I recall one summer when I was a boy in the 1960’s where we had a tent caterpillar outbreak in our town. Global Warming wasn’t on anybody’s mind then. This story is from the Independent in the UK.
Caterpillar plague on Isle of Wight was caused by climate change, says expert
By Ben Mitchell
Saturday, 15 May 2010 Global warming was blamed yesterday for an increase in caterpillar infestations which can cause severe allergic reactions.
In the latest outbreak, residents of a street in Newport, Isle of Wight, were forced to stay indoors or wear protective body-suits and face-masks to avoid coming into contact with tiny hairs shed by the brown-tail moth caterpillars. The insects have set up home in an isolated and overgrown plot next to gardens in the street. Steve Gardner, who has been dealing with the infestation in West Street, said: “In general, these insects are getting worse in this country because the climate is changing and the summers are getting warmer.
Normally, these insects settle in fields where they do not do anyone any harm but if they are close to houses they travel from garden to garden causing problems. As the caterpillar grows it sheds its skin and the tiny hairs float in the air and can cause a severe skin reaction.”
The insect, which has a dotted white line down each side and two very distinctive red dots on the back of its tail, emerges from its nest as the weather gets warmer in May and June.
The easiest time to get rid of them is during winter when their tent-like nests are visible. Mr Gardner said he would return in the autumn to remove the nests. Residents have been told to use calamine lotion or contact a doctor that if a rash develops.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
How come we had tent catipiller infestations when we had catastrophic global cooling?
That presupposes the last few summers have been warmer on the Isle of Wight. That would certainly not be typical of recent English summers.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/12/seven-months-of-winter-at-ncar/#comment-388484
The impact CAGW on our entomological friends becoming pandemic. I have noticed a robust dearth of ticks for the past two seasons. Last year saw five or less, this year none so far, in spite of days felling trees and clearing brush. Typical season, a couple of dozen. There must be government grant money to investigate the peril of warming to ticks. </satire
Tent caterpillar infestions are directly related to being lax about tearing down their tents. I always liked using kerosene on them, but I’m sure there are saner methods.
Next up will be rat infestations caused by global warming, not the yearly Paris garbage worker strike.
There you have it — global warming causes everything.
Having created the fantasy bugaboo of global warming, everytime there’s something unusual and/or out of the ordinary happening in the environment, every third-rate scientist/environmentalist wannabe can pin it on the bugaboo and get taken seriously. It takes no effort or thought.
In Scotland we had a lovely summer in 1983 but we also had a plague of greenfly. The nest summer in 1984 was also a very good one but this time we had a plague of ladybirds – which gorged themselves on the greenfly.
Little did I know then that this was a sign of the global warming which was to come. Oh for those balmy days of innocence!
Natural Sources – Global Emissions EPA
Shouldn’t they study how much global warming is produced by albedo changes caused by eating leaves, and by the methane generated by caterpillars?
Likely everybody has tent caterpiller stories, here’s mine; in the summer of 1977 in northern Wisconsin the caterpillers came through and the woods were stripped like it was winter. They move in a vector from where the leaves were all stripped to more leaves. I worked for a railroad and the the train I ran stalled when the locomotive drivers slipped on all those caterpillers near Iron River. They kept crawling until they came to the rail and then they crawled over each other until they piled up high enough to top the rail. That was when the covering of caterpillers caused the locomotive with sanders on to slip down and stall. I had to back up and run again to make it over the grade. The rail was polished and shiney on the side in the direction that the caterpillars came from. The tons of rotting insect flesh stank like nothing that I’ve ever smelled since. Oh, and as I recall, winters were colder back then.
This reminds me of an outbreak of caterpillars on my family farm. We called them cankerworms but, looking them up, I realize they were actually armyworms. You couldn’t walk without stepping on dozens of them. Our lawn seethed with them. I remember being able to hear the rustling of thousands upon thousands of caterpillar bodies crawling all over the place. They really loved the elm tree next to our house, and it was the only time I remember my father actually buying and using pesticide spray. He saved the tree, but killed a budgie because no one realized the upstairs window was open. 🙁
This was back in the early to mid-70’s, and well into a wicked decade of cooling.
This Independent article is utter crap. The so called “expert” is Steve Gardner from West Street who is dealing with the caterpillars. It sounds like he is the town councils attendant for municipal gardening allotments.
I put this on a par with a Guardian article last year that quoted the Shrewsbury town council rat catcher [sic] attributing the increasing number of rats to climate change. The truth was more likely the fact that the council had cut the weekly refuse collection to once every two weeks.
MSM have their orders. If you can’t find a climate article per, make one up.
Global warming causes everything including the mind numbing global warming thus the positive feedback is proven.
David L. Hagen says:
Termites. Global emissions of methane due to termites are estimated to be between 2 and 22 Tg per year, making them the second largest natural source of methane emissions.
Simple answer: Harvest the timber before the bugs get to it.
All the lawsuits to stop salvage logging after fires are leading to bug pollution.
Outbreaks of millions of soft hairy caterpillars on the Isle of Wight! Whatever will they think of next? I suppose medical research will conclusively demonstrate that global warming causes ED. Yikes – billions of soft hairy caterpillars.
My question is how do the caterpillars know about golobal warming, given the world hasn’t warmed in the last 10 years. Perhaps they watch the BBC or read the New York Times. If the caterpillars can’t be measuring warming from their skin temperature, perhaps there is another reason for this “unique” occurrence. Just a thought.
Jeremy says:
May 14, 2010 at 9:21 pm
Too late:
http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=147617
Well, jeez!
Maybe it’s high time to transport all those ‘threatened lizards’ (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/13/now-its-lizards-going-extinct-due-to-climate-change/#more-19478) to that place to take care of the bugs?
:o)
I have noticed that there is a direct correlation between the rise of CO2 concentration and my age.
Can I get a grant to study this phenomena?
It’s the “good for bad and bad for good paradigm of global warming impacts” mentioned at WCR. If something is bad for the planet, then GW is good for it. If something is good for the planet, the GW is always bad for it, http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2010/05/11/a-rare-bird-or-whale-indeed/
We need more lizards!!!!
Caterpillers thrive or dwindle from breeding season to breeding season of the parent butterlies/moths.
Two questions determine this year’s population of caterpillars: (1) how many potential new caterpillars were squirted from mummy’s nether regions last year and (2) how many of those potential new caterpillars will survive to become actual caterpillars the following year?
The number and health of butterflies and moths is determined by the same things that determine the number and health of all living creatures – food and disease. The effect of these two factors sets the size and robustness of the breeding population. And there are cycles. For years we see relatively few cabbage whites, for example, because something happened to reduce their breeding power, then they reappear and increase in numbers for a few years, then dwindle again.
When I was at school I learned that butterflies and moths have an average lifespan of between two and three weeks. Assuming that to be the case, whatever time of year they first flutter their wings they will encounter a range of temperatures during their 14-21 days and nights. It is nonsensical to suggest that a change of a few tenths of a degree in average temperatures can have any significant effect when they live through changes of many degrees every day.
I suggest those worried by caterpillars look at what they eat and ask how much of their favourite food is being grown in gardens and farms. That is the main determinant of the local population.
There is a simple, effective and organic solution to tent caterpillar problems: BT, short for bacillus thuringiensis. Just spray the caterpillars’ favourite trees; the caterpillars take two bites, lose their appetites and starve to death. R.I.P.
Not quite as satisfying as kerosene, but much Greener.
Try this: The (almost) complete list of things cause by global warming. Complete with links. Here are the A’s…
🙂
I see, caterpillars are created out of soil and dirt under the influence of warming (0.006 per year). We’re back to Aristotle who was saying nothing else, having undone some sins of the industrial propaganda started by the Scientific and Denier Revolution a few centuries ago. The next goal will be to undo the law of inertia. 😉
This is the essence of the problem with AGW’ers, the inability to differentiate correlation and causation.
It reminds of stories that back in the Dark Ages
people used to think that piles of rags and trash caused rats.