Simply speaking, as the planet heats up and oceans rise due to global warming, changes in the climate will pose new challenges to the continued survival of all of the organisms on Earth. Plants and animals become specialists in their climates due to the process of natural selection. For example, if one habitat quickly becomes much hotter and drier than it was in the past due to global warming, the plants in that habitat will die without the rains that they need to survive. In turn, the herbivores will starve without access to food. While it is true that the global temperature is always changing slowly, most scientists now agree that the temperature is increasing faster than usual and this poses a threat to biodiversity.