Of course, most of the articles written will not actually tell you the numbers. They’re all going with
One in six of world’s species faces extinction due to climate change – study
One in six of the planet’s species will be lost forever to extinction if world leaders fail to take action on climate change, according to a new analysis.
The stark warning on the scale of global warming’s impact on animals and plants comes just months before nearly 200 governments meet for UN climate talks in Paris in an attempt to forge a global deal on cutting carbon emissions.
Obviously, the Answer is more big and centralized Government, as we see in the above UK Guardian article, and this is all based on a computer model synthesizing previous studies. It’s all the same breathless “OMG, the world will burn and DOOM idmf we don’t Do Something”. Strangely, none include this information from the full text of the study published in Science
We critically need to know how climate change will influence species extinction rates in order to inform international policy decisions about the biological costs of failing to curb climate change and to implement specific conservation strategies to protect the most threatened species. Current predictions about extinction risks vary widely, suggesting that anywhere from 0 to 54% of species could become extinct from climate change (1–4). Studies differ in particular assumptions, methods, species, and regions and thus do not encompass the full range of our current understanding. As a result, we currently lack consistent, global estimates of species extinctions attributable to future climate change.
And, putting it all together, they say
Overall, 7.9% of species are predicted to become extinct from climate change…
Huh. It’s been a long time since I had math class, but, shouldn’t that make it 16 2/3rds, to be 1 in 6?
The Guardian article also mentions, almost as an afterthought
The stresses on wildlife and their habitats from global warming is in addition to pressures such as deforestation, pollution and overfishing that have already seen the world lose half its animals in the past 40 years.
First, the world has not lost half its animals in the last 40 years. Second, and more important, those environmental dangers other than AGW are real, and pressing. While great strides have been made in protecting the environment, others have cropped up, and this cult like devotion to “climate change” is relegating those real world concerns to the back burner.
You did the right thing to check the Science article itself! Kudos.
Yes, global warming will cause some extinctions.
Here’s the meat of the study that explains the 1 in 6 statement:
Baseline extinction 2.8%; 2C extinction 5.2%; 3C extinction 8.5%; 4.3C 16% (or 1 in 6).
Will global warming and ocean pH changes cause some extinctions. Sure. How many? It’s a guesstimate at best. And of course extinctions are a crude measure. Our species will not be eliminated by global warming but that doesn’t mean that humans and our civilization will not be seriously impacted.
Of course if global warming and ocean pH changes can cause extinctions, it’ll be nothing new as there have been GW and pH changes for 4 billion years. Those numbers above are just assertions and no way to know if they’re credible or not. But what about this- “global extinction rate increases from 2.8% at present to 5.2% with a 2C rise.” Does that mean the extinction rate is 2.8% with nothing happening? If so, then you’d have to subtract 2.8 from the 5.2. 8.3, and 16 numbers to get the correct amount of change. If that’s not what it means, you’d still have to subtract whatever the present extinction rate is now from their “predicted numbers”, as obviously there’s extinction going on whether there’s global warming or not.
Nothing happening? The Earth is warming and continues to warm. This fact explains the current risk of extinction. Recalls it has warmed almost 1C over the past century. As it continues to warm the extinction risk will increase.
Yet, extinctions have occurred in waves, not steadily. What is new is that this bout of global warming and pH change is because of human activity and is occurring rapidly, not over hundreds of thousands of years.
Even if we burned all the remaining fossil fuels (oil, gas, coal) the Earth would only warm an additional 15 degrees F. The Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets would melt raising the sea level not even 200 feet. Big deal.
Over the next many several thousand years, the CO2 levels would eventually drop slowly and major parts of the Earth would be habitable again. Pockets of humans will survive and be able to eventually repopulate the Earth.
So, no worries. Our species will survive!