“Waves of Extinction” Forecast From Global Warming

From a speech given by John Holdren, the director of the Woods Hole Institute, one of the premier ocean and climate study groups in the world today. In an hour-long talk he called on scientists to tithe 10% of their work to solving the energy/climate problem and warned that if we do not change course:

By 2100, he said, some projections say global temperatures could rival
those of the Eocene epoch some 35 million years ago, a time of dramatic
global warming that caused dramatic disruptions—waves of extinction—in
Earth’s ecosystem. He quoted a colleague who envisioned “crocodiles off
of Greenland and palm trees in Wyoming.”

But the warming temperatures don’t simply make the weather
warmer—they destabilize the weather and generate more extremes, Holdren
said. Some areas are getting wetter; others are experiencing unusual
long-term droughts. Cyclones are becoming more powerful. Between 1950
and 2000, the number of major floods and wildfires has increased
dramatically in almost every region of the world.

Holdren suggested that addressing such challenges effectively to
improve the overall well-being of humanity will require a radical
reconfiguration of policy and economies—and daily life—on a global
scale. World leaders would have to cooperate as never before. Such
cooperation would have to yield new commitments and strategies to
resolve the crushing poverty that affects perhaps 2 billion people.
And, he said, a cap on carbon emissions or a “carbon tax” to encourage
use of alternative fuels is “desperately needed."…

The widely-admired Holdren gave this speech to hundreds of scientists in San Francisco well over a year ago, in January 2007. (click here)

I regret not bringing this to your attention sooner.

(h/t: Stoat)