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The political pseudoscience press strikes again. Now, we are told that by 2050, as many as 31 percent of species will be wiped out by a temperature increase of 0.8 to 1.7°C. I find this impossible to believe, in that these organisms are all presently surviving with diurnal, seasonal, yearly, and cyclical average-temperature fluctuations that exceed these numbers. Moreover, they’ll be able to move to more hospitable climes during this extremely gradual change, should it indeed occur.

McClellan Blair
Indiana, Pa.

The researchers considered both an organism’s climate requirements and its capability to migrate to suitable habitat in their analysis. They found that conditions might change too quickly for slow-spreading organisms, such as plants, to travel to new habitat, if indeed it exists .—S. Perkins