Climate risk 'to million species'

[FZ+]

If we agree with the popular asteroid theory for the Dinosaur extinction, it was the climate changes following the impact that was responsible for the actual extinction. The top level which was vulnerable to such changes were wiped out. What was left was species with greater redundancy and survivability, which would be able to resist better later changes in environment, until such characteristics were lost during evolution.

 

[Nereid]

Welcome back FZ+! Been a while.

There's another thread on this topic, over in Biology. Your views are always welcome, esp as Bystander and Russ may have become a little stuck. (Please read the whole thread).

BTW, we're looking at all 5 previous (?) mass extinctions; first step being to see (and agree, if possible) if we're in the midst of #6. Only then will we look for a cause or three.

Tonight's puzzle - where's Evo's Belgian chocolate?

 

[Andre]

Okay but what is the relationship?

We have a mass extinction, and we see climate changes. So the mass extinctions are caused by climate changes.

Would that make this true?

"We have climate changes, consequently we have mass extinctions."

As stated, there have been multiple alleged violent climate changes in the recent geologic past -much more intense and abrupt than the envisioned one now- with no unusual extinction rates corrolated.

Mankind doesn't need a climate excuse for justifying its impact on the environment. It can do it all by itself. Consequently it is most unlikely that cutting back CO2 emission is going to save a single species. If we want to preserve species, then we should preserve them directly. We cannot control climate. That's a farce.

 

[Nereid]

All good points Andre.

Assuming that we observe a mass extinction, you'd be as interested as I would in understanding what the causes of the extinction were (OK, I'm assuming about you too).

Perhaps there are multiple, interlocking causes? Perhaps climate change is merely the coup de grace, following widespread habitat fragmentation?

One step at a time.

Separate line of enquiry - is the climate changing? Assuming that we observe that it is, what are the causes?

 

[Bystander]

Originally posted by Nereid

Separate line of enquiry - is the climate changing? Assuming that we observe that it is, what are the causes?

"In for a penny, in for a pound." Go for it --- keeps us all off the street. Same rules?

 

[Andre]

Sorry, I've overlooked your post Nereid, responding to FZ+

Yes. I'm concerned too, but regarding the alleged anthropogenic climate changes I have followed my own way. About interpretation of evidence that is. Of course if habitat change, due to changing climate, species may become extinct.

Take the Wooly Mammoth (Mammuthus Primigenus) and its friends, the wooly Rhino, the musk ox, horses for instance. It's habitat was grassy arid steppe, feeding solely on grass (Pocaea). The onset of the Holocene (11,500 BP) was assumed to be global warming after the ice age but in Siberia we see a change of habitat from steppe to swamps as witnesned by the peat bogs. Both could exist within the same temperature regime but with different moisture. Hence not warming but a dramatic increase in precipitation would be a much better interpretation of the evidence for destroying the steppe habitat.

I'm saying that it is much more complicated than it looks.

 

[Nereid]

Originally posted by Bystander
"In for a penny, in for a pound." Go for it --- keeps us all off the street. Same rules?

I'd like to be the bystander on that one; or, rather, have someone else take the lead. Maybe in Earth? (although there's an very long thread there on EE that will be taking some of my time to address). Would you like to start?

 

[Nereid]

Andre wrote: I'm saying that it is much more complicated than it looks.

Ain't that the truth

 

[Andre]

Ain't that the truth?

But the big public, led by a scientific group, knows their own oversimplified brainwashed truth: mankind is destroying the climate and upheaval will follow. Emission of greenhouse gasses causes global warming and we should stop burning fossile fuels immediately. Simple and straightforward and we don't need any more. You have to repeat that several times a day in the papers and on television, if you want to get credibility and social acceptance. And condemned is he who dares to raise doubts that simple theory.