Thu Oct 31, 2:21 PM ET
By Christopher Doering

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The percentage of the world's plants threatened with extinction is much larger than commonly believed, and could be as high as 47 percent if tropical species are included, researchers said on Thursday.

The study, published in the November issue of Science, challenges earlier research that estimated the number of species in danger of extinction was about 13 percent.
Previous studies of extinct plants underestimated the numbers because they failed to include many plants growing in tropical countries such as Ecuador and Colombia.

Plants are becoming extinct for many reasons, including global warming and human encroachment into area habitats, said Peter Jorgensen, a researcher at the Missouri Botanical Gardens in St. Louis who coauthored the new study.
For example, scientists discovered a single collection of the passion flower, a light purple flower found only in southern Ecuador, during the 1970s, Jorgensen said. But recent trips to the region have found the species has since disappeared.

Jorgensen reviewed data from 189 countries and territories and determined that between 310,000 and 422,000 plants -- or 22 to 47 percent -- could be threatened.

the rest here

I'm waiting for the "Bush Kyoto agreement" posts etc but honestly aren't we, people of the rich countries, more or less responsibles for this?
& I'm waiting for the "that's anti-USA political correctness" too...
[This message was edited Fri Nov 1 5:40:32 PST 2002 by jnoel]

SexLovely said:

Hear hear!
I second that.

When will the maddness stop? When will we wake up and realize what we are doing to ourselves and the rest of the planet. We are digging ourselves into a cold and empty pit. Some people just don't give a shit. The condition of the planet is not their concern. That's for our children to worry about.

Such a sad legacy -- leaving our children with this screwed up world to live in.