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Global plant species at peril from climate change as habitats shrink

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As climate change becomes an ever more major cause of species extinction, changing and frequently diminishing the ​habitats that the plants require to exist, some of the plants that make familiar landscapes unmistakable may not survive by century’s end, scientists say.

Researchers modelled future ranges for many species of vascular plants, a category that includes practically all the world’s plants – those with water- and nutrient-carrying tissues. They analysed more than 67,000 species, almost 18 percent of the world’s known vascular plants.

They showed that between 7% and 16% might lose more than 90% of their range and face a significant danger of extinction. They include the rare California indigenous tree Catalina ironwood or island ironwood, azure spike-moss from a plant lineage stretching back more than 400 million years and about one-third of Eucalyptus species, one of Australia’s most recognisable plant families.

They arrived at their figures by studying millions of records of where plants are found and scenarios of greenhouse-gas emissions in 2081-2100.

A plant’s habitat is not just a location on a map, but the whole set of variables it needs: temperature, rainfall, soils, land use and landscape elements such as shade.One way to think about this is to imagine plants trying to track a moving “climate envelope.” ​As the temperatures warm up, many species can move north or uphill to stay cool enough. But temperature is only half of the story,” Junna Wang, a postdoctoral researcher at Yale University, and ​ Xiaoli Dong, a professor of environmental science and policy at the University of California, Davis, said in a joint comment to Reuters.

Wang and Dong contributed to lead the study published in the journal Science .

In many places, the study found, climate change is causing these combinations to diminish, leaving fewer places where all the conditions that a species needs are still found together.

Movement, or dispersal, for plants normally happens over generations, through seeds or spores ​carried by wind, water, animals or gravity. But when the researchers compared realistic migration to a scenario where plants could reach any new suitable environment, the rates of extinction were fairly similar.If slow mobility were the main concern, then dispersal should be allowed to be infinite, and that should drastically minimise extinction danger. But that is not what we discovered,” Wang and Dong said.

That matters conservation. “If dispersion constraint is the main cause, then measures such as aided migration – physically enabling species to relocate to new places – could eliminate most of the problem. But if climate change is diminishing the quantity of the right habitat on the whole, then simply assisting animals relocate may not be enough,” they added.

The expected impacts differ by region. Extreme cold regions are disappearing and Arctic cold-adapted flora may lose habitat. Drier places like the western United States and Mediterranean-climate areas are likely to see more severe drought, lower soil moisture and more frequent wildfires. Coastline movements towards the pole may be restricted in southern and eastern coastal Australia.

At the same time, local plant diversity could increase across about 28% of Earth’s land surface as species move into newly suitable areas, including parts of the tropics and subtropics where increased rainfall, rather than temperature alone, could make conditions suitable for additional species, the researchers found.

They called it a worldwide reshuffling, with some species vanishing from sections of their historical range while others relocate into new places, but noted local improvements do not suggest plants are doing better overall.

These changes might also result in the creation of “novel communities” – combinations of plants that have not coexisted historically, but would start to meet each other for the first time. What might these exchanges be like? The researchers said they do not know.

Most terrestrial ecosystems are underpinned by plants. They retain carbon, stabilise soils, sustain wildlife and supply food, timber, medicines and other commodities . So changes in plant diversity can cascade through ecosystems and humanity.If vegetation cover decreases because of climate change, ecosystems might absorb less carbon dioxide from the ​atmosphere, which might make warming worse. That produces a feedback loop, in which climate change hurts plants, and decreasing plant cover/productivity, in turn, worsens climate change,” Wang and Dong added.”Ultimately, conserving plant diversity is not just about saving nature for nature’s sake – it is about conserving the ecological systems that underpin human societies,” they stated.

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Amazon raised worries about Anthropic AI models before US crackdown, source says

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Amazon CEO Andy Jassy was among tech titans who raised security concerns to senior Trump administration officials this week over Anthropic’s most advanced AI models, a person familiar with the subject told Reuters.

Jassy’s presence underscores the dramatic step taken by Anthropic on Friday to shut down its newest models worldwide under national security demands from the administration of President Donald Trump.

The San Francisco-based AI startup, which has confidentially filed for a U.S. initial public offering, had previously warned about hacking capabilities of its Mythos model and held it back from wide release, but earlier this week, Anthropic rolled out a public version, called Fable, with what it described as cybersecurity safeguards.

That brief release was over Friday. In a blog post, Anthropic said the U.S. government notified the company it believes there is a way to bypass, or “jailbreak,” a protection ​against using the model to uncover cybersecurity flaws.

In a blog post, Anthropic said the bypass only revealed “minor” security weaknesses that other publicly available models may find.

The Trump administration told the business to prevent any foreign nationals, inside or outside the U.S., from utilising both its latest models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5, Anthropic stated. Anthropic responded by saying it would block access to the models worldwide.

Amazon will not say if it had spoken to government officials regarding Anthropic’s models.

“It is not unusual for governments to ask us for advice about potential security issues because we are a leading cloud provider serving a large number of customers in the public and private sectors,” an Amazon spokeswoman said. “When they happen, we don’t disclose the details of these discussions.”

EXPORT RESTRICTIONS
Earlier Saturday, tech news site The Information highlighted Jassy’s concerns. The Information later reported, citing a U.S. official, that the administration was unlikely to require other AI companies to adhere to limits comparable to those placed on Anthropic.

Reuters could not immediately confirm plans by the Trump administration to regulate other corporations.

The U.S. government’s prohibitions were an export control, Anthropic stated in its blog post. The Bureau of Industry and Security of the U.S. Commerce Department, which supervises export controls, did not react right away to a request for comment.

Officials issued the export control “reluctantly” after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei “refused” to “fix the jail break or de-deploy the model”, White House adviser David Sacks stated in a social media post on Saturday.

“The hope now is ​that Anthropic remediates the safety issue, the export control is lifted, and Fable goes back into general ​release,” wrote Sacks, ⁠co-chair of Trump’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and once the White House’s AI czar.

Some advocates of export limits were puzzled by the Trump administration’s move because it also applies to allied nations, not only rivals.

“This wasn’t thought out very well,” said Jimmy Goodrich, a senior scholar at the University of California’s Institute for Global Conflict and Cooperation. “It even prohibits Canadians and ​Brits working at Anthropic from doing research and development.”

The directive came as a previous fight between Trump administration officials and Anthropic was simmering down among portions of the U.S. ​government.

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Met Office forecasts windy weather in Karachi

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The weather report said that the port city will have hot and humid weather with cloudy sky and maximum temperatures will hover between 34 and 36 Celsius.

Humidity ratio remained 66% in the air in morning which is predicted to remain between 55 to 75% during day, Met Office stated.

After days of searing hot weather with excessive humidity, Karachi reverted to Seabreeze on Saturday.

The sea wind, a critical factor that controls coastal temperatures, returns, making the usually heat-beaten metropolis more bearable. The influx of humid air from the Arabian Sea provides a relief to residents.

Health officials are urging the public to keep taking measures, particularly during the high afternoon hours. Still, it’s best to stay hydrated, not to get direct sun and use sun protection.

Karachi, being coastal, generally depends on the sea wind to keep the excessive heat at bay. The recent interruption of the breeze had sent temperatures soaring and the city was humid enough to feel considerably hotter.

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Aurangzeb says IMF had not asked for a tariff on solar panels

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He disputed allegations that the government had considering taxing solar panels before the budget. ‘There was never any such demand from the IMF and the topic was never discussed,’ he said.

Aurangzeb stated in a media interaction that the government is working on a set of structural reforms in the energy sector to bring down electricity rates, improve the business environment and increase the competitiveness of major industries, according to a federal minister.

In reply to questions on the high energy costs and capacity charges carried over by successive governments, the minister said expensive power continues to pose a serious problem to industry including manufacturing, information technology, mining and other energy-intensive industries.

He said the government, in partnership with Energy Minister Awais Leghari, had already taken steps to remove cross-subsidies for industry and was pursuing changes through wheeling policy and other measures to increase efficiency in the electricity sector.

Read More : Solar panels, inverters, lithium batteries’ prices soar ahead of budget

The government is moving from short-term relief to more extensive, long-term structural reforms, the minister said. These efforts are to be expected to bear fruit in the coming years rather than immediately, he said.

Privatisation of energy distribution companies (DISCOs) is a crucial part of the reform agenda. The minister said three DISCOs had already been awarded expression of interest (EOI) and two more EOIs will soon be awarded. He said he was certain that the first batch of distribution businesses would be handed over to private sector management by the end of the year, with the rest to follow in phases.

There would need to be more regulatory control to accompany privatisation and work was beginning to ensure the regulatory system would be robust and effective, he said.

He also emphasised the ambitions to shift away from the existing single-buyer energy market model, controlled through the Central Power Purchasing Agency (CPPA), to a competitive multi-buyer system. “The change will help dismantle existing monopolistic structures and improve market efficiency,” he said.

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