While Krugman wails at the NYT, giant Elk die in print for all the wrong climatic reasons.
In Tips and Notes, P J Brennan says: All the news that’s fit to mis-report: From today’s NYT
When the planet warmed at the end of the ice age 11,000 years ago, for example, the change was too much for Irish elk, which became extinct. Moose, on the other hand, have survived. Some moose populations stayed put; other populations shifted to more suitable places.
But…there’s an inconvenient rub.
Here’s a link to the paper about the Irish Elk:
http://ib.berkeley.edu/labs/barnosky/BARNOSKY_QR_1986.pdf
Quote:
“It was not Holocene warming, but a brief cold spell just before warming, that eliminated M. giganteus from Ireland ”
There’s also a quote from a Dáithí Stone, a climate “scientist” at the University of Cape Town in South Africa.
I found a piece by Dáithí, titled “Whether the Weather” in which he explains to his South African audience that the blizzard that hit New York City just after Christmas last year was really caused by global warming: “It may seem odd to South Africans, but the blizzard actually involved unseasonably warm temperatures: in this region of the US it is usually well below freezing, so increasing the temperature a little allows the air to hold more moisture to then drop as snow.”
This comes as a surprise to this New Yorker – the average min/max in NYC in December is 30/41 – not exactly “usually well below freezing”.
Daithi is a nice Irish name – but methinks he has a bit too much of the Blarney in him – just like the whole AGW gang – pj
Ok, who is PJ?
“We have to give a nuanced sense of what we do know and what we can say with confidence.”
What does that MEAN, exactly? Hmmm. Let me guess. “By confining our statements to stochastic mumbo-jumbo, we always have an out!”
The only ‘PJ’ I know is Pamela Jones of Groklaw fame.
She is a noted debunker of drivel
Didn’t know she was interested in exposing CAGW.
More power to her elbow is this is indeed she…
“It was not Holocene warming, but a brief cold spell just before warming, that eliminated M. giganteus from Ireland ”
Of course they think that was the cause. They’ll never know for sure. How about quantifying the uncertainty, scientists.
This seems to suggest that preparing for a cold snap is far more important an endeavor than preparing for a warm snap. In a cold snap, food stops growing. I hope we’re not spending all our GM budget looking for warm weather crop genes.
Though I have not looked into the details, I would guess that it was human predation compounding this cold spell that did in the Irish elk. Harsh winters would have made them vulnerable, as they do to modern elk.
Or, based on what happened recently, the Bankster cabal killed them off.
As someone with a degree in Economics from one of the finest programs in America, i will assure you that Krugman is onto a world in and of himself. He lies, prevaricates, and frequently offers opinions that are bizarre. I think he may be insane. And I am not being hypocritical or trying to over-emphasize a point. I think Krugman may be insane. And I think everyone around him is aware of it, but cannot state as such because of his liberal credentials.
@David Falkner says:
Ok, who is PJ?
From top of post
“In Tips and Notes, P J Brennan says: … ”
Thanks PJ
Cheers JJ
Default null hypothesis: They were too horny for their own good?
Sorry. Couldn’t resist.
The pre celts ate them.
@ur momisugly Brian H. Please be much stronger next time 🙂
Can we not worry too much about what Paul “Enron” Krugman has to say about climatology?
Next thing you know we’ll be hearing from Charlie Sheen on cardiology.
From this one article we get an image of biologists that are trying to apply lessons learned from the IPCC et al. They will want to avoid the phenomenon of stall after takeoff that is crashing the global warming crowd. So, if they want to successfully push the new scare (Mass Extinctions Caused by You and Me–MECYM) into the next millennium then they need to make their arguments even less provable or deniable than the AGW hypotheses. Be very careful to appear scientific (express uncertainty in realistic terms) all the while assuring the public that the threat is real and present.
“Biodiversity is under severe threat from climate change, but we need to be careful that we don’t give a false impression of what our confidence is.”
The first part of that sentence has no uncertainty–none whatsoever. The second part says “don’t appear cocky.” Now that’s subtlety.
Perhaps he hit the Jamesons before that talk in S Africa.
Yeah, right!
They still don’t get this life thing do they? It is we fragile humans that are living on a knife-edge, not Gaia! All she needs to do is fart in the wrong direction too quickly & we’re curtains, ice-age again! Trofim Denisovitch Lysenko is probably already a darling of the Greens!
“Now that’s subtlety.”
Here’s another example: “Doom, doom! The sky is falling, the sky is falling. We don’t know how much money it will take to solve the problem, however, so give us all your money, now.”
Here’s an example from the ALP’s Carbon Tax Strategy:
It is interesting that, according to wikipedia, modern humans arrived in Britain in 12,000BC, but didn’t bother to wander over to Ireland till 8,000BC, even though there was no Irish Sea to stop them. Of course if they had, then humans might have killed off the megafauna there, just as they did everywhere else outside Africa (where the megafauna co-evolved with humans and know to be careful/grumpy). It is also amusing that all round the world there are strong claims that the megafauna was wiped out by this or that climatic event which just happened to occur at the same time as humans arrived, despite the fact that the megafauna had survived numerous glacials and interglacials before that.
First read : Ireland in the last Iceage.
http://www.wesleyjohnston.com/users/ireland/past/pre_norman_history/iceage.html
“By 20,000 years ago Ireland was almost totally covered by a thick ice sheet stretching south-west from Scotland. Throughout this period the build up of ice on land across the world caused the sea level to drop. (See map.) By 20,000 years ago, it had dropped to a level 120 metres (400 feet) below the level it is today. [2] This retreat of the waters meant that Ireland and Britain were once again joined together and joined to continental Europe. On average, 30 to 40km (19 to 25 miles) [3] of sea bed was exposed around the British Isles.”
This means that there was NO ireland 20.000 years ago
” By 15,000 years ago only Ulster was still buried under the dying ice sheet. Although the rising sea levels had begun to flood the lower lands, a land bridge still connected the south-eastern tip of Ireland to south-western England. Trapped between this land bridge, and the ice sheet in the north, the Irish Sea was filled forming a vast freshwater lake. It was at this time that the first plant life returned to reclaim the rocky wilderness that Britain and Ireland had been reduced to. First rugged grasses coated the land and, around 13,000 years ago, the first trees (hardy Junipers) began to grow. Many animals, including the Giant Deer, crossed into Ireland across the land bridge. [2]”
NO Irish elk until around 13.000 years ago.
“The land bridge between Ireland and Britian was finally overwhelmed by the sea 12,000 years ago,”
Now we have an island where land animals can not escape. You only need one long cold winter to kill all of them.
http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2010/11/minister_backs_animal_cull_to.php
“Last winter, farm minister Gerda Verburg agreed to provide extra food to help the wild cattle, horses and deer, which inhabit the Oostvaardersplassen nature reserve because of the continuing snow and ice. Extra feeding is currently banned by law
Some 3,000 large mammals live on the reserve and some 700 are thought to have died last winter. The reserve was only created on reclaimed land some 25 years ago and the ponies, cattle and deer were introduced in stages. There are no natural predators for larger animals. ”
“The Dutch forestry commission Staatsbosbeheer, which runs the reserve, considers the animals to be part of the eco system and does not support extra feeding.”
It’s like living on an island no food you die. So it’s warming and cooling killing these big animals.
My brackets.
Apparently a giant deer population existed around the northern Irish Sea Basin 1,400 years after their supposed extinction!
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v405/n6788/abs/405753a0.html
Stuff happens. Species go extinct. If you don’t believe me, just ask any allosaurus you happen to see. I’m sure they’ll agree; stuff happens.
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It’s bad enough hitting a white tail deer with your car. Imagine an Irish Elk jumping out into the road in front of you.
Global Warming 11000 years ago! Impossible,where were all the coal fired power stations.
Everybody knows that global warming has only occurred in the last 50 or so years.
Just ask the hockey stick team.
It must have been the Irish using high powered rifles and driving around in Land Rovers.
Village idiots were once cared for by their local communities; now they coach them in reading, writing and statistics and send them off to university.
Until the CO2 obsession, it was widely believed that megafauna like the Irish Elk were brought to extinction by human hunting.
Megafauna is always rare and precarious.
CO2 obsession lowers intelligence and reasoning skills of those who suffer from it.
Is NCDC calling the sea ice minimum 23rd March 2011 yet ‘fit to misprint’?
Must be pretty close to an April maximum for 2011 right now…….
The Warmists are ALL IN, no amount of proof or data will veer them from their intended course. Krugman is a bald face liar and a propagandist truly more suited for Pravda than the NYT.
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http://www.centredaily.com/2011/04/03/2623320/tweaking-the-climate-to-save-it.html