The average temperature of the earth has increased by about 0.6 degrees centigrade over the last 100 years. Because of the affect of global warming, scientists estimate that the temperature will continue to increase by about 0.3 degrees centigrade per decade - that's 3 degrees over a 100 year period.



Some areas are expected to warm up much faster than others, and some areas are actually expected to cool down, but the affect of this, they say, will be floods becoming more extreme and occurring more frequently.

The reason why we're told we can expect more frequent and more devastating floods is because:

a) As the sea heats up the water will expand leading to a rise in the sea level.

b) The ice caps will melt leading to more water in the sea.

Will this really happen? Prediction can never tell us anything with 100% certainty, but in this case there's a very strong possibility that floods will become both more frequent and more devastating as recent events have shown.

The signs are that there is change, radical in places, new weather patterns affecting us all too some degree wherever we are.

"Better go and find our Water Wings " (Joke)!

Human Extinction

Could humans be moving towards the end of their time on earth?

As per Professor Michael Boulter, a UK Palaeontologist from the University of East London, large mammals—including humans—are showing signs of imminent extinction.

So far, large mammals have become extinct at a much faster rate than one would have predicted if humans hadn't made their mark on the planet by burning fossil fuels.

His theory is that life on Earth needs to be culled from time to time, with the last cull being the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, and by messing with the environment, we've sped up the move towards the next big cull.

The human race, he says, will die out "soon". Don't panic just yet though, in geological terms, "soon" can mean millions of years.

Is this Fact or Fiction? Who will be around to give us the answer, and need we really worry?

Life Adapts

Greenhouse gas emissions are expected to increase the temperature in the world by between 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit to 10 degrees Fahrenheit. That sounds like a lot... but it happens over the next 100 years!

Over the past century humans have adapted to a variety of changes in our environment, and if you were to take some turn of the century homesteaders and plunk them down in a car in the middle of New York, they wouldn't last more than two minutes! But gradual changes in our environment are much easier to adapt to. We simply expect things to happen quicker than our forefathers did. While a 2.5 to 10 degree rise in the next year might be hard to take, spread over time we will barely notice the change. Ever watch the movie Jurassic Park? It may have been a fictional movie, but it wasn't fair in one concept: Life will find a way to survive in spite of the environment.

Copyright (c) 2008 Mervyn Rees