We’ve been saved, thanks Al Gore!
Via Daily Caller:
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is distancing itself from past claims that global warming could cause mass extinctions.
A leaked IPCC draft report says that there is “very little confidence that the models currently predict accurately the risk of extinction.”
The leaked report, obtained by Germany’s Der Spiegel newspaper, says that an “acute lack of data” have added to doubts over past claims made by climate scientists of mass extinctions in the future. “[B]iological findings have increased doubt over the expected species extinction,” says the IPCC.
In its 2007 climate assessment, the IPCC said that there was a “medium confidence” that 20 to 30 percent of plant and animal species were at risk of going extinct if global temperatures rose between 1.5 and 2.5 degrees Celsius this century. If temperatures rose by 3.5 degrees Celsius the IPCC predicted “significant extinctions” would occur — between 40 and 70 percent of species.
Environmental groups have also warned of mass extinctions due to global warming. The Nature Conservancy says that “one-fourth of Earth’s species will be headed for extinction by 2050 if the warming trend continues at its current rate.” The group adds that “polar bears may be gone from the planet in as little as 100 years and that several “U.S. states may even lose their official birds as they head for cooler climates — including the Baltimore oriole of Maryland, black-capped chickadee of Massachusetts, and the American goldfinch of Iowa.”