Global Warming Is Sneaking Up Again

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More than 3,000 flying foxes dropped dead, falling from trees in Australia. Giant squid migrated north to commercial fishing grounds off California, gobbling anchovy and hake. Butterflies have gone extinct in the Alps. While humans debate at UN climate changes talks in Bali, global warming is already wrecking havoc with nature. Most plants and animals are affected and the change is occuring too quickly for them to evolve.

"A hell of a lot of species are in big trouble," said Stephen E Williams and the director of the Centre for Tropical Biodiversity and Climate Change at James Cook University in Australia. "I don't think there is any doubt we will see a lot of extinctions, but even before a species goes extinct, there are lots of impacts. Most of the species here in the wet tropics would be reduced to 15% of their current habitat."

Globally, 30% of the Earth's species could disappear if temperatures rise 4.5 degrees F- and up to 70%. This was reported by UN network of scientists last month. "The hardest hit will include plants and animals in colder climates or at higher elevations and those with limited ranges or little tolerance for temperature change," said Wendy Foden, a conservation biologist with the World Conservation Union which catalogues threatened species across the world.

Butterflies that lived at high alttitudes in North America and southern France have vanished and polar bears, penguins are watching their habitat melt away. The carbon dioxide emissions that are leading cause of global warming also turn oceans more acidic, killing coral reefs and microscopic plankton that blue whales and other marine mammals depend on for food.

Source" AP, Bali