Quote of the week #22 – Experts say that fears surrounding climate change are overblown

Indeed, when I read the article this morning I thought it took an extremely sceptical stance, at least in relation to what has been the dominant line of recent years. For us hardcore sceptics, it was still rather flaccid though. I’ve noticed over the last two years or more, that public comments to articles like this (except those in the Guardian) are overwhelmingly sceptical. The mainstream media can only publish against this kind of tide for so long before they crack and start towing a more sceptical line, as they have been doing over recent months.
Arguments for adaptation are always missed as well, especially when it comes to the Human impact on eco-systems. It seems to me that it’s trivially true that species are under threat, but I don’t think CO2 or a warmer climate is the threat. Land use changes and competition with man for resources are obviously the major factor here.

further to (09:35:30)
“A bit more global cooling might reduce the current plague of Salamanders.”
Only a plague of the mythical type:
Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) wrote the following on the salamander: “This has no digestive organs, and gets no food but from the fire, in which it constantly renews its scaly skin. The salamander, which renews its scaly skin in the fire,—for virtue.” Later, Paracelsus (1493-1541) suggested that the salamander was the elemental of fire, which has had substantial influence on the role of salamanders in the occult.
Doh.

The Royal Society for the Protection of whichever Birds are currently “in” (ie, those which are most likely to make little old ladies dip into their purses or change their wills) has been for wind farms and against in recent years (according, one presumes, to what their research tells them about the little old ladies).
Red kites (which predate on song birds) are in; magpies are in (mainly because farmers and shooting estates hate them). I’m not sure which sea birds are currently under threat but I believe the puffin is enjoying a resurgence for some reason.
The belief that global warming per se is likely in general to have an adverse effect on sea bird population is a myth. More likely is that the bird’s range will extend wherever possible and this will depend on availability of food supply (as it does with every species).
I am still at a loss to understand why the RSPB or any of its sister, brother, cousin or aunt organisations should be so collectively thick as not to understand this. Of all the groups that have to deal with the environment I would have thought they more than most would be arguing against this claptrap.

I’d like to hear mention of Bjorn Lomborg here. I seem to remember he showed that the kind of figures I used to believe about disappearing species were way off the scale incorrect – groups had deliberately misrepresented the figures – and he got pilloried by way of thanks. Yet he started off as an active member of Greenp****.

I searched and found this – year old – story:
Sea birds in danger of dying out in UK, warns RSPB — here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/3354091/Sea-birds-in-danger-of-dying-out-in-UK-warns-RSPB.html
While interesting, it is unconvincing as to global warming (sea surface temps) as the cause. Consider this statement:
“However other seabird species seem to be weathering the storm. Great skuas, gannets and cormorants have experienced modest increases in their numbers, while herring gulls have remained stable.”
But, the lead of “Sea birds in danger of dying out…” is likely as far as some readers would get into the story.
Fear seems to be an easy thing to grab on to, even though it isn’t exactly contagious in a literal sense.

Rob R (13:13:49) :
Regarding “Could this also due in part to the drift of population into cities and out of the countryside?”. This may be of interest, so much positive news but not for some…
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/30/science/earth/30forest.html?_r=1&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink&pagewanted=all
New Jungles Prompt a Debate on Rain Forests
Tito Herrera for The New York Times
Here, and in other tropical countries around the world, small holdings like Ms. Ortega de Wing’s — and much larger swaths of farmland — are reverting to nature, as people abandon their land and move to the cities in search of better livings.
These new “secondary” forests are emerging in Latin America, Asia and other tropical regions at such a fast pace that the trend has set off a serious debate about whether saving primeval rain forest — an iconic environmental cause — may be less urgent than once thought. By one estimate, for every acre of rain forest cut down each year, more than 50 acres of new forest are growing in the tropics on land that was once farmed, logged or ravaged by natural disaster.
“There is far more forest here than there was 30 years ago,” said Ms. Ortega de Wing, 64, who remembers fields of mango trees and banana plants.
The new forests, the scientists argue, could blunt the effects of rain forest destruction by absorbing carbon dioxide, the leading heat-trapping gas linked to global warming, one crucial role that rain forests play. They could also, to a lesser extent, provide habitat for endangered species.
The idea has stirred outrage among environmentalists who believe that vigorous efforts to protect native rain forest should remain a top priority. But the notion has gained currency in mainstream organizations like the Smithsonian Institution and the United Nations, which in 2005 concluded that new forests were “increasing dramatically” and “undervalued” for their environmental benefits. The United Nations is undertaking the first global catalog of the new forests, which vary greatly in their stage of growth.
“Biologists were ignoring these huge population trends and acting as if only original forest has conservation value, and that’s just wrong,” said Joe Wright, a senior scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute here, who set off a firestorm two years ago by suggesting that the new forests could substantially compensate for rain forest destruction.
“Is this a real rain forest?” Dr. Wright asked, walking the land of a former American cacao plantation that was abandoned about 50 years ago, and pointing to fig trees and vast webs of community spiders and howler monkeys.
Dr. Wright and other scientists say they should be. About 38 million acres of original rain forest are being cut down every year, but in 2005, according to the most recent “State of the World’s Forests Report” by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, there were an estimated 2.1 billion acres of potential replacement forest growing in the tropics — an area almost as large as the United States. The new forest included secondary forest on former farmland and so-called degraded forest, land that has been partly logged or destroyed by natural disasters like fires and then left to nature. In Panama by the 1990s, the last decade for which data is available, the rain forest is being destroyed at a rate of 1.3 percent each year. The area of secondary forest is increasing by more than 4 percent yearly, Dr. Wright estimates.
This is also related. http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE57N00220090824?sp=true
Tree cover far bigger than expected on farms: study
By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent
OSLO (Reuters) – Almost half of the world’s farmland has at least 10 percent tree cover, according to a study on Monday indicating that farmers are far less destructive to carbon-storing forests than previously believed.
“The area revealed in this study is twice the size of the Amazon, and shows that farmers are protecting and planting trees spontaneously,” Dennis Garrity, Director General of the World Agroforestry Center in Nairobi, said in a statement.
The Centre’s report, based on satellite images and the first to estimate tree cover on the world’s farms, showed tree canopies exceeded 10 percent on farmland of 10 million square kms (3.9 million sq miles) — 46 percent of all agricultural land and an area the size of Canada or China.

It’s not just land use – it’s land use pattern.
Landscape ecologists speak of “edge”, “connectivity”, and even fractal dimension. All sorts of spatial-pattern metrics have been devised.
Of course the ideal pattern for one species may not be ideal for another. Think of the perspective of a slug trying to reach new habitat versus that of a bird, etc.
Some species need edge because they meet different needs in different “patches” (easier to do when the patches are adjacent).
Then there’s seed & pollen dispersal – one has to consider the vectors (carried by wind? birds? insects? – it varies by species).
Patch-dynamics at sea remain relatively mysterious.

This begs for sarcasm.
The world is suppose to end in thirty days.
Now, we are not going to be extinct.
I was hoping to stop paying taxes and buy a yacht with my savings and sail into the sunset.
What is next?
Cold Winters for 30 years.
Sunspots appear to be extinct.
Paul Pierett

Here in the southeast there is a real quandary. Many severe weather experts are demanding that all trees within 100ft of inhabited structures be removed as they might blow down and destroy or damage property with concurent injury or loss of life to the inhabitants. Then there are those that recomend that to save on energy that large hardwoods should be left to shade the homes and structures to reduce the denamd for electrical power in the warm months while the sheding of leaves in the cooler months reduces the use of power for heating. Whom do you listen to. Personally I like shade. Farm land here in my part of Alabama is changing much of the land that has been “row cropped” for generations (50%) in some areas has now gone to either pasture or back to native forest. The ability of the American farmer to produce more crops on less land and lower fuel usage has been phenominal over the past 50 years. Now with the cap and trade situation watch for the return of farm land to natural habitat. And watch the cost of feeding your family. As for the loss of sea birds, they are flighty critters tending to follow the little fisshies when they move to better climes. if it warms they move norty if it cools they move south. Perhaps more study is needed to see if they just up and went somewhere else for a better food supply, just as humans will adapt to either warming or cooling. My family is already adapting for some of this by producing much of the veggies we cnsume and using wood for a heating fuel. Last yer 100 gallons of propane $250.00 down significantly this year thus far but subject to change on short notice. Fire wood if you cut split and stack your self including cost of saw averaged out for life of saw. About $5.oo/cord. We cut, split and stack our own wood to reduce the cost of winter heating and makes great BBQ during the warm season. As for habitat, cut down an old growth forest and wait 5 years and make a recount of the species it will greatly multiply both in species and numbers of individual animals in each. New forest support much more wild life than old forest. All you have to do is just walk around and look to see the difference. Try it some day and see. All it takes is a couple of hours of hiking on a couple of days.
Bill Derryberry

Some one spoke of the demise of the American Buffalo. The hides were not the primary cause of the hunts that destroyed the herds. The hides were a secondary and bonus when sold. The primary was a bounty paid by the Federal Government through the U. S. Army to destroy the main source of food and housing for the American plains Native Americans. That was the reason for the demise of that animal. It is hard to wage war when you are starving and cold. Some times extinction is on purpose which seems justified at the time but later is cause for alarm. Hmmmmmm Cap and Tax wonder what it is going to do to our food supply. Makes one think.
Bill Derryberry