Re:Wildlife collapse from climate change is predicted to hit...
by dpau on Wednesday April 15, 2020 @05:27PM
(#22883274)
It's not whether or not individual members of a species can survive if it's a little hotter. The problem is that climate change is destroying entire ecosystems in which these individuals exist. A polar bear can do ok in a zoo in San Diego, but polar bears will go extinct once their habitat in the Arctic disappears.
Re:Wildlife collapse from climate change is predicted to hit...
by sebazzz on Thursday April 16, 2020 @01:10AM
(#22886278)
And don't forget the food chain. Everything at the top is dependent on below.
Re:Wildlife collapse from climate change is predicted to hit...
by surge on Thursday April 16, 2020 @11:52AM
(#22890644)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22883616
This comment does a good job of showing how the journalist is sensationalizing the conclusions of the paper.
I'm a little skeptical. Basically the paper says that large groups of species will encounter higher temperatures than they have before (1850-2005, going by mean annual temperature, and higher defined by 5 years all above the previous high mean). And because of that, they'll be a huge ecological disaster.
I get the temperature part. That makes intuitive sense (the whole planet is getting hotter, duh), and doesn't seem like anything new.
What does seem new is the seemingly (I'm up for explanations about why they make sense) arbitrary threshold they use.
Is this a good paper, or just an appeal to fear? (That's a real question, but to me at first glance, it seems like an appeal to fear).