I hope you're planning on being around in a decade. I know I expect to be.
I predict that by 2012 a lot of these suggested trends will turn out to have been quite accurate predictors. It's kinda like the current situation about the harbingers of the September 11 attacks: there was a lot of suggestive evidence of what might happen, but nobody was able to put it together because it was too diverse. Nonetheless, when examined in retrospect, the potential for a major attack of some kind was obvious (despite the difficulty of recognizing the actual mode of attack and the targets).
There are a lot of indicators right now in the environment that do not tell us what is going to happen, but they all bode toward a worsening of the current situation. Borderline populations of organisms, i.e., those living closest to the "edge" of the conditions to which they are adapted, will be the most stressed by environmental change. Therefore, trends in those populations will be most indicative.
Thus, we shall see.
Oh please take me up on that. I have at least $10K I would put down against the wacko-environmentalist worst-worst-worst case computer similations being anywhere close to correct.
Ha ha ha. The phrase 'suggested trend' should not be conflated with 'accurate predictor' IAC. Two entirely different things.
I've been saying for years that a modest amount of global warming exists (how much is manmade is quite conjectural), as well as pointing out that 90% of it will be at high latitudes, during the winter and at night, something the IPCC is just starting to officially admit. A corollary of this effect is that cyclonic weather patterns which drive hurricanes and tornadoes will tend to diminish in strength, although average precipitation will probably increase slightly.
Average global warming will amount to only one or two degrees Celsius by 2100, and ocean levels will not rise by more than about six inches, and probably less than that, which is far less than average tidal variations. Look for the envirowhackos' doom and gloom guesses to converge to these predictions over time.