IPCC admission from new report: 'no evidence climate change has led to even a single species becoming extinct'

In 2007, the IPCC predicted that rising global temperatures would kill off many species. But in its new report, part of which will be presented next Monday, the UN climate change body backtracks. There is a shortage of evidence, a draft version claims.

Global warming is said to be threatening thousands of animal and plant species with extinction. That, at least, is what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been predicting for years.

But the UN climate body now says it is no longer so certain. The second part of the IPCC’s new assessment report is due to be presented next Monday in Yokohama, Japan. On the one hand, a classified draft of the report notes that a further “increased extinction risk for a substantial number of species during and beyond the 21st century” is to be expected. On the other hand, the IPCC admits that there is no evidence climate change has led to even a single species becoming extinct thus far.

Source: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/new-un-climate-report-casts-doubt-on-earlier-extinction-predictions-a-960569.html

 

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Sunshine hours writes of another about-face from the IPCC:

Everytime I argue with members of the AGW Cult they claim we are in the midst of a “great extinction”. I ask them to name 10 species. When they can’t name any, I ask for 5. They usually come up with one animal that has been hunted to extinction (which is horrible, but not AGW)

Old Prediction:

“Global warming is said to be threatening thousands of animal and plant species with extinction. That, at least, is what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been predicting for years.”

New Confession:

 IPCC admits that there is no evidence climate change has led to even a single species becoming extinct thus far.”

Polar Bears Are Doing Fine:

“At most, the draft report says, climate change may have played a role in the disappearance of a few amphibians, fresh water fish and mollusks. Yet even the icons of catastrophic global warming, the polar bears, are doing surprisingly well. Their population has remained stable despite the shrinking of the Arctic ice cap.”

Models Suck at predicting extinctions:

“”There is very little confidence that models currently predict extinction risk accurately,” the report notes. Very low extinction rates despite considerable climate variability during past hundreds of thousands of years have led to concern that “forecasts for very high extinction rates due entirely to climate change may be overestimated.””

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As Willis has said: Where are the corpses?

 

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March 28, 2014 11:03 am

I remember saying that the extinction of species due to CAGW was a total pile of shite way back then. Why am I, who doesn’t have a penny to gain in the scam, correct yet again?

heysuess
March 28, 2014 11:07 am

Reality DROPS, right Al?
I had to check twice, because my first thought was ‘The Onion’. ho ho

H.R.
March 28, 2014 11:10 am

“Oops! Our bad. We can’t give back your money. We spent it. Send more so we can fix the problems we caused.”
Sigh… I can’t even muster a primal scream any more.

Robert Wykoff
March 28, 2014 11:12 am

If a couple of degrees planet wide can cause so many species to become extinct, it is a wonder any life exists on this planet at all

JimS
March 28, 2014 11:17 am

Not so fast. Didn’t global warming make the Dodo and Passenger Pigeon extinct? Global warming is so flexible, given that it even produces record-breaking cold and snowy seasons, who is to say it can’t go back to the past and make species extinct. Hey, how about the Woolly Mammoth, the sabre-toothed cats, and the Aurochs, etc.

March 28, 2014 11:23 am

Looks to me lke the only species in immediate danger is the Whooping Crane – but from wind turbines designed to fight global warming. Ironic that global warming fears and actions are what is leading to the only species extinctions.

tadchem
March 28, 2014 11:26 am

200 % of nothing is nothing.

David in Michigan
March 28, 2014 11:28 am

I thought this was somewhat settled already, in 2011 (another model):
The most widely used methods for calculating species extinction rates are “fundamentally flawed” and overestimate extinction rates by as much as 160 percent, life scientists report May 19 in the journal Nature.
However, while the problem of species extinction caused by habitat loss is not as dire as many conservationists and scientists had believed, the global extinction crisis is real, says Stephen Hubbell, a distinguished professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UCLA and co-author of the Nature paper.
“The methods currently in use to estimate extinction rates are erroneous, but we are losing habitat faster than at any time over the last 65 million years,” said Hubbell, a tropical forest ecologist and a senior staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. “The good news is that we are not in quite as serious trouble right now as people had thought, but that is no reason for complacency. I don’t want this research to be misconstrued as saying we don’t have anything to worry about when nothing is further from the truth.”
Because there are very few ways of directly estimating extinction rates, scientists and conservationists have used an indirect method called a “species-area relationship.” This method starts with the number of species found in a given area and then estimates how the number of species grows as the area expands. Using that information, scientists and conservationists have reversed the calculations and attempted to estimate how many fewer species will remain when the amount of land decreases due to habitat loss.
“There is a forward version when we add species and a backward version when we lose species,” Hubbell said. “In the Nature paper, we show that this surrogate measure is fundamentally flawed. The species-area curve has been around for more than a century, but you can’t just turn it around to calculate how many species should be left when the area is reduced; the area you need to sample to first locate a species is always less than the area you have to sample to eliminate the last member of the species.
“The overestimates can be very substantial. The way people have defined ‘extinction debt’ (species that face certain extinction) by running the species-area curve backwards is incorrect, but we are not saying an extinction debt does not exist.”
How confident is Hubbell in the findings, which he made with ecologist and lead author Fangliang He, a professor at China’s Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou and at Canada’s University of Alberta?
“100 percent,” he said. “The mathematical proof is in our paper.”

Steve from Rockwood
March 28, 2014 11:28 am

Wanted: Climate Scientists to write technical reports for the IPCC on Global Warming.
Qualifications: Must be able to walk backward.

Hangtown Bob
March 28, 2014 11:31 am

‘no evidence climate change has led to even a single species becoming extinct’
I strongly disagree with this. I am certain that global warming led to the ultimate extinction of both mastodons and wooly mammoths.

albertalad
March 28, 2014 11:32 am

Correct – not a single AGW nut went extent.

March 28, 2014 11:33 am

Reblogged this on This Got My Attention and commented:
All that scary talk and it was all in their imagination.

David in Michigan
March 28, 2014 11:37 am

I should have made clearer in my previous post that my understanding was “Global Warming = Loss of Habitat”. (It is true however that land use changes also lead to loss of habitat.)

Mark Bofill
March 28, 2014 11:43 am

There is a shortage of evidence, a draft version claims.

Honesty from the IPCC?
Heh.
It’s only a draft version. They’ll fix it.

Tom G(ologist)
March 28, 2014 11:51 am

“… for tis the sport to have the engineer hoist with his own petard.”

Walt The Physicist
March 28, 2014 11:54 am

Regarding honesty of the IPCC and of those many who feed from the same trough:
Just heard on NPR this afternoon a news piece about free course offering – massive open online course (MOOC)- taught by Professor Richard Alley. He was presented by NPR as Nobel Prize winner and when I went to check here what is there :
http://faces.psu.edu/faces/dr-richard-alley/
This is the same “prize” as his colleague, Dr. Mann, received in 2007 “together” with IPCC and Al Gore.

March 28, 2014 11:58 am

So remind me again why people put much stock in the work of Arrhenius?

Jimbo
March 28, 2014 12:00 pm

So the IPCC admits no evidenc of extinctions caused by man-made climate change. Past climate change was very kind to species too.

Abstract
Biological extinction in earth history
Virtually all plant and animal species that have ever lived on the earth are extinct. For this reason alone, extinction must play an important role in the evolution of life. The five largest mass extinctions of the past 600 million years are of greatest interest, but there is also a spectrum of smaller events, many of which indicate biological systems in profound stress. Extinction may be episodic at all scales, with relatively long periods of stability alternating with short-lived extinction events. Most extinction episodes are biologically selective, and further analysis of the victims and survivors offers the greatest chance of deducing the proximal causes of extinction. A drop in sea level and climatic change are most frequently invoked to explain mass extinctions, but new theories of collisions with extraterrestrial bodies are gaining favor. Extinction may be constructive in a Darwinian sense or it may only perturb the system by eliminating those organisms that happen to be susceptible to geologically rare stresses.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/231/4745/1528.short

Here is an Essay in Nature

Concept Extinction: past and present
The fossil record, together with modern data, can provide a deeper understanding of biological extinction and its consequences.
Extinction is a fundamental part of nature — more than 99% of all species that ever lived are now extinct. Whereas the loss of ‘redundant’ species may be barely perceptible, more extensive losses of whole populations, groups of related species (clades) or those that share particular morphologies (for example, large body sizes) or functional attributes such as feeding mechanisms, can have profound effects, leading to the collapse of entire ecosystems and the extermination of great evolutionary dynasties.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v427/n6975/full/427589a.html

Bob Diaz
March 28, 2014 12:01 pm

Abound the only things that could become extinct if all the AGW alarmists get their way is freedom and the middle class!

Jimbo
March 28, 2014 12:03 pm

“increased extinction risk for a substantial number of species during and beyond the 21st century”

Why?

Abstract
Carlos Jaramillo et. al – Science – 12 November 2010
Effects of Rapid Global Warming at the Paleocene-Eocene Boundary on Neotropical Vegetation
Temperatures in tropical regions are estimated to have increased by 3° to 5°C, compared with Late Paleocene values, during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM, 56.3 million years ago) event. We investigated the tropical forest response to this rapid warming by evaluating the palynological record of three stratigraphic sections in eastern Colombia and western Venezuela. We observed a rapid and distinct increase in plant diversity and origination rates, with a set of new taxa, mostly angiosperms, added to the existing stock of low-diversity Paleocene flora. There is no evidence for enhanced aridity in the northern Neotropics. The tropical rainforest was able to persist under elevated temperatures and high levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, in contrast to speculations that tropical ecosystems were severely compromised by heat stress.
doi: 10.1126/science.1193833
—————-
Abstract
Carlos Jaramillo & Andrés Cárdenas – Annual Reviews – May 2013
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Global Warming and Neotropical Rainforests: A Historical Perspective
There is concern over the future of the tropical rainforest (TRF) in the face of global warming. Will TRFs collapse? The fossil record can inform us about that. Our compilation of 5,998 empirical estimates of temperature over the past 120 Ma indicates that tropics have warmed as much as 7°C during both the mid-Cretaceous and the Paleogene. We analyzed the paleobotanical record of South America during the Paleogene and found that the TRF did not expand toward temperate latitudes during global warm events, even though temperatures were appropriate for doing so, suggesting that solar insolation can be a constraint on the distribution of the tropical biome. Rather, a novel biome, adapted to temperate latitudes with warm winters, developed south of the tropical zone. The TRF did not collapse during past warmings; on the contrary, its diversity increased. The increase in temperature seems to be a major driver in promoting diversity.
doi: 10.1146/annurev-earth-042711-105403
—————-
Abstract
PNAS – David R. Vieites – 2007
Rapid diversification and dispersal during periods of global warming by plethodontid salamanders
…Salamanders underwent rapid episodes of diversification and dispersal that coincided with major global warming events during the late Cretaceous and again during the Paleocene–Eocene thermal optimum. The major clades of plethodontids were established during these episodes, contemporaneously with similar phenomena in angiosperms, arthropods, birds, and mammals. Periods of global warming may have promoted diversification and both inter- and transcontinental dispersal in northern hemisphere salamanders…
—————-
Abstract
ZHAO Yu-long et al – Advances in Earth Science – 2007
The impacts of the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum (PETM)event on earth surface cycles and its trigger mechanism
The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) event is an abrupt climate change event that occurred at the Paleocene-Eocene boundary. The event led to a sudden reversal in ocean overturning along with an abrupt rise in sea surface salinity (SSSs) and atmospheric humidity. An unusual proliferation of biodiversity and productivity during the PETM is indicative of massive fertility increasing in both oceanic and terrestrial ecosystems. Global warming enabled the dispersal of low-latitude populations into mid-and high-latitude. Biological evolution also exhibited a dramatic pulse of change, including the first appearance of many important groups of ” modern” mammals (such as primates, artiodactyls, and perissodactyls) and the mass extinction of benlhic foraminifera…..
22(4) 341-349 DOI: ISSN: 1001-8166 CN: 62-1091/P
—————-
Abstract
Systematics and Biodiversity – Volume 8, Issue 1, 2010
Kathy J. Willis et al
4 °C and beyond: what did this mean for biodiversity in the past?
How do the predicted climatic changes (IPCC, 2007) for the next century compare in magnitude and rate to those that Earth has previously encountered? Are there comparable intervals of rapid rates of temperature change, sea-level rise and levels of atmospheric CO2 that can be used as analogues to assess possible biotic responses to future change? Or are we stepping into the great unknown? This perspective article focuses on intervals in time in the fossil record when atmospheric CO2 concentrations increased up to 1200 ppmv, temperatures in mid- to high-latitudes increased by greater than 4 °C within 60 years, and sea levels rose by up to 3 m higher than present. For these intervals in time, case studies of past biotic responses are presented to demonstrate the scale and impact of the magnitude and rate of such climate changes on biodiversity. We argue that although the underlying mechanisms responsible for these past changes in climate were very different (i.e. natural processes rather than anthropogenic), the rates and magnitude of climate change are similar to those predicted for the future and therefore potentially relevant to understanding future biotic response. What emerges from these past records is evidence for rapid community turnover, migrations, development of novel ecosystems and thresholds from one stable ecosystem state to another, but there is very little evidence for broad-scale extinctions due to a warming world. Based on this evidence from the fossil record, we make four recommendations for future climate-change integrated conservation strategies.
DOI: 10.1080/14772000903495833

Jimbo
March 28, 2014 12:08 pm

Uncritically blaming climate change for species extinction is dangerous, Kinzelbach adds. Such an approach could transform climate change into a cheap excuse for failing to address pressing problems. “Monocultures, over-fertilization and soil destruction wipe out more species than a temperature rise of a few degrees Celsius,” he says.

Environmentalists are failing in their duties. They have decided to become lazy, blame co2 and scream. Meanwhile the environment suffers while being helped somewhat by our added added co2 fertilization.

KNR
March 28, 2014 12:18 pm

No problem , its ‘will ‘ not ‘has’ which means they can always claim their right because ‘it could happen’ heads I win tails you lose . No science involved are indeed wanted .

March 28, 2014 12:26 pm

“There is a shortage of evidence, a draft version claims.”
There always will be, when there is none.

Jimbo
March 28, 2014 12:28 pm

“At most, the draft report says, climate change may have played a role in the disappearance of a few amphibians, fresh water fish and mollusks.

Objection your honor! I will need to see the peer reviewed evidence that shows this role. Probably chytrid disease Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis for the amphibians.

Latitude
March 28, 2014 12:34 pm

When people are allowed to classify some small remote population…with one feather out of place….as a new species

Latitude
March 28, 2014 12:36 pm

“ IPCC admits that there is no evidence climate change has led to even a single species becoming extinct thus far.”
….that’s because the climate has not changed

CaligulaJones
March 28, 2014 12:51 pm

re: dodo and passenger pigeon
I realize you are being ironic, but as mentioned, these were hunted to extinction. As were the sabre-toothed cat, and I am quite happy admitting that I’m glad I don’t need to dodge these on my way to the subway in the morning.
BTW, the book “1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus” by Charles C Mann posits the idea that the passenger pigeon, whose flocks apparently numbered hundreds of millions (at least), were allowed to propagate to such immense numbers because the native Americans were decimated by, as Jared Diamond would have it, “Guns, Germs and Steel”. The myth that the forest was verdant and untouched by hunters and gatherers before 1492 persists, but his hypothesis is that by burning and harvesting (not to mention hunting) the birds, they kept the population down. Without them, the resultant overpopulation darkened the skies.

CaligulaJones
March 28, 2014 12:55 pm

“burning and harvesting (not to mention hunting) the birds”
please make that:
“burning and harvesting (not to mention hunting), the birds”
Just the ol’ copy editor in me…
Reply: OMG, all that for a comma? I don’t know whether to admire or be,,,,horrified.~y’all know who. back fer a guest mod moment

March 28, 2014 1:10 pm

Reblogged this on Public Secrets and commented:
Well, this is going to cause anguish among the faithful of the Cult of Anthropogenic Global Warming. Nah. They’ll just ignore like they do all other empirical evidence showing their beloved faith is probably hooey. Who’s in “denial,” again?

John Barrett
March 28, 2014 1:18 pm

Global warming is making bats and birds extinct, oh sorry it’s there flaming windmills doing that!

LadyLifeGrows
March 28, 2014 1:24 pm

Excellent job, prior commenters!
No species extinctions from AGW, but serious risk from the alarmists, by promoting bird slicers, irresponsible biologists blaming all threats on AGW, and the economic crash caused by all the attacks on energy.
One mentioned soil organisms. By distracting people from what is happening agriculturally, real damage is being done, including reduced water-holding capacity of enormous swaths of land. Since water hold a lot of heat, drying the land out does lead to climate change, including both hot and cold extremes, and both droughts and flooding.

March 28, 2014 1:27 pm

Col Mosby says:
March 28, 2014 at 11:23 am
Looks to me lke the only species in immediate danger is the Whooping Crane – but from wind turbines designed to fight global warming. Ironic that global warming fears and actions are what is leading to the only species extinctions.
——————-
Can someone point to actual data to show this. People keep blaiming the California wind farms. However, Whooping Cranes do not go near California. So, what is the actual deal? I need to see numbers!

March 28, 2014 1:31 pm

i doubt if homo sapien climaticum hystericus will be extinct anytime soon.

Gwen
March 28, 2014 1:40 pm

The key is that these predictions NEVER say “this will be the end of the world.” They say “this will be the end of the world AS WE KNOW IT.”
The last four words are critical. It’s patently obvious that the world has not ended because the temperature changed, though it’s looking like it didn’t change enough to notice. What these yahoos are worried about isn’t that the planet will catch fire or boil or something, but that their vacation spot might have to change, or they won’t be able to hop a jet to Cacun. (Because they can’t afford it — Cancun is still there and just fine.)
If a species of fish has to swim 50 miles further north to have EXACTLY the temperature water it likes to breed in, SO WHAT? A thousand years ago, they might well have had to swim 100 miles SOUTH for the same thing. Again, SO WHAT? The AGW wonks are really concerned that their lovely status quo will be disturbed, and they might not be able to get the same brand of organic fair-trade Sumatran coffee for the same price anymore. (OMG! The end of life AS WE KNOW IT! It’s DIFFERENT now! AAAAUUGHHHH!)

March 28, 2014 1:44 pm

if co2 is just being used by eco anarchist utopians as the ‘tin opener’ to dismantle western capitalist industrialisation then a few points like facts won’t stop them using it.
however you would have thought people would have got used to the trojans leaving wooden horses outside the city by now. The latest one looks like ocean ‘acidification’ as its still linked to co2 ie the gas of ‘industrialisation’.

Mindert Eiting
March 28, 2014 1:48 pm

re: dodo
The dodo went extinct in the seventeenth century probably by the introduction of pigs, dogs, and rats in its habitat on Mauritius. The bird was not very tasty for humans who called him Disgusting Bird (Walgvogel in Dutch). A better example of direct anthropogenic extinction is the smallpox virus.

Latitude
March 28, 2014 1:55 pm

Jeff in Calgary says:
March 28, 2014 at 1:27 pm
. People keep blaiming the California wind farms.
====
Then someone is confused….it’s the wind farms in the great plains

Ralph Kramden
March 28, 2014 2:38 pm

Did they consider college mascots? I thought some of them were supposed to die off.

Geologist Down The Pub Sez
March 28, 2014 3:51 pm

All species have finite life spans, as do we as individuals. Is it logical to place such a moral burden on the extinction of a species? Who among us can say with certainty when the time has come for a species, or for an individual human being? Is that not presumptious?

March 28, 2014 3:52 pm

Jauntycyclist: Please define for me an eco anarchist utopian. J. R. R. Tolkein was an anarchist, but certainly not a utopian. After seriously pondering the inherent danger in giving flawed human beings power over other human beings, I can find no logical or moral alternative to opposing all forms of centralized power regardless of the labels one chooses to give them; republican, communist, socialist, fascist, democratic, monarchist, all result in the benefiting of a few at the expense of the many, and in mass murder and imprisonment of people who have done harm to no one. I don’t believe that there is some utopian existence awaiting us, but a world without the evil that is government would be a vast improvement over what we currently have.
Just think, who is it that has empowered the warmists to push their hysterical fantasies as fact on innocent school children? Who has taken your hard earned money and squandered it on this fiasco? Without the coercive power wielded by the state, there could not be an IPCC, or world wars or genocides. So please, don’t confuse the totalitarian aims of the UN and all it’s sycophants in the Climate Change world with anarchists. It is illogical and gives us anarchists a bad name.

March 28, 2014 4:08 pm

This has been a big beef of mine for a long time. I think the guy who said models of species extinction are off by 160% is off by more than 160%. I have seen admitted in nature articles that the rates are at least 1/10th or 1000% different from what they predict. I think even that is an underestimate of the error.
In order to calculate species extinction rates one needs to know species creation rates and species extinction rates somewhat accurately. This is because there are estimated to be 37 million species on the earth. The number being created and destroyed naturally for any number of reasons is not known. Therefore it is impossible to estimate if extinctions are happening more or less. Only some 3 million species are documented, so it is estimated 90% of species are not even catalogued yet. Since 90% are not even catalogued we cannot even venture a guess as to how many are created or destroyed normally because we have zero data to back up any such estimate.
The models for extinction generally rely on primitive ideas that if an area the species lives in is reduced that the species will fail. However, species are far more resilient than that. It has been shown repeatedly that species that were thought extinct actually weren’t. This is a bugaboo that has been tried on every environmentalist cause. This will cause mass extinction, that will cause mass extinction. Yet when you look for the actual numbers of extinct species it is surprisingly small or even zero. We had the amazon rainforest being destroyed, the use of DDT, pesticides in general, air pollution, … it never ends. Everything is going to cause extinctions but nobody follows up to find out nothing actually went extinct.
As I said before. We don’t know what the species creation rate is, what the normal extinction rate is. It seems to be assumed by environmentalists that nothing ever went extinct until late 20th century man started producing pollution and expanding. The fact is that most known extinctions are tied to primitive human activities or activities of humans in Europe and the US before the mid-20th century when we would wipe out large quantities of creatures without the slightest concern. Since mid-20th century America has led the way to more awareness and to much more active protection of species. Maybe there are fewer of some species, maybe there are species on the verge of collapse. However, the number that actually disappear is close to zero out of 37 million or more accurately we really have no idea.

Jimbo
March 28, 2014 4:25 pm

Lets not forget all the NEW SPECIES being all the time, as well some now extinct.
http://www.theguardian.com/science/series/new-to-nature
http://www.sciencedaily.com/news/plants_animals/new_species/
And let’s not forget all those supposedly extinct species that came back from the dead! They are called Lazarus taxon.
https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/wild-things/year-rediscovered-species
So it seems things are better than we thought! Someone call the IPCC.

Jimbo
March 28, 2014 4:29 pm

Ohhhhhh!
“Lets not forget all the NEW SPECIES being found all the time,…”

Evan Jones
Editor
March 28, 2014 4:41 pm

Why am I, who doesn’t have a penny to gain in the scam, correct yet again?
Maybe it's because you don't have a penny to gain in the scam?

macromite
March 28, 2014 4:51 pm

Jeff in Calgary says: “Can someone point to actual data to show this.” Re Whooping Cranes and Wind Turbines
March 28, 2014 at 1:27 pm
Hi Jeff – I’ve searched the primary literature and cannot find any records of Whooping Cranes having been killed by wind turbines. Power transmission lines are considered a source of mortality, especially for fledgelings, and do kill quite a few Sandhill Cranes, but nada on wind turbines. Drought in WC overwintering sites in Texas, disease and shooting are also important. Whooping Cranes fly pretty high when migrating, but do come down to rest every night, so there is the potential for collisions, but no verified reports that I could find.
Whooping Crane females don’t start reproducing until they are 3-7 years old. That’s a lot of trips back and forth between Texas and Alberta, so it is reasonable to be worried about collisions. New wind farms will also bring more power lines. So, I think it is a valid worry, but so far all I can find are wild claims by excitable types.

GeologyJim
March 28, 2014 5:20 pm

There’s another BOGUS factor in the extinction debate that has always annoyed me no end.
The “species-area” paradigm leads to statements similar to: “The xxxx critter is currently restricted to less than 5% of its historic range”, implying that the poor dears are teetering on the brink of EXTINCTION.
HORSE-PUCKEY.
Prairie dogs (for example, the beloved keystone-species of the enviros here in Colorado) are so described and are pampered and protected through all manner of lawsuits and court actions. HOWEVER, the little buggers are migratory and have always consumed a habitat until it was spent AND THEN MOVED ON. They have migrated across the plains of middle America like viral infections or ringworm or plagues of locusts since time immemorial.
THEY NEVER OCCUPIED ALL OF THE RANGE [SIMULTANEOUSLY] WHERE EVIDENCE IS FOUND FOR THEIR PRESENCE.
So, the entire construct behind species-area is bullsh*t. There’s no relationship between population and area, unless the area is defined at the same time as the population census.
Biologists who believe that populations are static/stable/in balance should be decertified/ignored.
Life is chaotic and never, EVER, in balance

harkin
March 28, 2014 5:56 pm

All this evidence will be countered by a photoshopped image of Leo Decaprio on an ice flow with a polar bear cub.

Eamon Butler
March 28, 2014 6:21 pm

The only species I can think of, that went extinct due to Global Warming, is the Unicorn. How could you all forget about them?
(sarc.)

James the Elder
March 28, 2014 6:31 pm

Hangtown Bob says:
March 28, 2014 at 11:31 am
‘no evidence climate change has led to even a single species becoming extinct’
“I strongly disagree with this. I am certain that global warming led to the ultimate extinction of both mastodons and wooly mammoths”
Probably from the heat of many campfires. But what about the American lion, cheetah, camel, early horse, and who knows how many others that preferred a warmer climate? Plus, the bison herds seemed to cope well no matter what the climate. Warmists point to the Dire wolf as a victim of warming, but other wolves survived and thrived. I am more inclined to think an overabundance of stone points played a larger part than a few degrees of warming.

harkin
March 28, 2014 7:17 pm

“I am more inclined to think an overabundance of stone points played a larger part than a few degrees of warming.”
Truly

bushbunny
March 28, 2014 7:33 pm

The mega fauna extinction that Tim Flannery has suggested was caused by humans has been denied fervently by science. They were not grazers like the kangaroo, they were browsers, who could eat trees, and like elephants had long gestation periods. A lot of species grew smaller, like your bison. But tell this to the crocodile they have survived well. Or the Bull shark that has now invaded fresh water and Qld’s golf courses? The small pox has been almost eradicated, polio, and of course the bubonic plague that killed millions. Although the reason for this is the grey rat killed the black rat. But bubonic plague still is recorded in America, because it is carried by prairie dogs. If their now hypothesis shows flaws, where does this leave them? Up the creek without a paddle. I think we will soon find out more in years to come.
But does this admission mean that Al and Mann(?) have to return their Nobel prizes for predicting something that has no basis in science?

bushbunny
March 28, 2014 7:41 pm

The woolly Mammoth and Rhino were cold climate mammals, ice age animals. But the same species in Africa still remains despite poaching for their tusks. Certainly humans have been responsible for over hunting some species, and the dingo got rid of some of our marsupials.
And the Tasmania tiger, was hunted by humans and dogs who thought they savaged sheep, but the dingo never made it to Tasmania. Most of the predators in nature have survived.

Mike McMillan
March 28, 2014 8:10 pm

CaligulaJones says: March 28, 2014 at 12:55 pm
“burning and harvesting (not to mention hunting) the birds”
please make that:
“burning and harvesting (not to mention hunting), the birds”
Just the ol’ copy editor in me…

“burning and harvesting (not to mention hunting) the birds” is correct.
“burning and harvesting, not to mention hunting, the birds” would be even more correcter.

March 28, 2014 9:02 pm

There was a WUWT article about no mammals becoming extinct in recent years, but I can’t find it – anyone??? It might have been by Willis…

March 28, 2014 11:35 pm

With more evidence that polar bears are doing surprisingly well, was Michael Mann being duplicitous?
In December 2010 the Center for Biological Diversity featured Mann in their press release “Climate Scientists, Biologists and Groups Representing Millions of Americans Ask Obama to Follow Science in Determining Polar Bears’ Fate.”
Mann gave this heart breaking report, ““Many climate scientists, like myself, study climate change by poring over large data sets and running climate model simulations. Global warming can at times seem very distant, almost an abstract concept,” said Dr. Michael E. Mann, professor of meteorology at Penn State University. “When I ventured up to Hudson Bay in mid-November and saw the undernourished polar bears with their cubs, sitting around at the shore of the Hudson Bay, waiting for the then month-overdue sea ice to arrive so they could begin hunting for food, it suddenly came home for me. For the first time in my life, I actually saw climate change unfolding before my eyes. It was a sobering moment, and one I’ll never forget.”

pat
March 29, 2014 1:04 am

27 March: PR Web: MEDIA ADVISORY: International Gathering of Scientists Skeptical of Man-Caused Global Warming to Take Place in Las Vegas from July 7 to July 9
Ninth International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC-9) will feature world-famous scientists and writers, precede FreedomFest 2014.
Is the theory of man-made global warming still credible? Why do surveys show a majority of Americans and scientists do not believe global warming is man-made and a major problem?
Hundreds of the world’s most prominent “skeptics” of the claim that human activity is causing a climate crisis will converge in Las Vegas on July 7–9 to review the latest research and celebrate what they see as recent events that vindicate their opposition to what some claim is a “scientific consensus.”
The Heartland Institute – which The Economist magazine in 2012 called “the world’s most prominent think tank promoting skepticism about man-made climate change” – is joining scores of other think tanks and advocacy groups to host the 9th International Conference on Climate Change at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas…
“The scientists Heartland works with demanded we host a ninth conference this year to foster a much-needed frank, honest, and open discussion of the current state of climate science,” said Heartland Institute President Joseph Bast, “and we just couldn’t refuse. The public, the press, and the scientific community will all benefit from learning about the latest research and observational data that indicate climate science is anything but ‘settled.’”…
For more information about The Heartland Institute and the 9th International Conference on Climate Change, contact Director of Communications Jim Lakely at jlakely(at)heartland.org or 312/377-4000.
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2014/03/prweb11708533.htm

johnmarshall
March 29, 2014 4:23 am

Today’s Telegraph reports that the UN fears for the life of bees due to climate change. Considering that bees have been around longer, as a species, than we have this is pure alarmism.

Chris Wright
March 29, 2014 5:36 am

Hangtown Bob says:
March 28, 2014 at 11:31 am
“I strongly disagree with this. I am certain that global warming led to the ultimate extinction of both mastodons and wooly mammoths…..”
Obviously, when the original poster used the term ‘climate change’ he was referring to the modern era. Do you know of any species that went extinct because of climate change / global warming since 1900?
Chris

Bill H
March 29, 2014 9:14 am

Hangtown Bob says:
March 28, 2014 at 11:31 am
“I strongly disagree with this. I am certain that global warming led to the ultimate extinction of both mastodons and wooly mammoths…..”
——————-
If I am not mistaken, those poor animals were the victims of a giant rock hitting the earth which indeed caused rapid and massive catastrophic climactic change. But then there were many other species which fell at that time too.. Where was man again and how was he creating CO2?

Dan DaSilva
March 29, 2014 9:41 am

This is huge. It will provide ammunition against the EPA. CO2 is not pollution, it is fertilizer which will save the 3rd world. Get on board my liberal brothers do not deny the possibilities of CO2.

March 29, 2014 10:08 am

Reblogged this on gottadobetterthanthis and commented:
With the daily and annual temperature changes most species of everything endure constantly, the assertion of extinction due to purported global warming has always been hyperbolic.

March 29, 2014 10:47 am

CaligulaJones says:
March 28, 2014 at 12:51 pm
Charles C Mann posits the idea that the passenger pigeon, whose flocks apparently numbered hundreds of millions (at least), were allowed to propagate to such immense numbers because the native Americans were decimated by, as Jared Diamond would have it, “Guns, Germs and Steel”.

================================================================
Wow! So how does Man (in this case, “The White Man”) get blamed or praised here and for what?
Blamed for decimating the American Indians? (Columbus was an expert at germ warfare.)
Praised for increasing the population of a native bird species?
Praised or blamed for inventing the punt gun?

March 29, 2014 11:01 am

Mike McMillan says:
March 28, 2014 at 8:10 pm
CaligulaJones says: March 28, 2014 at 12:55 pm
“burning and harvesting (not to mention hunting) the birds”
please make that:
“burning and harvesting (not to mention hunting), the birds”
Just the ol’ copy editor in me…

“burning and harvesting (not to mention hunting) the birds” is correct.
“burning and harvesting, not to mention hunting, the birds” would be even more correcter.
===========================================================
Figure of Interruption. A parenthetical remark may add to what is being communicated, even when commas rather than parenthesis are used) but can be “skipped over” and the basic thought remains intact and grammatically intact.
(And, yes, I did mix them on purpose.)

March 29, 2014 11:03 am

“grammatically intact.”
Should be:
“grammatically correct.”
(So says a frustrated perfectionist.8-)

Bruce Cobb
March 29, 2014 11:20 am

Climate-induced “species extinction” is in the same realm of science-free fantasy as “climate refugees”, with the ultimate goal of hooking people emotionally.

March 29, 2014 11:58 am

macromite (March 28, 2014 at 4:51 pm) “I’ve searched the primary literature and cannot find any records of Whooping Cranes having been killed by wind turbines.”
With just a few hundred birds left, it is unlikely to find such records. But there is a great deal of concern about the potential problem in the literature as there should be.

gofigure560
March 29, 2014 2:40 pm

As it becomes obvious to all that there is no evidence supporting claims of significant anthropogenic warming, one species will quickly be extinguished — the alarmists.

Ant Bade
March 29, 2014 9:46 pm

How do you cool an ocean ?

bushbunny
March 29, 2014 10:55 pm

Ant some years ago when there were fears that the Gulf Stream was slowing and being diverted, some joker suggested putting giant fans on the sea floor to keep it circulating. Talk about wind turbines being bird choppers what about fish choppers, LOL.

Larry in Texas
March 30, 2014 1:12 am

How does Roger Harrabin square this news with some of the crap he has been spewing about on BBC lately about the coral reefs and the so-called threatened loss of species? Well, he doesn’t, I guess.

Larry in Texas
March 30, 2014 1:15 am

Jimbo says:
March 28, 2014 at 12:00 pm
Some excellent stuff there. It is becoming more apparent to me that perhaps the warmists are trying to hasten OUR extinction.

Editor
March 30, 2014 1:33 pm

J. Philip Peterson says:
March 28, 2014 at 9:02 pm

There was a WUWT article about no mammals becoming extinct in recent years, but I can’t find it – anyone??? It might have been by Willis…

Try:
Where Are The Corpses?
AlwaysTrust Your Gut Extinct
New paper from Loehle & Eschenbach shows extinction data has been wrongly blamed on climate change due to island species sensitivity
There are a number more not by me, see here et seq. for a list.
w.

Chris R.
March 31, 2014 1:27 pm

To David in Michigan:
Responding to your: “I thought this was somewhat settled already, in 2011 (another model)…”
Please note that Hubbell, in the report you quote, is saying that the “backward model”
of the species-area relationship is not valid. You may have heard of the ludicrous
prediction made by E.O. Wilson back in the early 1990s that “27,000 species a year
were being destroyed”. Well, Wilson also used that relationship “backward”.
If Hubbell is only finding that such estimates are 160 percent too high, then I’d
humbly suggest that HIS model is also badly overstating the case.