Rain Forests and Climate Change

Newsweek ran an article last week about climate change in the rain forests. It was the cover story for the entire world, unless you live the United States, we got more Mark Foley. H-T to “Musings of a working mom” for picking this up and giving me a good reason to play with photoshop. Here's a link to the story. Why the Frogs Are Dying Climate change is no longer merely a matter of numbers from a computer model. With startling swiftness, it is reordering the natural world. By Mac Margolis Newsweek International Oct. 16, 2006 issue - Draped like a verdant shawl over Costa Rica's Tilarán Mountains, the Monteverde cloud forest has long been a nature lover's idyll. Hidden birds flirt to the whisper of rushing streams and epiphytes tumble from the mist, while delicate flowers bloom impossibly from the jungle's maw. With luck you might even catch the iridescent flash of the resplendent quetzal, the elegant symbol of the Central American rain forest. There's one member of this pageant that won't be turning up, however: the Monteverde harlequin frog. Named after its palette of yellow, red and black, this miniature amphibian—a member of the genus Atelopus—had thrived in these Costa Rican mountains for perhaps a million years. Yet the last time J. Alan Pounds, an ecologist who has studied the cloud forest's wildlife for 25 years, spotted one in Monteverde was in 1988. Its cousin, the golden toad, went missing about the same time. Indeed, the more scientists search, the grimmer the situation looks. A study by 75 scientists published earlier this year in the journal Nature estimated that two thirds of the 110 known species of harlequins throughout Central and South America have vanished. And that may be just the beginning. Newsweek seems to have a habit of giving U.S. readers stories better suited for the tabloids.