Hot Dogs and Cats on Hot Tin Roofs?

The RSPCA is going to host a one-day conference on 'Climate Change: the Impact on Animal Welfare' on June 2nd. 'Global warming' would certainly have a considerable impact on the lives of 'pets and wildlife' but effects on pets are likely to be the least of our troubles (one could even argue that the western obsession with pets adds to the 'size' of the problems). I know that the organiser's intentions might well to be to get people who wouldn't normally think about climate change to do so by 'empathising' with their pet's plight but the topic does seem a touch contrived. The welfare of farm animals and humans are likely to be substantially impaired by a few degrees elevation in the ambient temperature of Europe (I seem to remember that recent hot summers that were no where near the increases predicted produced a dramatic surge in the deaths of elderly folk in southern France and Greece).