From Science Daily:
By 2100, global climate change will modify plant communities covering almost half of Earth’s land surface and will drive the conversion of nearly 40 percent of land-based ecosystems from one major ecological community type — such as forest, grassland or tundra — toward another, according to a new NASA and university computer modeling study.
Researchers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., investigated how Earth’s plant life is likely to react over the next three centuries as Earth’s climate changes in response to rising levels of human-produced greenhouse gases. Study results are published in the journal Climatic Change.
The model projections paint a portrait of increasing ecological change and stress in Earth’s biosphere, with many plant and animal species facing increasing competition for survival, as well as significant species turnover, as some species invade areas occupied by other species. Most of Earth’s land that is not covered by ice or desert is projected to undergo at least a 30 percent change in plant cover — changes that will require humans and animals to adapt and often relocate.
In addition to altering plant communities, the study predicts climate change will disrupt the ecological balance between interdependent and often endangered plant and animal species, reduce biodiversity and adversely affect Earth’s water, energy, carbon and other element cycles.
“For more than 25 years, scientists have warned of the dangers of human-induced climate change,” said Jon Bergengren, a scientist who led the study while a postdoctoral scholar at Caltech. “Our study introduces a new view of climate change, exploring the ecological implications of a few degrees of global warming. While warnings of melting glaciers, rising sea levels and other environmental changes are illustrative and important, ultimately, it’s the ecological consequences that matter most.”
When faced with climate change, plant species often must “migrate” over multiple generations, as they can only survive, compete and reproduce within the range of climates to which they are evolutionarily and physiologically adapted. While Earth’s plants and animals have evolved to migrate in response to seasonal environmental changes and to even larger transitions, such as the end of the last ice age, they often are not equipped to keep up with the rapidity of modern climate changes that are currently taking place. Human activities, such as agriculture and urbanization, are increasingly destroying Earth’s natural habitats, and frequently block plants and animals from successfully migrating.
Check out the rest of the article here.
Grupo Gorila
Creatividad. Sustentabilidad. Desarrollo Social
Posts tagged Gorila
Dec21
Dec8
500 manatees. As the temperatures drop in the Gulf of Mexico, hundreds of giant manatees make their way to river in Citrus County, FL.
Dec7
We’ve got all the information you need about being green even after death.
Dec6
Beneath the Surface: Rediscovering a World Worth Conserving - Courtney Mattison
Courtney Mattison’s sculpture, “Our Changing Seas: A Coral Reef Story” is currently featured in the latest exhibit in the AAAS Gallery, “Beneath the Surface: Rediscovering a World Worth Conserving.” This exhibit features more than 60 photographs, paintings, drawings and works of mixed media by seven different artists, all depicting the complexity and beauty of our oceans.
Related article: http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2011/1114art_exhibit.shtml
(Source: youtube.com, via skeptv)
Dec4
Here on the Unconsumption Tumblr we champion the idea of repairing things, or, as our friends at Do The Green Thing like to say, “stick with what you got.”
This story in the Houston Chronicle (related video above) about a Houston-based shoe craftsman earning the shoe repair industry’s highest honor [from the Shoe Service Institute of America (SSIA)] made me think I should call attention to SSIA’s Web site — it’s a resource for not only for repair, but for choosing quality footwear in the first place.
Via its site, the SSIA — motto: “If the shoe fits, repair it” — provides information about shoe care and the names of repair professionals throughout the U.S. The site also features an ”ask the experts” forum where questions, such as “Can dog-chewed women’s shoes be fixed?,” can be submitted and discussed. Check it out.
(Disclosure: I’m a fan of both repairing things and Shoe Savers, the recipient of the SSIA’s award and the business featured in the video and Houston Chronicle story. Shoe Savers has prolonged the life of three pairs of my favorite shoes!)
Nov28
The 7 stages of global warming denialism:
- Global warming isn’t real
- Ok, it’s happening, but it’s not our fault
- Ok, it might be a little bit our fault, but not enough to make a difference
- Ok, maybe it is making a big difference to global warming levels, but global warming is actually a good thing.
- Ok, it’s not a good thing after all, but there’s nothing we can do about it.
- Maybe we could have done something about it, but it’s too late now.
- Barack Obama was born in Kenya and is a socialist.
(via nocarbon)
BBC: Hard Rain 2: Climate change adaptation in the Philippines and Viet Nam. Skip to :10.
(via nocarbon)
In 1996, Scottish researchers shocked the world with the news that they had cloned a sheep, which they dubbed Dolly. Due to progressive lung disease and arthritis uncommon for a sheep of her age, Dolly was euthanized at age 6. (Her taxidermied remains are displayed at The National Museum of Scotland.) Dolly’s birth and death sparked a debate about the ethics of animal cloning that continues today.
9 lesser-known cloned animals
“The world has enough chairs, right? That’s what Eero Yli-Vakkuri and Jesse Sipola of Finnish metal-craft studio Ore.e Ref think. So they took it upon themselves to challenge designers of the world to not design chairs during the entire year of 2012.
The basic reasoning is that designing new chairs takes time away from renovating existing ones. It’s a message of sustainability wrapped in a ludicrous request that furniture designers will find impossible to heed. And yet, it makes total sense. When’s the last time you’ve been unable to find somewhere to sit? (Your morning train commute doesn’t count.)”
(via nocarbon)
“Even though I am afraid, the reaction I have when I see an injustice takes the fear away” - Jose Claudio on the threat of a bullet to his head for environmental activism.
Chilling doc on the struggles and murder of an Amazon land-rights and environment activist and his wife. Echoes of Chico Mendes’ story are rife.
(Source: revkin)
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