Animals failing to adapt to speed of climate crisis, study finds
Scientists warn of ‘alarming’ lag between human-driven seasons shift and animals’ behavioural changes
By Jonathan Watts
Published: 11:32 Tuesday, 23 July 2019
The speed of climate disruption is outstripping many animals’ capacity to adapt, according to a study that warns of a growing threat to even common species such as sparrows, magpies and deer.
Scientists behind the research described the results as alarming because they showed a dangerous lag between a human-driven shift in the seasons and behavioural changes in the natural world.
Based on 10,090 abstracts and extracted data from 71 published studies, it finds that amphibians adapted most strongly, followed by insects and birds, but there was a clear lag in the majority of species studied and none could be considered safe. “The probability that none of the study species is at risk is virtually zero,” the paper notes.
Viktoriia Radchuk of the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Germany, said: “Personally I find the results alarming. Species attempt to adapt to changing environment, but they cannot do it at a sufficient pace to ensure that populations are viable. Climate change has caused irreversible damage to our biodiversity already, as evidenced by the findings of this study. The fact that species struggle to adapt to the current rate of climate change means we have to take action immediately in order to at least halt or decrease the rate.”
More here
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/23/animals-failing-to-adapt-to-speed-of-climate-crisis-study-finds?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
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It certainly IS ALARMING....too bad nobody cares enough to DO anything about it. I fear we are weel past the tippinbg point and my childern (teens) will be the last generation to see it all go up in smoke....
I told them not to have kids, because I can't even guarantee they will have a "normal" life after 30 
Last edited Wed Jul 24, 2019, 04:31 AM - Edit history (1)
I'm sorry. My only offspring is 32 and knows he won't have a full lifespan. He's definitely not having children.
Most (#$@*!!θ§) people know not and, by-damn, they don't wanna know. Wheee, we're gonna go to Mars. Wheee!! 
Caveat: my hubs (PhD) just retired from NASA after 42yrs & knows that further space travel is a pipedream. Get over it folks. The universe ain't gonna matter when our oxygen-producing sources are gone.
Evolve? Not us. Nor any animals. Perhaps tardigrade and bacteria that are found to survive in glaciers and lifeforms in geysers such as thermophilic prokaryotes will survive. (Yep, had to look that one up.)
Life find ways, as the movie said. But it certainly won't be us or any of our very, very distant cousins.
I've had a noticeable decline in the numbers of insects, frogs, turtles, lizards, skinks and birds on the property. I used to have chimney swallows but they haven't nested in two years. My bluebird house is empty this year for the first time ever. The bats in the barn are down to less than a dozen. Watching them come out in the early evening was one of my favorite pastimes. There used to be so many of them it was truly special.
The silence of the birds is the worst. I miss hearing them in the morning and evening. Both the owl and the hawk in residence, I found dead a couple of months apart, which broke my heart.
I did see my first butterfly of the summer today, a yellow common grass.
Yellow butterflies are supposed to be a sign of hope. I'll hitch my wagon to that notion, for now.
I too am acutely aware of the loss of once familiar species of birds and insects. I live in rural SW Colorado and have loved the Colorado mountains for 64 years now and counting. The loss of so much of our forests here in the Southern Rockies (and everywhere - yes, I know) is devastating. These days I go up into the San Juan Mountains and I can't help but cry. But I am pleased to report that a barn owl has taken up a residence in - where else? The hay barn across from my house. I also noticed two fat and sassy coyotes out playing amidst the bales of hay the other evening. I kid you not. They were jumping off and on the bales of hay as they ran across the recently cut hay fields. Run in beauty my trickster friends! Fly in beauty, oh Monarch butterflies! I have milkweed flowers in bloom for you this year. Walk in beauty, everyone - for as long as we possibly can! 