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Extinction risk 'underestimated' (6 posts)

  1. truthmod
    Administrator

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7487223.stm

    The risk of extinction for many species may have been seriously underestimated, according to new research published in the journal Nature.

    Current methods used to assess species on the brink overlook some key factors, a team of scientists claims.

    These include the ratio of males to females in a population, which can have a profound influence on survival.

    For some species, the risk could be a hundred times greater than previously thought, the team calculates.

    Posted 15 years ago #
  2. truthmod
    Administrator

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jul/03/...

    Biodiversity: Some species could be wiped out 100 times faster than feared, say researchers

    Posted 15 years ago #
  3. chrisc
    Member

    The BBC article has:

    One in three amphibians, one in four mammals, one in eight birds and 70% of plants so far assessed for its Red Lists of Threatened Species are believed to be at risk.

    This strikes me as a massive underestimate, when climate change seriously kicks in I expect it will be most species being wiped out :-(

    Posted 15 years ago #
  4. chrisc
    Member

    The latest Radio Ecoshock show, A Warning From The Past:

    This week's Radio Ecoshock broadcast is about past greenhouse worlds, quick climate shifts, and mass extinctions caused by changes to the atmosphere.

    Dr. Andrew Glikson studies comet/asteroid impacts, volcanoes, and past climates. He's been doing it for 40 years.

    While studying the oldest record of life on Earth, in the Australian outback, Glikson found a relationship between comet or asteroid impacts and the generation of living things. We do not yet know whether life forms (such as bacteria) actually arrived from outer space - or whether the impact generated energy and unique chemical conditions that caused certain natural reactions to duplicate themselves.

    All that is a side issue to this speech, which is an education on the dominating role of the atmosphere in determining the state of life on Earth. Whether caused by impacts or volcanoes, or even gradual tilts in the Earth axis, a changing atmosphere can make life luxurious - or kill off up to 90% of all species.

    The science explained by Andrew Glikson in this speech find a parallel in the book "Under A Green Sky" by Peter Ward, a scientist in Washington State. We are talking, for example, about the Permian mass extinction, about 200 million years ago. The ocean lost it's oxygen, and life surived in only a few pockets of the ocean. Most land species were exterminated.

    Of the five past great extinctions (we are apparently living in the 6th extinction now) - FOUR WERE CAUSED BY CLIMATE CHANGE. Not hits from outer space. For the survival of our species, we need to know what happened - and few people alive know more than Andrew Glikson, as he summarizes not only his own research, but the general science now developing in the field.

    This speech from Australia National University explains our current shift toward a hot-state planet - much faster than ever before. It has been slightly modified for radio, (to fit in an hour) with the permission of Dr. Glikson.

    Learn about your planet (or die?)

    http://www.ecoshock.org/2008/07/warning-from-past....

    Posted 15 years ago #
  5. truthmod
    Administrator

    Yawn is how most people seem to react when confronted with the issue of mass extinction. Why is this--because they don't understand it, must deny/dismiss it to retain their sanity/sense of self, because it is so far removed from their cultural experience, or what?

    The Sixth Extinction: Yawn

    http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/08/the-six...

    Dying Frogs Sign Of A Biodiversity Crisis
    http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/08081...

    Devastating declines of amphibian species around the world are a sign of a biodiversity disaster larger than just frogs, salamanders and their ilk, according to researchers from the University of California, Berkeley.

    img

    Posted 15 years ago #
  6. truthmod
    Administrator

    New book highlights animals facing extinction

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/e...

    Now there is a growing consensus among scientists that a sixth extinction event has already begun with species disappearing at an unsurpassed rate.

    es

    Posted 15 years ago #

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