Introduction Conclusions References

Beginning with an outline of uncertainties about the number of species on Earth today, this paper addresses likely causes and consequences of the manifest acceleration in extinction rates over the past few centuries. The ultimate causes are habitat destruction, alien introductions, overexploitation and climate change. Increases in human numbers and per capita impacts underlie all of these. Agai...

Climate change is predicted to cause changes in species distributions and several studies report margin range shifts in some species. However, the reported changes rarely concern a species' entire distribution and are not always linked to climate change. Here, we demonstrate strong north-eastwards shifts in the centres of gravity of the entire wintering range of three common waterbird species a...

Understanding abrupt climate changes requires detailed spatial/temporal records of such changes, and to make these records, we need rapidly responding, geographically widespread climate trackers. Glacial systems are such trackers, and recent additions to the stratigraphic record show overall synchronous response of glacial systems to climate change reflecting global atmosphere conditions.

Countries in need will expect us to play a greater role in helping them out. While it is unlikely we will stand idly by Singaporeans are a compassionate lot there will be the burden of obligation to provide substantial financial resources, support in kind, and assistance in technical planning and management expertise to put systems in place to cope. It will be in our interest to keep their trad...