Extinctions accelerating as the earth warms

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Posted on November 22, 2006
Filed Under Global warming/Climate change, Deep ecology, Greenhouse gas emissions, Ecological hope, Consumer culture, Fossil fuel dependency, Environmental disasters, Earth spirituality

Fostering Ecological Hope

Today from Margaret Swedish:

A new report based on a peer review of 866 scientific studies shows that climate change is already bringing about the extinction of numerous species in fragile environments, faster and earlier than scientists thought this would occur.

“We’re finally seeing species going extinct,” said lead researcher Camille Parmesan, biologist at the University of Texas.  “Now we’ve got the evidence.  It’s here.  It’s real.  This is not just biologists’ intuition.  It’s what’s happening.”

Scientists did not believe we would be seeing such drastic changes in this generation. 

Said Douglas Futuyama, professor of ecology and evolution at the State University of New York in Stony Brook:

“I feel as though we are staring crisis in the face.  It’s not just down the road somewhere.  It is just hurtling toward us.  Anyone who is 10 years old right now is going to be facing a very different and frightening world by the time they are 50 or 60.”

The story, or this other tamer version,  appeared in various newspapers and websites, but received very little attention in the mainstream press.  This remains shocking to me — that OJ Simpson and Britney Spears and Tom Cruise are getting more attention than the end of the world as we know it, than the crisis we are bringing to our children in this generation.

Are we responsible for this?  Do we drive this entertainment-as-news culture?  Do we want this information about how our world is changing all around us?  Or are we more comfortable with our heads in the sand?  Because you, we, could demand that our news sources become sources of actual news — comprehensive coverage of the biggest crisis possibly in human history.  That information would help galvanize the public to demand the kinds of action, nationally and internationally, that might reduce the depth and extent of the disaster that has already begun.

But if you want the info – and if you are visiting here, I s’pect you do – you can read the study here.

While families gather to watch “March of the Penguins” on Hallmark this weekend, you might consider having a converstion, children included, about what it means that in their lifetimes penguins may disappear from the planet.

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