Global warming could dramatically change a third of the world’s plant and animal habitat and drive some species to extinction by 2100, according to a report by the World Wildlife Fund. The report says that areas in the high northern latitudes, such as northern Russia, Scandinavia, and Canada, are likely to be hardest hit, with as much as 70 percent of their habitat adversely affected. In the U.S., most of the northern spruce and fir forests of New England and New York state could be lost. Adam Markham, one of the report’s authors, said, “In some places, plants would need to be able to move 10 times faster than they did during the last ice age merely to survive.” The predictions are based on the assumption that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will double from pre-industrial levels by 2100.
