As the climate warms, conservationists might consider looking to the past to protect the future

THE Earth is heating up—and, if a study presented by Britain’s Meteorological Office to a meeting in Oxford this week is anything to go by, it may soon be hotter than it has been for more than a million years. Even if the 4ºC rise this century that the Met Office predicts does not come to pass, climate change is still going to be awkward. Because people are able to adjust their surroundings to meet their needs, Homo sapiens will no doubt survive. Other species, though, cannot make such adjustments. Instead, they deal with changing climates by moving their ranges. Or, at least, they have done so in the past.

Now, with much of the Earth’s surface given over to agriculture, such range-shifts are not so easy, and many species may need a helping human hand. If such “assisted migration” of threatened creatures does take place, however, the question will arise of what to move where. Introductions of new species, both accidental and deliberate, over the past few centuries show the problem. Many fail to thrive. A few thrive too well. …