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The Specter of Species Extinction
Will Global Warming Decimate Earth's Biosphere?

III. More Climate-Alarmist Claims of Extinction


Cowling is right on target with her assessment of the issue.  Measures designed to slow the rate of rise of the air's CO2 content would actually be counterproductive and detrimental to the biosphere, in that they would deprive earth's vegetation (and its associated animal life) of much of its capacity to adequately acclimate to rising temperatures forced by phenomena unrelated to the air's CO2 content, such as variations in solar activity.  However, the political pressure to respond to the counterfeit ethics of the CO2-induced global warming extinction hypothesis is so great that both logic and facts count for little in the debate over what to do -- or not do! - about the ongoing rise in the air's CO2 content.  Thus, the media onslaught continues, with each new scientific study that can possibly be construed to support a doom-and-gloom scenario being heralded as another important piece of evidence for the validity of the contention that earth's biosphere is already in process of being decimated by global warming.

But we hear so many stories of plants and animals being forced to move to higher latitudes and elevations over the past century and a half of increasing atmospheric CO2 and temperature.  Aren't at least some of them true?  And what about the recent studies of Parmesan and Yohe (2003) and Root et al. (2003), numerous press reports of which conjure up ghastly visions of an imminent mass extinction?  Don't they refute what we have just concluded?

Before answering these questions, it is important to note that the blame for the oft-repeated but false contention that global warming will decimate earth's biosphere cannot be laid solely at the feet of the popular press.  Many of the scientists involved in the studies that have been construed to imply the validity of the CO2-induced global warming extinction hypothesis have themselves been the sources of much of the rampant speculation.  Root herself, for example, was quoted in one article describing her team's work (post-gazette.com Health & Science, 2 January 2003) as saying "animals and plants are being strongly affected by warming of the globe" and "in my opinion, we're sitting at the edge of a mass extinction," while in another article from the New York Times ("Global Warming Found to Displace Species," authored by Andrew C. Revkin, 2 January 2003), she was quoted as saying "it's really pretty frightening to think what we might see in the next 100 years."

Other scientists are also quick to promote the unholy vision of an impending biological apocalypse.  In a related story (CNN.com, 2 January 2003), for example, it was reported that Alastair Fitter, a professor of biology at the University of York, said "the studies' conclusions that the ranges of hundreds of species are shifting northward in response to warming temperatures are disconcerting," adding that if temperatures rise as predicted, "it may drive some plant and animal species to extinction as their ranges shrink."

Still other reports put the "bad news" right up front in their titles.  An Environment News Service report of 2 January 2003 declared "Hundreds of Species Pressured by Global Warming," while Nature Science Update trumpeted on 6 January 2003 that "Huge studies analyze climate change's toll on plants and animals across globe."  Likewise, a Rocky Mountain News headline of 2 January 2003 declared "Species at risk as global warming spurs climate change," reporting in the body of the story that scientists said the studies "foretell the extinction of many species in the coming decades as rising temperatures force them to retreat from their historic ranges."

Although these reports may seem compelling, they do not live up to their dramatic billing when carefully analyzed.  In fact, as we shall shortly demonstrate, the vast bulk of the scientific studies that prompted them actually do just the opposite of what climate alarmists claim they do.  Rather than suggesting earth's biosphere is about to suffer irreparable damage as a result of past natural warming and future predicted warming, they actually substantiate nearly everything we have deduced from what is known about the effects of atmospheric CO2 enrichment on plant physiology.  Most importantly, they portray a biosphere of increased species richness almost everywhere on earth in response to the global warming and increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration of the past century and a half that has promoted a great expansion of species' ranges throughout the entire world.