Sunday, April 8th, 2007, 7:45 am
Climate Gets Worse, But Nobody Seems to Mind
Filed under: It’s unlikely that you have not seen this already, but just in case, here’s the summary from the BBC.
Billions of people face shortages of food and water and increased risk of flooding, experts at a major climate change conference have warned.
Full report as PDF, with fragments below.
Settlements in mountain regions will become more susceptible to flooding from glacier-fed lakes. River runoff in fact will increase by 10 to 40 percent in high latitudes and shrink by 10 to 30 percent in the midlatitudes by midcentury. That means a mix of good and bad news for Canada and Russia, but bad news for the Mediterranean. It’s bad for China too, which depends on glaciers to retain its water.
Sea level increases will lead to further coastal erosion.
Droughts and shorter growing seasons will hit Southern Africa and the Sahel region.
Roughly 20 to 30 percent of the plant and animal species on earth will experience an increased risk of extinction if temperatures rise in the expected 1.5-2.5 degree Celsius range.
Shell-forming organisms in the ocean will be impacted in all likelihood by increased acidification.
Deaths from droughts, storms and fires will increase. Deaths from exposure to cold, however, will decline.
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