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Climate-driven extinction, now and in the near futureDriven to Extinction: The Impact of Climate Change on Biodiversity by Richard Pearson. Sterling, 2011. US$22.95, hbk (264 pages
ISBN 978 1 40 277223 8
Richard T. Corlett
Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117543
The greatest challenge when writing I particularly liked the chapter entitled ‘Crying Wolf
Book Reviews Trends in Ecology and Evolution August 2012, Vol. 27, No.
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about the biological impacts of climatechange for a non-specialist audience ito deal honestly with uncertainty: uncertainty in the attribution of observedimpacts to anthropogenic climate changeuncertainty in the future trends in greenhouse gases, uncertainty in the modeledclimate predictions from these trends, andthen uncertainties in the impacts of these
predicted changes on individuals, populations, species, andecosystems. Too much emphasis on uncertainty and ibecomes the main message; too little and the author canbe justly accused of overstating the case.
Richard Pearson, an expert on biodiversity informaticat the American Museum of Natural History, considerablyreduces the uncertainty problem by simply accepting theconclusions of the 2007 fourth assessment report of theIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) [1] aregards climate change and the human role in it. This mayseem a bit of a cop-out, but it does allow him to focus almosentirely on the biology. Fortunately, the years have beenkind to the climate predictions used in the 2007 reportwith the new generation of models showing similar patterns of warming and, in most cases, rainfall change. Thiis just as well given that, despite the 2011 publication datethis book was clearly finished in 2009. This is not bad for abook, but I cannot help wondering why scientific bookpublishers have not followed the lead of journals in reducing publication lag times to a minimum. Why doepublishing a single-author book take more than the3–6 months one has come to expect for a multi-authojournal issue of similar length?
Pearson starts with the observed impacts of climatechange over recent decades, giving multiple case studiesselected for their diversity and robustness, supplementedby a scattering of paleoecology and some recent metaanalyses. Having established that biological systems arealready responding to climate change, he then moves bycautious extrapolation into the future. He never denies odownplays the uncertainties, but uses the agreement between independent studies of each issue to make his caseHe quotes the ‘very high confidence’ of the IPCC thaclimate change is already affecting living systems, buthen immediately warns that this confidence will ‘beginto take a nosedive’ as we look to the future.
Corresponding author: Corlett, R.T. ([email protected]).
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on the perils of simplification when dealing with themedia. He uses reporting of the 2004 study by ChriThomas and colleagues on the global extinction risk fromclimate change [2] as an example, pointing out howmisleading the ‘one million species’ headlines werebut also acknowledging that the study would not havebeen as widely reported without this simplificationAlthough he concludes that climate scientists shouldspeak out, he is critical of lapses in the impartialityand objectivity that the public has a right to expect fromscience, and is even more critical of excessive gloominesabout the future. He avoids this latter trap himself byhighlighting examples of species and ecosystems that areadapting to climate change, but arguably leans too fatowards optimism when he extrapolates these capabilities into an uncertain future. Cautious optimism alsoprevails in the final chapter, in which he outlines possibleconservation strategies for the 21st century, includingbigger, better and more connected parks, assisted colonization, and ex situ conservation.
Who should read this book? I had read most of thepapers on which this book is based, but I still learned alot from it. Pearson has thought deeply about the examplehe uses and draws out conclusions that are noalways highlighted in the original publications. He thencombines these conclusions to build his arguments. Thetext is information-rich but effortless to read; the oppositeof most published reviews of climate change issues. As anon-American, I hated the use of Fahrenheit temperaturethroughout, but appreciated the use of metric units foeverything else (while wondering exactly who uses this oddcombination). However, these are minor quibbles andoverall, this is an excellent book. I will pass my reviewcopy on to my students and I would recommend it stronglyto anyone interested in the topic.
References1 IPCC (2007) Climate Change 2007, the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4
of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate ChangeCambridge University Press
2 Thomas, C.D. et al. (2004) Extinction risk from climate change. Natur427, 145–148
0169-5347/$ – see front matter
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2012.04.005 Trends in Ecology and Evolution,
August 2012, Vol. 27, No. 8
