It's not hot in here, it's just global warming

Icy creature populations to deplete as temperatures rise

Posted by Andrew Sharpless (Guest Contributor) at 3:05 PM on 25 Sep 2007

Read more about: oceans | fishing | wildlife

Reports are all over the headlines recently of creatures, particularly Arctic and Antarctic marine creatures, being threatened by extinction because the Earth is warming too fast for them or their icy environments to be able to sustain themselves.

A colony of Antarctic penguins, for one, could be extinct in as little as eight years, according to one researcher who's been documenting their population since the mid-1970s. Upward of two-thirds of the Arctic polar bears could be wiped out by 2050 because their habitat is melting, according to one study.

Sounds a little like the Science report released last fall that said commercial fisheries will effectively collapse by mid-century at the rate we fish our oceans. There's definitely a pattern here -- is anyone else noticing this dismal trend?

For story: It's not hot in here, it's just global warming
4 Comments | Post a Comment

We are Andrew,

You will note the dearth of comments on posts like this (regardless of who posts them). Nobody knows what the answer is and nobody wants to get depressed. We all have our self-defense mechanisms, our rose colored glasses.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

by biodiversivist at 5:50 PM on 25 Sep 2007

Aldabra banded snail, R.I.P.

I had not heard of the extinction of this pretty little mollusk, Rachistia aldabrae, formerly found in the Aldabra island group in the Seychelles.

Being a tropical animal, it is perhaps not expected as the leading link in a post about pressures on high-latitude animals. Still, that does not matter, and it just goes to show that wildlife everywhere are in trouble.

It is fascinating in a chilly, wicked sense, to observe the ancient and long-proved adaptations and instincts of so many animals failing them, as their ecosystems are altered too quickly for the mechanisms of evolution to keep up with.

One sad effect of climate change has been increasingly observed in temperate climates: As the end of the season of winter cold bit by bit comes earlier, the carefully interwoven texture of new plant growth and animal births is torn apart, as those whose signal to appear is a particular temperature rise no longer can count on the presence of those whose signal is not related to temperature. The early-appearers can starve, if they needed to feed on the late-appearers. Or, the late-appearers can starve, if they needed the early-appearers to be tiny and new-born, and not a few weeks old.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 10:19 PM on 25 Sep 2007

And Tropical Species?

For decades enviros have decried the "end of the rainforest".

Yet, now we are all going to be rainforest thanks to Global Warming.

And what do enviros do?

Decry the end of the Arctic!

Gimme a break!

Texeme.Construct(function(x)=Participation(x))

by jabailo at 9:18 AM on 26 Sep 2007

no bananas

The news of species and habitat loss, coming as it does now on a regular, almost daily, basis is overwhelming. And disheartening. And it leads to despair because there's so little we can do about it and so much that needs to be done, especially at the systems level. As someone who cares, it's hard to maintain a positive outlook. And many of the changes we do witness, such as those Canis pointed out. Right now, here in Maine, it's like July out there and later we're supposed to get thunderstorms, some of which could contain large hail and damaging winds. So typical of this very dry summer when most of the rain we did get came in the form of severe storms. None of those nice, rainy days anymore.
And, warming or not, we're still losing tropical forests at an alarming rate, to grazing and mining and oil drilling. Just because it's getting warmer doesn't mean we'll see more tropical forests. They are unique ecosystems that evolved over thousands of years. To quote a colleague of mine: Global warming doesn't mean bananas in Des Moines.

by SMLowry at 11:33 AM on 26 Sep 2007

ADVERTISING POLICY

You are not logged in. Thus, you cannot post a comment. If you have an account, log in. If you don't have an account, well, by all means go make one! Meet you back here in five.