extinction’” 4-1. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17889856/)

WASHINGTON — A key element of the second major report on climate change being released Friday in Belgium is a chart that maps out the effects of global warming with every degree of temperature rise, most of them bad. There’s one bright spot: A minimal heat rise means more food production in northern regions of the world. However, the number of species going extinct rises with the heat, as does the number of people who may starve, or face water shortages, or floods, according to the projections in the draft report obtained by The Associated Press Some scientists are calling this degree-by-degree projection a “highway to extinction.” It’s likely to be the source of sharp closed-door debate, some scientists say, along with a multitude of other issues in the 20-chapter draft report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. While the wording in the draft is almost guaranteed to change at this week’s meeting in Brussels, several scientists say the focus won’t. The final document will be the product of a United Nations network of 2,000 scientists as authors and reviewers, along with representatives of more than 120 governments as last-minute editors. It will be the second of a four-volume authoritative assessment of Earth’s climate released this year. The last such effort was in 2001. University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver said the chart of results from various temperature levels is “a highway to extinction, but on this highway there are many turnoffs. This is showing you where the road is heading. The road is heading toward extinction.” Weaver is one of the lead authors of the first report, issued in February. While humanity will survive, hundreds of millions, maybe billions of people may not, according to the chart—if the worst scenarios happens. ‘Major extinctions around the globe’ The report says global warming has already degraded conditions for many species, coastal areas and poor people. With a more than 90 percent level of confidence, the scientists in the draft report say man-made global warming “over the last three decades has had a discernible influence on many physical and biological systems.” But as the world’s average temperature warms from 1990 levels, the projections get more dire. Add 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit -- 1 degree Celsius is the calculation scientists use—and between 400 million and 1.7 billion extra people can’t get enough water, some infectious diseases and allergenic pollens rise, and some amphibians go extinct. But the world’s food supply, especially in northern areas, could increase. That’s the likely outcome around 2020, according to the draft. Add another 1.8 degrees and as many as 2 billion people could be without water and about 20 percent to 30 percent of the world’s species near extinction. Also, more people start dying because of malnutrition, disease, heat waves, floods and droughts—all caused by global warming. That would happen around 2050, depending on the level of greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels. At the extreme end of the projections, a 7- to 9-degree average temperature increase, the chart predicts: “Up to one-fifth of the world population affected by increased flood events ... “1.1 to 3.2 billion people with increased water scarcity” ...”major extinctions around the globe.” Despite that dire outlook, several scientists involved in the process say they are optimistic that such a drastic temperature rise won’t happen because people will reduce carbon dioxide emissions that cause global warming.

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