It’s all your fault, for driving a fossil fueled vehicle, eating cheeseburgers (double cow badness), and not setting your AC to 85
Holding global warming to 2.75 degrees Fahrenheit saves most species
The world’s nations can protect the vast majority of plant and animal species from climate change by limiting global warming to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100, a new study finds.
The report, published Thursday in the journal Science, is the first to examine how species across the globe would benefit from restricting global warming to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit above pre-industrial averages – the lower limit for temperature as outlined in the 2015 Paris climate agreement.
The findings suggest that meeting this goal would avoid half the risks associated with warming of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit – the upper limit established by the agreement – for plants and animals, and two-thirds of the risk for insects. Species in Europe, Southern Africa, Australia and the Amazon would benefit the most.
Well, good news, so far we’ve only seen a rise of 1.5F since 1850 (and potentially less, depending on the hard data). These same plants and animals survived plenty of climatic changes over millions and millions of years, much less the last 20 years since the ice age ended, and came out fine. And insects, too
Climate change on track to cause major insect wipeout, scientists warn
Global warming is on track to cause a major wipeout of insects, compounding already severe losses, according to a new analysis.
Insects are vital to most ecosystems and a widespread collapse would cause extremely far-reaching disruption to life on Earth, the scientists warn. Their research shows that, even with all the carbon cuts already pledged by nations so far, climate change would make almost half of insect habitat unsuitable by the end of the century, with pollinators like bees particularly affected.
However, if climate change could be limited to a temperature rise of 1.5C – the very ambitious goal included in the global Paris agreement – the losses of insects are far lower.
Everything is doooooom with these people, at least according to their computer models, which assume that all life on Earth can only survive in a tiny, itty bitty, teensie weenie temperature range.
But, hey, it’s all something that can be fixed with a good carbon tax, you know.
