Global warming - great for the enviroment?
Is this not in general a boon for species on the planet?
Answer:
Its happened before and species like the penguin and polar bear survived. I'm not too worried about that part of it. For the rest, yes the climate warming up would increase the living space and help plants grow bigger, faster. Antartica melting would also add millions of square miles of land and all its resources.
Remember, depite the panic mongering about increased desertification and more powerful storms, the opposite is true. More free water in the atmosphere means more rain. Less temperature difference between the artic and the equator means fewer severe storms.
On our planet,maybe.But the arctic would totally melt polluting the waters and have glacier collisions and disharmony of nature.
Well since it is the natural cycle of the planet then there is nothing wrong with it.
no because it is melting/evaporating our fresh water supplied (only 2% of the earth's water is drinkable) also it is causing more desertification, shrinking niche (endanger animals with limited niches) and causing the water to rise, more intense storms/rain, change in the currents, changes in temperature and less land for farming
Probably for some species, but it is not a positive turn for diversity, because many species depend on the cooler climates to survive. Further, the melting icecaps could seriously decrease the amount of space available for land animals. Deforestation causes habitat loss, but imagine how much worse it would be if the land itself were no longer available.
While extiction of some species is bound to occur during a warming period such as we're in now, the extinction of one species creates a ecological gap that is filled through mutation creating yet another species. The cycle of life is not eternal, simply put, an ever changing state.
To answer your question, perhaps a boon of heat loving species like mold, staph, insect pests, certain viruses, unwanted algae. Most animals and plants are adapted over millions of years to live within narrow temperature ranges.
The Earth had many ice ages, many cataclysisms. Were they good (a boon)? Are changes always good? We won't know for thousands of years. But immediately I can give you my two cents. Global Warming will not be fun for us.
I grew up in South Florida, and watched many hurricanes out my window. (I never boarded up in the old days, you didn't have enough time) The wind bent the trees. But in Wilma, the wind pulled out the trees and took them away! Trees I planted 30 years ago--gone, roots and all. Astonishing! Back in 1950, I walked to the school bus stop, I had to wear a wollen winter coat from Oct to Jan, because it was quite chilly. In fact it was too chilly for tourists. And too rainy. We called it the "rainy season," because it rained and gusted every few days. the rest of the year was moderate and called "the tourist season."
Believe it or not, we lived without air-conditioning, because we didn't need it. We just opened the windows. All the homes were built with fans and jalousie windows to capture the breeze. Now there is no more breeze, just hot blasts of smelly air and 24 hour air-conditioning (pushes the price of gas up).
Now it is so hot in the winter, we don't venture outside until long after sunset. It would be too hot to walk to a bus stop for kids today. The busses now pick the kids up at their doorsteps. If a child fainted on the pavement on a hot day, she or he might wake up with 3rd degree burns, that's how hot the asphals gets. At night the hot asphalt cools off and heats up the night air. So it's never cool anymore.
I think they should change the name from global warming to global frying. I pity the animals that are cooked to death in this heat when it doesn't rain for months on end. When I examine the plants in my yard, some of them look burned, like they were torched. I've been observing this the last five years. There are circular burn spots 1-2 feet in diameter eveerywhere, like someone walked though my yard with a blow torch.
I have friends in Kansas that live in constant fear of killer monster tornados (did you glimpse the size of Wilma?)
The CO2 enriched enviornment makes it harder for us to breath, and is causing an epidemic of heart failure. We need oxygen to breath, and less comprimises our thinking and brain function. Maybe that is why we are in denial, our brains are slowly dying.
Hope I haven't depressed you.
Maybe you are young and energetic and you can make some positive changes to save the earth.
Hurry up! and Good Luck!
The earth would warm itself naturally, but the constant harm that we do to the environment escalates the levels of global warming to an unhealthy rate. anything in excess is a bad thing. as the polar ice caps melt, animals will become extinct, and as part of the food chain collapses,the rest of it will too. not to mention how unbearably hot it will be if we keep this up.
Hardly .
Of the earth's estimated 10 million species, 300,000 have vanished in the past 50 years. each years, 3,000 to 30,000 species become extinct.
A lot of human activity is speeding that up since we tend to overpower all the other species in one way or another,
But climate change is taking its toll as well ,affecting insects that are important components in the foodchains of animals that follow and so affecting their survival as well
The main problem (in my opinion as an plant ecologist) is the rate that the globe is warming. As the climate changes, the distribution range of species moves to fit the new conditions. However, the environmental change and the species responses are very slow (many generations required for even the smallest range shift). Therefore the rate of change is what threatens biodiversity.
In addition, fragmented landscapes (where native vegetation is restricted to roadsides and small reserves) mean there is very little area where the species can migrate to and hence they are 'fenced in' to what is becoming unsuitable habitat. This effect of global warming (along with the habitat clearing and other effects) is leading to what will become the next mass extinction. To regain similar global species richnesses as what are seen today, thousands to millions of years will be required.
I am not an alarmist... I have just done my research on the effects of fragmentation and global warming on plant biodiversity
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