Highway to Extinction

Climate Report Maps Out ‘Highway to Extinction’
by Seth Borenstein
Published on Sunday, April 1, 2007 by the Associated Press

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, most of them bad, with every degree of temperature rise.

[huge snip]

The report says global warming has already degraded conditions for many species, coastal areas and poor people. With a more than 90 per cent 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 1C 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 per cent to 30 per cent 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.”

(click the headline above to read the whole AP article reported in Common Dreams)
(While Harvard University oceanographer James McCarthy says “The worst stuff is not going to happen because we can’t be that stupid,” those who commented on the article disagree.)