Yes, as threatened, hot off the presses from today's Science issue (happens every Friday) Costello et al say that "...Extinction rates are, however, poorly quantified, ranging from 0.01 to 1% (at most 5%) per decade." Plus, they give good reasons to go with the lower end of the range. So maybe we can get away with 'beating on the biosphere' for a while longer It is actually a very interesting study, comparing various extinction rate estimates with the rate at which new species are being described and named. Here and elsewhere this is described as a race. Now, simply naming species is much less than knowing their roles in ecosystems and their individual potentials for benefiting humans in some way. But I take the good news where I can find it. And I do not like pronouncements like 1% species loss per 1 oC of temperature rise. Or whatever it was, but it was goofy high. You care what I like right?
The trouble with extinction is that it takes people too long to notice such things, and by then, it's too late. We're now working on mass extinction number six, for those of us keeping count.
Temps were warmer for the past 10,000 years by about 3.5 C. Would that be a long enough time to notice mass extinctions? If species survived the past 10,000 years ,they will survive the next 1000, with a temp increase bringing us back up closer to whats been average and NORMAL for this interglacial period. No mass extinctions,no catastrophes,no end of the world. More plants and crops though.
Not necessarily. There are more factors at work than climate change when it comes to extinctions, though it may well be one of the biggest. And yes, the sixth is underway. I'd cite sources and provide quotes, but given your behaviour here, I doubt there's anything I could find that you'd respect.
Recent extinctions are mostly driven by habitat loss; well-stated by AustinGreen in nearby threads. If anyone wants to slow that, well, just slow land-clearance rates. Figure out how to make the habitat corridors work as they are intended. Provide poor people on those edges, a way of life that does not depend upon eating the species in question. Because they absolutely know how to do that, the only question is whether somebody else will sail in and offer a better way to makes ends meet. Recent extinctions due solely to climate change are tough to demonstrate because the above is also happening. Mojo @3 wants us to be happy. I want to be happy. I want to believe that crops are on the up and up from +CO2. But crops also need water, and do best without herbivores. Both of those factors are in play, and I wish I could tell you that things are only getting better. I cannot, and the literature discussing these things is complicated. So just find the papers talking about global food production in recent decades, and we will chat them here. Maybe, we can anticipate how that will go in the next few decades. It would not be right for this thread, but we could start another. The +3.5 oC in the last few thousands years are based on facile (not innocent) miss interpretations of ice-core isotope ratios. I have no idea how long miss interpretators will continue to cling to them, but there is much more to be learned from how the ocean plays with heat added to the earth system. Denier pro-tip#1: understand where the uncertainties really are and latch onto them. #2: Never admit you were wrong before in throwing pasta at the fridge. Never!
