Jason Kottke linked to this article in Smithsonian Magazine, about global warming and increases in the rate of evolution and, thus, the number of species. This year, the article states, thousands of new species have already been identified, including species of bats, corals, mollusks, sharks and rays.

Some of these new species are credited to new methods of molecular taxonomy. We can look at DNA now, and researchers are using that information to classify organisms. Genes are diverse, so that gives us more species. But, the rate of evolution is also given some credit for the increased number of species discoveries.

But this, I think, is wanting the cake and eating it, too. Speciation is a process that, it is taught, takes place over the course of thousands of years. The article says even millions of years. And yet this article is suggesting that climate changes over the past 100-150 years have given rise to thousands of new species?