350 Species are Threatened by Global Warming

Saturday 24 October 2009 is the International Day of Climate Action. The Center for Biological Diversity launched a massive new interactive Web site today providing accounts of 350 plants and animals threatened by global warming. Climate change bills require deeper, faster cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, or we won't succeed in reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide to 350 parts per million, dooming these 350 species and many, many more to extinction.

Check out the website here . Of particular concern are the two turtles which inhabit the Pacific Ocean - Loggerhead sea turtles and the critically endangered hawksbill sea turtle.

Loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta) Read more here.
Range: Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans
Loggerhead sea turtles make some of the longest known journeys of any sea turtle species, each year migrating more than 7,500 miles between nesting beaches in Japan and feeding grounds off the coast of Mexico. Along the way, they must navigate past millions of longline hooks, which catch and kill thousands of sea turtles, seabirds, marine mammals, and sharks. Gillnet fisheries likewise entangle and drown many loggerheads. Making matters much worse, rising sea levels due to global warming threaten to destroy Florida's nesting beaches, and rising temperatures could dramatically tilt the balance of male and female turtles being hatched, endangering the species' reproductive abilities. This is because turtles' gender is determined by temperature; in warmer weather, there are fewer males born, and with a temperature just two degrees higher than 29 degrees Celsius, almost all hatchlings are females.

Hawksbill sea turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata)
Range: Tropical reefs of the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans
The critically endangered hawksbill sea turtle is the only species in its genus. Its distinguishing feature: the sharp, curving, beak-like mouth from which it gets its common name. Its chosen prey includes sea sponges, which are highly toxic and can be lethal when eaten by other creatures - but not for the hawksbill. Human fishing practices and the use of hawskbill shells for tortoiseshell trinkets have resulted in the hawksbill facing the possibility of extinction. Global warming threatens the hawksbill in several ways: Rising sea levels may inundate nesting beaches; increased sand temperatures can lead to changes in the sex ratio of hatchling turtles; warming ocean temperatures are leading to mass coral bleaching, damaging reef habitats where turtles feed; and changes in ocean current can alter turtle migrations paths and feeding patterns.