It?s hard to imagine, hard to fathom. Researcher David Ackerly is a scientist, he?s done the math, and even he has a tough time wrapping his mind around the whole thing.
AMBI 1 room tone
ACT 1
On the one hand, I understand the models, I understand the science, Another part of me just can't grasp, viscerally, really can't grasp in my soul more, could the impact be that severe over that time scale? :14
The impact he?s talking about is the loss of most of our native plants, and it will alter the landscape of California. Those trees around us, those wildflowers, all the plant life we know, says Ackerly, biology professor at UC Berkeley, much of it ? gone by the end of this century.
ACT 2
What we can say is, these things that are there now, are projected to disappear. :03
In fact, according to the recent study co-authored by Ackerly, about two-thirds of all native plants in Californ...
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SUGGESTED HOST INTRO: The plants and trees so familiar to Californians may not be around at the end of the century. That?s the word from a new research study, which says that rising temperatures and changing rainfall patterns could bring the majority of the state?s plants to near-collapse. And many of them, including the California bay laurel and the Giant Sequoia, are found nowhere else in the world. From KQED in San Francisco, David Gorn reports. :30