New research finds that the "rise and fall of ocean levels correlated more consistently with mass extinctions than any other factor." Published in Nature this week, "Environmental determinants of extinction selectivity in the fossil record" ($ub. req’d) explores "the close statistical similarities between patterns of marine shelf sedimentation and rates of extinction.”
On our current emissions path, the planet’s temperature by 2100 will be more than 4.5°C hotter than today, hotter than it was the last time the world was ice free and sea levels were some 250 feet higher (see here). This research supports the IPCC prediction that as global average temperature increase (PDF) exceeds about 3.5°C (relative to 1980 to 1999), model projections suggest significant extinctions (PDF) (40-70 percent of species assessed) around the globe.
But really, who needs other species anyway? What have they ever done for us?
This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
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Comments
View as Flat
Delay And Deny Posted 7:27 am
18 Jun 2008
If...If...If
Study the NOAA tidal anomalies.
Yes...more negative than positive.
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Wolverine Posted 9:16 am
18 Jun 2008
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Biodiversivist Posted 12:37 am
19 Jun 2008
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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stevenearlsalmony Posted 12:50 am
19 Jun 2008
The evidence of climate change is so abundant and clear but people everywhere are not seeing it and, tberefore, not insisting upon adequate action. But why?
There are likely other causes for this failure of human perception, intellectual integrity and moral courage, but I would like to ask the Dot Earth community to consider one rather obvious failing. Many too many of the "talking heads" in the mass media are part of this problem, not the solution. These commentators seem to be smart and clever but not intellectually honest; they get paid large sums of money to report news, whatever that is. On the whole, the public appears to think of these opinion-makers as objective commentators and worthy leaders, but they are neither objective nor are they leaders. Please forgive me for saying that many of them behave as professional prostitutes who are paid by wealthy benefactors to say whatsoever is economically expedient, politically convenient and supportive of the status quo for the conspicuously consuming rich and powerful people among us.
Perhaps we need objective leaders in the mass media as desperately as we require a new kind of leadership in politics.
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population, established 2001
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/index.php
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caniscandida Posted 1:47 am
19 Jun 2008
In this case, "objective leaders" must strike most of us an oxymoron, unless the Utopia outlined in Plato's Republic were to come to pass. And even then ...
Cousin Wolverine makes an excellent point. It is irrelevant, however scientifically interesting, that rise in sea levels is correlated with mass extinctions, and may sometimes cause them.
Much more important for us to consider -- nay, to take to heart -- right now, is the thoughtless, self-entitled exploitation of the planet, directly involving destruction of ecosystems, perpetrated by us human beings, and coolly set aside, sadly by even the less thoughtless of us, in the box labeled "habitat destruction."
Sea-level rise from anthropogenic global warming is just one species of habitat destruction. And habitat destruction is just one species of human thoughtless exploitation of the Earth's community of living creatures. And such exploitation is just one species of human selfish entitledness.
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
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Nucbuddy Posted 2:26 am
19 Jun 2008
Perhaps those intelligent primates are capable of providing their own support.
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Biodiversivist Posted 3:13 am
19 Jun 2008
On the other hand, if Simon's philosophy that human beings are infinitely creative and will find answers to all shortages is correct, then we need to get busy roping off what is left of the planet's ecosystems so that we can get busy finding solutions for the natural resource shortages that will occur when we do that.
Population will peak regardless of Simon's philosophy.
If we are infinitely creative, then there is no need to convert the last ecosystems into biofuel farms. We can protect them and find other solutions.
Hows that for intelligent?
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Biodiversivist Posted 4:34 am
19 Jun 2008
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Nucbuddy Posted 9:04 am
19 Jun 2008
Please explain the relevance of that.
Have you ever read Julian Simon?
Biodiversivist wrote: the infamous gag rule [...] has caused untold suffering across the planet.
If that were assumed to be the case, we might expect increases in the suicide-rates of affected areas. Here is a list:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate
The list ranks 100 nations, with a lower-rank indicating a higher suicide-rate.
Iceland, New Zealand, Canada, the United States, and Australia appear within ranks 37-44. Guatemala and the Philippines are 83 and 84. Honduras is 98. Perhaps a trend could be extracted.
Biodiversivist wrote: [Julian Simon had a] philosophy that human beings are infinitely creative
That jibes neither with the theses of his books, nor with his statement, "...Progress does not come about automatically. And my message certainly is not one of complacency." Would you please provide an original citation?
If humans were infinitely creative, we might expect that progress would indeed come about automatically, and that the progress of the last 12,000 years might rather have come about in a mere instant.
Biodiversivist wrote: Population will peak
Why would population necessarily peak?
Biodiversivist wrote: If we are infinitely creative, then there is no need to convert the last ecosystems into biofuel farms. We can protect them and find other solutions.
Yes, but humans are not infinitely creative, and therefore employ triage in order to minimize what chaos will be inevitable. Triage would require that humans assign some quantification of priority to the preservation of a given ecosytem, so that it could be ranked against other quantified priorities. No one-given ecosystem is necessarily safe from triage, just as no one-given hospital-patient or R&D-effort is necessarily safe from triage.
Humanity, through its continuous creation of new resources, might find itself wealthy-enough and ecosystem-valuing-enough to limit its enterprise to only small portions of the planet.
Biodiversivist wrote: Hows that for intelligent?
You didn't define intelligent, but doing things -- like preserving ecosystems -- for arbitrary reasons is the opposite of creative. Creativity is the resonation of order from disharmonious chaos. A bear acting choatically will tend not to achieve the harmonious order of a full belly, unlike a creative bear chewing through a backpacker's food-suspension line.
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