Politicians and economists have yet to work out how and when it would be best to adapt to change. And biologists say they cannot even begin to measure climate change’s effect on biodiversity because there is not enough information.
“People get so used to hot days, since they happen all the time, that they never stop to consider that those days are costing them,” Professor Hsiang says.
“But if people used different technologies or organised their lives differently to adapt to their climate, then we might be able to do dramatically better.”
“So much attention is focused on the future effects of climate change that hardships imposed by the climate today, which are often just as large, are ignored”
He and co-author Tamma Carleton, PhD student of agricultural and resource economics at Berkeley, reviewed more than 100 studies to confirm that climate change is already a major force in human affairs.
Hsiang warns: “So much attention is focused on the future effects of climate change that hardships imposed by the climate today, which are often just as large, are ignored. If we solve these problems today, we’ll benefit everyone, both in this generation and the next.”
Twenty-two biologists have listed several key kinds of biological information – life histories, physiology, genetic variation, species interactions and dispersal – that could help improve prediction outcomes for individual plants, mammals, birds, insects, amphibians and reptiles.
They have the computer models to simulate the future an animal might face, but not the data to put into the model.
Different responses
“Right now, we are treating a mouse the same way as an elephant or a fish or a tree,” says Mark Urban, an ecologist at the University of Connecticut, who led the study. “Yet we know that those are all very different organisms and they are going to respond to their environment in very different ways.
“We need to pull on our boots, grab our binoculars, and go back into the field to gather more detailed information, if we are going to make realistic predictions.”
He says: “The world is in dire circumstances. We are losing a lot of species, and we’re largely unaware why.
“How do we need to rethink the kind of data we’re collecting so we can take advantage of modern modelling tools to understand the outcomes of climate change for ecological systems? This could help us forestall losing wildlife that we later deeply regret.” – Climate News Network
About the Author
Tim Radford is a freelance journalist. He worked for The Guardian for 32 years, becoming (among other things) letters editor, arts editor, literary editor and science editor. He won the Association of British Science Writers award for science writer of the year four times. He served on the UK committee for the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction. He has lectured about science and the media in dozens of British and foreign cities.
Book by this Author:
Science that Changed the World: The untold story of the other 1960s revolution by Tim Radford.
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