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Re: fHuman vs. natural influences on the environment



charliew@hal-pc.org (charliew) wrote:
>
>>[me]
>>Yeah, I can think of one.  A few hundred million years ago, 
>>the CO2 we are now releasing into the atmosphere (by burning 
>>fossil fuels) was already there.  The earth was a lot warmer 
>>then, but it wasn't like Venus.
>>
>>I think we're safe from extinction.  The problem is, that's 
>>not the only bad thing that can happen.  There is a wide 
>>variety of potential side effects, some of them pretty 
>>severe, that might occur and that
>>could result in significant economic and environmental 
>>damage.
>
>The above possibilities are exactly why species have the 
>ability to adapt to their environment.

Sure.  But that doesn't mean that these changes are desirable,
or that we should not seek to avoid them if we have the
capability.

>Adaptation of species 
>has been clearly demonstrated by this time, but seems to be 
>ignored when these "environmental change" discussions go on 
>for a while.

Again, I think this is mostly an artifact of your own mind, and
again, probably because it's easy to shoot down.

I'm happy to agree that species can adapt.  But, not all
species.  There's an interesting study on line that you might
want to check out.  It's from Australia, and it's a look at
the effect on around 75 endangered species of a 1 degree C
change in average temperature.  It finds that the range of
something like two-thirds of the species, if memory serves,
will be reduced, and that about 7 will become extinct.  Note
that this is a change on the low end of the range that the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) forecasts
worldwide between now and 2100 (1 to 3.5 C, or 1.8 to 6.3 F).

The Australian study can be accessed through http://www.erin.gov.au.
There is a lot of factual information on climate change available
from the IPCC at http://www.unep.ch/iucc.

Tom Gray
Director of Communications
American Wind Energy Association

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-----------------------------------------------------------------
Tom Gray <tomgray@econet.org>



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