Kalahari Birds Will Be Gone in 80 Years

Humans response to climate change has failed in part because we aren't good at thinking beyond our own life spans.  We are unable and unwilling to consider the impact of global climate change because of our short-sightedness.  In the great African Kalahari desert, bird species that have evolved to survive in that barren and extreme environment will be unable to evolve quickly enough to survive the next rapid increments of climate change driven temperature increases.  From the Mail and Guardian:

The Kalahari desert, which straddles Namibia, Botswana and South Africa, is already 1.95°C hotter than it was just 60 years ago. Temperature increases of this magnitude normally take place over centuries and millennia, giving life forms the time to evolve and develop coping mechanisms.
 Birds in the Kalahari have evolved to survive the already extreme temperatures, but they won’t survive the rapid increase. Researchers from the universities of Pretoria and Cape Town say that, in the dry Kalahari, the heat will become too much for most bird species by the year 2100.

The increased temperature will impact at least 112 resident, migratory and nomadic species, including two thirds of all Southern African raptors.