While it is true that plants and animals can adapt, this claim cannot justify the fact that climate change is not bad. Even the smallest of adaptations occur on timescales far greater than the current rate at which the Earth’s climate is changing; this means that plants and animals could not possibly adapt rapidly enough to survive the changing climate. As it stands it is estimated that the extinction rate, according to the 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Report, is 100 to 1000 times higher than it had been historically. Another study even found that 18 to 35 percent of plant and animal species could go extinct by 2050. While plants and animals can adapt to changes in the environment in general, they will not have the time given how rapidly global warming is changing the climate. Even if it was true that plants and animals were capable of adapting as rapidly as the climate is changing, this still cannot logically lead to the conclusion that the impact of global warming is harmless. Global warming has a multitude of other effects, too, which will have direct impacts on humans. These include a rise in sea levels, which would cause already dense and overcrowded populations to become even more dense by reducing available land mass, an increase in adverse weather events such as hurricanes, and a decrease in food security due to reduced crop yields, a decline in fish populations and other food sources. All in all, global warming’s impact will have significant consequences, not just for plants and animals, but for us as well.

Last modified: 21 October 2018