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(updated January 28, 2004)
PARIS:
Over a million
plants and animals, a quarter of all life on land, could be extinct in just
decades due to man-made climate change, scientists said in a British journal
Nature.
The main
culprit for this change is greenhouse gases; churned out by automobiles and
industry trapping heat in Earth's atmosphere.
"An immediate and aggressive switch to
technology that produce lesser greenhouse gases and active removal of carbon
dioxide from the atmosphere could save millions of plants and species from
extinction."
The
finding was derived from studies across the globe covering some 20% of the
planet's land area and six regions of biodiversity. Data collected from
1990 were then put through an elaborated computer model to project forward
all the way to 2050.
Three scenarios for expected climate change
were used in the computer models - a minimum expected rise of between 0.8
to 1.7oC by 2050, a mid-range rise of 1.80C to 2.0oC and the maximum rise of
over 2oC during the same period.
Australia would lose over half of its more
than 400 butterfly species by 2050 thanks to global warming.
Cerrado in Brazil. a savannah area with a
wealth of flora and fauna species could lose between 39% to 48% of its
natural heritage.
United Nation Environment Programme head :"Klaus Toepfer said :"the figure is
an underestimate" since it only count for extinction of species without considering a ripple effect that could also "kill of interdependent
plants and animals."
Armstrong EcoNews
Editorial |
