From the “please send money to solve this manufactured crisis” department and the WILDLIFE CONSERVATION SOCIETY comes this giant load of bollocks. They can’t even separate what the difference between weather and climate is, thinking that climate change is the “here and now” . The money quote:
…we need to communicate this to wider public and we need to ensure key decisions makers know that something significant needs to happen now to stop species going extinct. Climate change is not a future threat anymore.”
How specific, “something significant”. Climate change is right outside your window. It’s making species go extinct! Act now!
Organizations like this rely on alarm to generate donations. Just one visit to the webpage tells you all you need to know, between the popup window pleas to save “x” on every page, the financials tell the story – its about money, lots of it:
…operating revenue of $234.6 million supporting $198.1 million in programmatic activity in our parks and in the field, representing over 84% of total expenses. Net assets totaled $973.6 million…
In my opinion, they’ve figured out that climate change as a future threat just isn’t scary enough to generate enough shakedowns donations from the fearful. So, making climate change in the “here and now” rather than the future, makes it an immediate threat, likely to generate more concern and donations. It reminds me of this famous and controversial cover image from National Lampoon magazine:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheeseface
Replace the image of the dog with the Gorilla from their web page and you have the same effect (yellow text mine):
Climate change impacts on endangered wildlife massively under reported
NEW YORK (February 13, 2017) – A team of scientists reporting in the journal Nature Climate Change say that negative impacts of climate change on threatened and endangered wildlife have been massively underreported.
In a new analysis, authors found that nearly half of the mammals and nearly a quarter of the birds on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species are negatively impacted by climate change, with nearly 700 species affected. Previous assessments said only seven percent of mammals and four percent of birds on the Red List were impacted.
The paper reviewed 130 studies, making it the most comprehensive assessment to date on how climate change is affecting our most well-studied species.
Impacts for mammals are wide ranging and include a lower ability to exploit resources and adapt to new environmental conditions. For example, primates and marsupials, many of which have evolved in stable tropical areas, are vulnerable to rapid changes and extreme events brought on by climate change. In addition, primates and elephants, which are characterized by very slow reproductive rates that reduce their ability to adapt to rapid changes in environmental conditions, are also vulnerable. On the other hand, rodent species that can burrow, and thus avoid some extreme conditions, will be less vulnerable.
For birds, negative responses in both breeding and non-breeding areas were generally observed in species that experienced large changes in temperatures in the past 60 years, live at high altitudes, and have low temperature seasonality within their distributions. Many impacted species inhabit aquatic environments, which are considered among the most vulnerable to temperature increase due to habitat loss, fragmentation, and harmful algal blooms. In addition, changes in climate in tropical and subtropical forest areas, already exacerbated by habitat degradation, may threaten forest-dependent species.
Said lead author Michela Pacifici of the Global Mammal Assessment Program at Sapienza University of Rome: “It is likely that many of these species have a high probability of being very negatively impacted by expected future changes in the climate.”
Said co-author Dr James Watson of the Wildlife Conservation Society and University of Queensland: “Our results clearly show that the impact of climate change on mammals and birds to date is currently greatly under-estimated and reported upon. We need to greatly improve assessments of the impacts of climate change on species right now, we need to communicate this to wider public and we need to ensure key decisions makers know that something significant needs to happen now to stop species going extinct. Climate change is not a future threat anymore.”
The authors recommend that research and conservation efforts give greater attention to the `here and now’ of climate change impacts on life on Earth. This also has significant implications for intergovernmental policy fora such as the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, and the revision of the strategic plan of the United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change.
###
What’s worse, they aren’t actually seeing species go extinct, it’s all based on a model. The press release sure reads a lot different than the paper…but I’ve already explained why.
Species’ traits influenced their response to recent climate change
Abstract
Although it is widely accepted that future climatic change—if unabated—is likely to have major impacts on biodiversity1, 2, few studies have attempted to quantify the number of species whose populations have already been impacted by climate change3, 4. Using a systematic review of published literature, we identified mammals and birds for which there is evidence that they have already been impacted by climate change. We modelled the relationships between observed responses and intrinsic (for example, body mass) and spatial traits (for example, temperature seasonality within the geographic range). Using this model, we estimated that 47% of terrestrial non-volant threatened mammals (out of 873 species) and 23.4% of threatened birds (out of 1,272 species) may have already been negatively impacted by climate change in at least part of their distribution. Our results suggest that populations of large numbers of threatened species are likely to be already affected by climate change, and that conservation managers, planners and policy makers must take this into account in efforts to safeguard the future of biodiversity.
This amounts to a massive misdirection play from deforestation, poaching, encroachment and a list of far more immediate issues for protection. This is a money egg hunt.
CLIMATE CHANGE KILLED HARAMBE!!!
OMG!! THE SKY IS FALLING! HELP US SAVE THE SKY.
[sarc for those who need the explanation]
So if climatic conditions change, many species will be “affected”. It’s no brainer. If the next 20y gets cooler again I will be “affected”. Species which are already at risk
The usual could-be / may-be claims that are so vague that they can never be wrong. You do not need to do a study to make such general and non-committal statements.
“suggests” that could-be / may-be ; likely etc. etc.
How can any policy makers take appropriate action based on such vague claims. There is also an inherent assumption in all this that the “climate change” in question is a) totally caused by man and b) totally under our control.
They do not even define what they mean by “climate change” before demanding action to prevent it. They probably feel very warm and fuzzy inside that they have “done their bit” for the cause and of course now sit back hoping for lots of dollars to roll in so that they can continue to produce meaningless claims from “studies” in the published literature.
I stopped listening to “this endangered animal will really, REALLY be endangered when the danger gets really dangerous” stuff when someone said that the coelacanth was in danger of getting itself extinct because of…climate change.
Yes, after literally millions of years, living through every iteration of the earth’s climate from really cold, to really hot, its gonna slip its wind from a “rapid” change in climate that can barely be discerned from static in the record.
YES!!!!! I literally read this thinking “Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.” I have been involved in wildlife conservation in one way or another for the last decade and a half. Climate change is nothing. The ACTUAL big problems are horrible land management by humans, massive increases in animal trafficking (much of which is now run by organized crime outfits), and decreased habitat due to human expansion.
THE TIGER IS GOING EXTINCT IN THE WILD BECAUSE IDIOTS IN ASIA THINK ITS BODY PARTS ARE MAGIC. Even if climate change was real in the way they claim, it would not matter to most endangered species because those species will be gone before any actual change would happen. Estimation is 10 years for tigers, this is one of a very few predictions that have the potential to come to pass. Rhino numbers are massively down due to poaching. Humans directly killing animals is a HUGE problem.
The gorillas are in danger because their last refuges are in poor war-torn countries (the wars may “officially” be over, but the violence continues), so there is little local support for protecting them. Why worry about a gorilla when most of the country is one big hellhole? Gorillas get poached, they get shot as a message (the rangers better not mess with the fighters, etc.), they are killed by people who illegally live in the park (competition for resources and resentment). Climate change isn’t doing squat. You want to help the gorillas, ask the Belgian guy in the Congo what to do. I am pretty sure his answer will not be “build more windmills”.
Well said AlleyKat!
“It is likely that many of these species have a high probability of being very negatively impacted by expected future changes in the climate.”
How many adjectives and adverbs can a person in one sentence?
How many adjectives and adverbs can a person STUFF in one sentence?, (how many times do I have to do this before I get it right?)
The Ministry of Truth makes a strong argument that something which is greatly over reported, is actually under reported. When will it stop?
@RH,
It absolutely, positively will not stop until you are dead.
Matt S. has the right idea, so allow me to improve upon his effort (^_^):
Listen, and understand! That Climate Change is out there! It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, EVER, until those species are dead!
… from the forthcoming Climinator movie.
+1 for Robert Kernodle’s post
Love it, Robert!
I rather liked the verblessness of your 1st iteration; I had to use my imagination.
I won’t be canned by a mere adverb. You’ll need a full blown adverbial construct to place a serious threat of canning.
canned or caned?
MarkW
Did you have an English governess?
Auto – whimsically.
It doesn’t seem so bad: “In a new analysis, authors found that nearly half of the mammals and nearly a quarter of the birds on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species are negatively impacted by climate change”
In other words, more than half the mammals and more than three quarters of the birds are not negatively impacted, so the implication has to be that climate change is a good thing for most endangered species.
From the Wisdom of Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
You laugh, but this used to be my job:
http://dilbert.com/strip/2002-02-07
“Sometimes gives temperary relief” sold a lot of prep H.
Sandyb, there goes another keyboard! LoL
Likely to have a high probability?
It’s probable that it’s probable?
Well, if weasels go extinct, that means weasel words will go extinct. They have to protect their metaphorical vocabulary.
They all sing from the same hymn book. Senator Whitehouse made similar statements while questioning Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen. She was polite and basically said responding to climate change was not part of her job.
[snip – wildly off-topic, not to mention just plain ridiculous, plus chemtrails -mod]
I’m going out on a limb and make the assumption that mess actually makes sense to you.
Both HAARP and “tropospheric Aersol Injection” in one all purpose chart? Congratulations.
Do You understand the connection MarkW?
Do You know which methods and technologies are required to control the climate?
Do You know about the scale and impact of climate control?
I understand that you are a serious nut case.
You are censoring without understanding the topic.
Intentionally or not, You are supporting and spreading geoengineering, climate control propaganda!
Why are You cutting everything about climate control!
We understand the topic. It’s you who have lost touch with reality.
Seek mental help, soon.
“Why are You cutting everything about climate control!”
I suspect but cannot know, that Mr. Watts is afraid he will lose credibility if he doesn’t stifle all discussion of this (to me) blatantly obvious possibility. On the other hand, I also suspect but cannot know, that he’s aware of another purpose for spraying stuff into the air, having to do with defeating potential “stealth” technology in the event of a strategic attack . .
Nobody is spraying anything into the air.
Having nut cases spread their lunacy does not help this sites credibility.
I have watched stuff being sprayed into the air, for years, Mark. You can imagine whatever you like, but I don’t have that option in this regard.
Jet fuel is kerosene.
When kerosene is burned by a jet engine two products released are carbon dioxide and water in form of vapour
2 C12H26 + 37 O2 = 24 CO2+ 26 H2O
No mystery .
What you see is nothing more than standard water vapor condensing and forming contrails.
Something that’s been happening since planes got powerful enough to get up into the really cold air.
Are you people serious? “Chemtrails” are preposterous. Contrails have been around since before WWII:
http://www.nycaviation.com/newspage/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/B-17_Flying_Fortress.jpg
I read a report that German fighter pilots would use the contrails to hide in until they could get close to the bomber formations.
Umbly begging your pardon Mod but may I go off topic?
https://phys.org/news/2017-02-scientists-uncover-huge-reservoir-carbon.html
New research published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters describes how scientists have used the world’s largest array of seismic sensors to map a deep-Earth area of melting carbon covering 1.8 million square kilometres. Situated under the Western US
As a result of this study, scientists now understand the amount of CO2 in the Earth’s upper mantle may be up to 100 trillion metric tons. In comparison, the US Environmental Protection Agency estimates the global carbon emission in 2011 was nearly 10 billion metric tons – a tiny amount in comparison. The deep carbon reservoir discovered by Dr. Hier-Majumder will eventually make its way to the surface
Haven’t read your link yet, so maybe the answer is in there, but at first glance, 1.8 million acres is bigger than the state of Alaska, and about 18% of the area of the United States. Second, two weasel-word adjectives, “deep” and “eventually.” How “deep’ and how “eventually”?
OK, quick scan.
1)How deep? upper mantle, 350 km. FU.
2) Eventually? “The deep carbon reservoir discovered by Dr. Hier-Majumder will eventually make its way to the surface through volcanic eruptions, and contribute to climate change albeit very slowly.” FU
3) Don’t get me started on the difference between carbonate and carbon. Fu
4) Money/scare quote… and I mean money in the sense that this is the only reason why it was published.
Unless you missed a /sarc tag, FU.
EricHa,
I humbly and deeply apologize for the tone of this post. I’ve read several of your posts below and see that I completely misread or misunderstood this post. Beggin’ forgiveness (but I still need an excuse, so I blame it on the wine).
Eric – that can’t be serious can it. “Melting carbon” – what mind-bogglingly staggering level of ignorance can write those words? Really? I looked at the link, and it appears to be serious, and – OK they are talking about carbonate rocks. not carbon. That’s a pretty big slice of subducted limestone. Can they tell that just from its seismic characteristics? Maybe, I’d be very surprised, but then I haven’t kept up with stuff like that. Still it sounds more like a guess than a deduction.
But for totally ignorant media releases about a scientific paper, that takes the biscuit. Melting carbon. Jesus H. whatsisname, what happened to universal education? It’s ………………… (words fail me)
And the abstract has the audacity to talk about all the “carbon” coming to surface “eventually”, as if that might be a century or two away. Oh my……………… (shakes head and goes off sniffing drainpipes).
Keep doffing that cap Phil
Lower 🙂
SR
Don’t know enough about it myself. There are lots of geology bods on here who might be able to shed some light on it.
Racking my brains and pondering the carbon cycle I learnt at school, at a subduction zone the sedimentary limestone is forced down into the mantle where it is heated and comes up in volcanoes as CO2 etc. Usual graphic is the west coast of the Americas, Cascade volcanic arc etc.. Thinking about it now the ocean crust is made from solidified mantle which isn’t carbonate, so I guess any carbon down there would be the skeletons of sea creatures deposited on the ocean floor. If that is what it is 100 trillion tonnes is a lot of skeleton.
Anyway, if what they say is right then there is a lot of hot carbonate and when you heat carbonate you get CO2 released which they say is released in volcanic eruptions. But who is to say that it isn’t being released all the time in small cracks and seeps. Thinking about other situations of trapped gas i.e. a natural gas field, these are usually covered by a caprock of solid sandstone. Well the west coast of the Americas is definitely not solid sandstone, it is fractured to bug gery, and no way is that going to keep it down there.
Soo I looked at a map of subduction zones
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ahFPBkQ649M/UqnWkqGIQgI/AAAAAAAAWtE/YMhiiB3_UmA/s1600/subduction_zones_global_map.jpg
Then I looked at the OCO-2 satellite images. Here is one
Lots of CO2 along all the subduction zones, even the one just east of Italy.
So I was wondering if earthquakes could seriously affect the amount of CO2 released and found
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/16/another-known-unknown-volcanic-outgassing-of-co2/ 🙂
and
http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/3204/20130729/earthquakes-release-massive-amounts-methane.htm
Pondering if what might cause earthquakes and the Earth’s orbit I found this
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/05/0523_050523_moonquake_2.html
Which isn’t conclusive.
Anyway, seems to me that the idea that the CO2 content of the atmosphere was stable until man came along and started burning fossil fuels is tenuous to say the least.
That’s how I spent an hour or so of my morning. I love this site. Always gets me thinking 😀 I might have completely the wrong end of the stick here but the Earth’s orbit might affect the level of CO2 in the atmosphere other than the changes in TSI and orbit. As good a theory as some of the whack job ideas coming out of the Green Machine.
SR I seem to be in moderation
They could try to do something about palm oil/biodiesel production impacting various species, but that would be off message.
Not to mention wind farms – which have already had a catastrophic effect on already threatened bird spp.
Endangered and threatened species don’t count when it come to wind turbines. Migratory birds don’t matter either.
Wind developers claim that bird and bat deaths can be mitigated. Then, after construction, the developers control the mortality numbers. Host wind turbine land owners have gag clauses in their contracts so they can’t report bird and bat mortality data.
Endangered species are the result of man changing their local environment, encroachment on their habitat, hunting, poaching, over-using the species or their food chain.
All of these can be addressed but we seem to lack the political will power to do so.
So instead let’s blame it on climate change where there is misguided political will power a plenty.
Gorillas consume vegetation
vegetation consume Carbon Dioxide
Blue Whales consume krill
krill consume phytoplankton
phytoplankton consume Carbon Dioxide
Carbon Dioxide is the base of the food chain for all endangered species. More Carbon Dioxide supports more food growth for endangered species. We need to increase atmospheric Carbon Dioxide.
It’s even worse — anchovies consume zooplankton. Zooplankton replace phytoplankton (which feeds coral reefs and consumes carbon dioxide) and zooplankton carcasses cover coral reefs to prevent growth. Fishermen overfish anchovies and blame climate change for the destruction of coral reefs.
I didn’t know enough people liked anchovies to be overfished?
@ur momisugly Phil R, Feb 14 12.29 pm. I am trying my best to make up for those that do not like anchovies. A Pizza is not a Pizza without anchovies and neither is a Caesar’s Salad! And btw they don’t always end up being the oversalted one you use in those meals , there are many different ways of ways to use them , I wonder our resident fisherman Willis can help me out there? Please and thanks!
The mammals evolved in a “Stable tropical climate”. Liar liars pants on fire. It is the instability of climate and environment that drives evolutionary change. This is yet another climate hype scam. Toss out the rubbish.
Off the coast of Africa, anchovies are very popular. It’s may be their number one “fish crop”.
It is a very fishy flavor, but it also has a good calorie content.
I wish WUWT had a thumbs up. 🙂
So I’ll give you this instead 🙂
The environmental damage is so great that only those who are specially trained to look for it, can see it.
The same goes for the relentless warming that we hear about – not in my neighborhood.
I heard about a man who had an ex-wife who was dating a man who swore his uncle’s cousin had read a story in the grocery store waiting line that proved climate change (i.e. global warming) was found to be true by seances held by some of the smartest climate scientists. It was right below the story about the 16 year old boy who could bend railroad rails with his chin.
Like the “climate change is not a future threat anymore ” gag, some of us never thought it was on the so called evidence presented so far .
Whaddya mean, the CLIMATE IS ALL AROUND!!! We’re ALL gonna DIE!!! AAUGHHHHHH!!! /sarc
Obama admin regulation allows wind turbines to kill up to 4,200 Bald Eagles per company: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/dec/14/obama-admin-regulation-allows-wind-turbines-kill-4/
http://vps.templar.co.uk/Cartoons%20and%20Politics/shutterstock_dog.jpg
Those glasses are non-scripted. Dog has perfectly good sight. 🙂
That’s what he wants you to think.
‘…..comes this giant load of bollocks’, said Anthony, and I can’t improve on that at all.
Yes, excellent use of invective, having some UK readers and contributors is paying off!
Couldn’t agree more, Chesh. I;m sometimes a little embarrassed here by over-the-top comments and put-downs, but in this case I’ll withdraw my objection. From the abstract it looks like a ‘number you first though of’ paper.
ALL change, however arising, is likely to impact on the bulk of species, simply because they are so sharply adapted to the status quo. [A minority of species, of course ( I call them ‘weed’ species) – those that are rapidly evolving so as to find and exploit evolving niches – will fare better]. So, up to a point, their suit is a tautology.
The real issue, of course, is whether the climate changes we currently observe are unprecedented in comparison with the historical record, or whether we are obsessed with the snapshot of tiny changes that we now see (or THINK we see) and building preposterous theses upon them. Before you can ascribe extinctions to a change in climate, you had better first establish that there is a change in climate. Anthony puts it rather more eloquently.
I seriously doubt ANYTHING we see is “unpredented in comparison with the historical record.” Whether the antics of Nature or on the human scene, few things on this Earth have not happened before.
There is literally NOTHING on the dangers of Climate Change that is ‘under-reported’.
EXCEPT the dangers caused by what activists will try to do about it – THOSE dangers get chirping crickets.
So they’ve checked what amount to their own press releases and found that they are not being reported with sufficient alarm. This passes for published science. More like published rubbish.
Thr only thing natural about this is the gullibility of thier intended audience.
If you give to a hospice you pay for nursing.
If you give to a homeless shelter you pay for breakfast.
But if you give to a wildlife charity, what are you buying?
OK. I see the value in a Cat’s Home but an undomesticated wildlife charity?
What does the money do?
…
One would think the RSPB would be protecting birds but
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2835947/The-Great-British-rake-really-happens-billions-donate-charity-Fat-cat-pay-appalling-waste-hidden-agendas.html
The RSPB hit the headlines after Sir Ian Botham said it was more interested in politics than wildlife. Is that true? Like many charities, the RSPB generates income from commercial activities – £21 million of its total £122 million income in the latest accounts.
But the costs of its commercial activities are £18.4 million, so only £2.6 million of the £21 million raised by selling things goes into the kitty for charitable purposes and administration. Of the £122 million total, the RSPB spent £115 million and retained £7 million for future use.
The £115 million can be split into £32.5 million generating its income and £82.6 million on what it classed as ‘charitable spending’ – roughly 72 per cent. But what does it class as ‘charitable expenditure’?
Some £4 million went on managing its membership, which raised £32 million. Most would regard this as an administration cost, rather than genuine charitable expenditure. Another £14.2 million was used for ‘Education and Communication’ and £34.7 million on ‘Research, Policy and Advisory’ – nearly £50 million on what could loosely be described on campaigns.
The final £29.6 million – just £2.57 of every £10 spent – was actually used for the proper front-line work that many donors might normally associate with the RSPB.
So it doesn’t really matter that they say they are spending it on undomesticated animals as it goes to the very domesticated fat cats that spend it on champagne and fast cars.
EricHa, thank you for that link. I only had to read a few paragraphs before I came to this sentence:
“Parkinson recognised how bureaucracies find increasing quantities of real or fictitious work which leads to the apparent necessity for them to keep growing and pay themselves more because of the increasing amount of work they enthusiastically create for themselves”
After spending three days of trying to fill out our applications for various , ( hard earned ) pension benefits, a few months ago I was informed I had send them in too early. Rather than sending the lot back to me to resend 6 weeks later they held them back and told me to resubmit all of them all over again and no copying ( of course which I done) allowed.
I will not even get into the fact that for each individual available benefit I had to fill out the EXACT same information on the exact same piece of paper, the only difference being that one was form A3645 ( fictional #’s) and the others had one or two letters or a number changed. I will also point out that they require original documents like passports etc, that you need to send “registered” so they add for each mailing roughly $15 US to your cost! ( Each department of course has a different mailing address).
The sky inside our residence was for days a beautiful blue I can tell you that!
But thanks anyway it is an important link that will be shared and the only two charities we give to is the Local Children’s Hospital Ward and the Food Bank ( in food only)
“undomesticated wildlife”
Isn’t that redundant?
MarkW,
Hmm. Depends on your view of rats (and their predators).
I too see the value of cat houses… and wild life. For wildlife, they ought to be buying up acreage to set aside as wildlife preserves. But property is expensive, so instead they put it into education so they can hector our school children not to drive SUVs. As with the Daily Mail article, once you examine their books with a magnifier you will find that little is actually spent on things that would benefit animals. Mostly it benefits the humans who are running the charity.
There might be a transposition problem here:
“I too see the value of cat houses… and wild life.”
To control rats, one needs house cats. What you wrote describes the location for the activity commonly associated with climate science(tm). The location is also associated with the wild life.
It has been clear to me for awhile that, of the threats to species, carbon dioxide is minimal. Yet, it is being hyped as the cause of the next great extinction event. (Known as the “6th great extinction event.”)
Humans have been a cause of extinctions ever since we have roamed the earth. In particular, most of the megafauna species became extinct within a few millenia of humans encroaching on an area (think everything from Mastodons to giant sloths to goliath kangaroos.) After that, the development of farming destroyed a number of predators and, most recently, the practice of over-fishing is a chronic danger; not just to those fish, but also their predators and the changes to the ecosystem when predators disappear and their food becomes overgrown. (ex. the crown-of-thorns starfish.)
Everytime a species is declared endangered by climate change, a little research proves that the immediate danger is not climate change, but is often some other man-made cause (or, like the American Pika and Polar Bears, they are not endangered at all.) The problem is that scientists are pressured to include climate change as a risk so that they can tap into that science funding and then it becomes a self-fulfilling scientific prophecy (they need more money.)
Polar bears are the classic example. They were endangered due to over-hunting and over-hunting of their food source (especially, the very valuable seal pup fur.) Basic conservation efforts limiting hunting has allowed their population to recover, but rather than celebrate the success, scientists still need the press to support their fund raising efforts.
There are real dangers to species that basic conservation will help. However, when climate change gets the blame, then there is no pressure to understand the other man-made stresses. If an Pacific Island can blame climate change for the danger, then they have no pressure to reduce the destructive fishing practices which are the real danger to these species. Their fishermen don’t want to reduce their fishing — that’s their livelihood. Their government doesn’t want to put pressure on their own population when they can blame first world nation’s at semi-annual climate change conferences.
Extinction is the norm , survival is the exception, this is and has always been the case .
An accurate and very important point Robert. It reminded me of a passage from the introduction to Bill Brysons excellent book, “A Short History of Nearly Everything” :
“So thank goodness for atoms. But the fact that you have atoms and that they assemble in such a willing manner is only part of what got you here. To be here now, alive in the twenty-first century and smart enough to know it, you also had to be the beneficiary of an extraordinary string of biological good fortune. Survival on Earth is a surprisingly tricky business. Of the billions and billions of species of living thing that have existed since the dawn of time, most (99.99 percent) are no longer around. Life on Earth, you see, is not only brief but dismayingly tenuous. It is a curious feature of our existence that we come from a planet that is very good at promoting life but even better at extinguishing it.”
Fear mongering used to be frowned upon. Now it’s a shrieking-for-attention competitive activity and an entire business “model”. Pathetic.
Climate alarmist Allan Savory slaughtered 40,000 elephants in a vain attempt to save the planet by stopping desertification. So yes climate change is killing off animals.
Didn’t that backfire?
His research, validated by a committee of scientists, led to the government culling of 40,000 elephants in following years but he later concluded the culling did not reverse the degradation of the land, calling that decision “the saddest and greatest blunder of my life. Wiki
Seems killing the elephants and reducing the dung being spread on the land caused desertification.
Anyone see the parallels with the demonization of CO2?
“elephants, which are characterized by very slow reproductive rates that reduce their ability to adapt to rapid changes in environmental conditions, are also vulnerable. ”
Utter nonsense. Elephants breed slowly, yes, which makes them quite vulnerable to e. g. poaching. But they are extraordinarily insensitive to environmental conditions. Elephants thrive in tropical rainforest and swamp (e. g. in the Niger Delta), in montane rainforest (e. g. Mount Kenya), in savannahs (e. g. Tsavo), in subtropical forest (Addo) in dry scrub and woodland (e. g. Kruger NP) and even in semi-desert (e. g. western Etosha). As far as I know they only avoid extreme desert and really deep water (but they swim extremely well, and can easily cross even fairly wide straits).
Further the idea that a gradual and tiny change in the temperature anomaly constitutes a “rapid change in environmental conditions” is not intuitive to me. I’m curious about those places that have experienced “large changes in temperatures in the past 60 years” and yet “have low temperature seasonality within their distributions.” Is there anywhere on earth where the anomaly change in the last sixty years comes within shouting distance of seasonal or daily variations in temperature?
It is an obvious point about Climate Change that the claimed increase in temperatures is far smaller than natural variation on even an annual or decadal basis. If it was not, this site would note exist and we would all be driving electric cars.
That is why there is a seemingly endless number of papers published that claim to show the increase, but which need yet more models and yet more adjustments to do so.
This paper is pure nonsense – the animals at risk cannot possibly tell that the winter “should” have been 5 degrees when it is 5.5 degrees, because they are used to the winter being somewhere between 1 and 7 degrees (for example).
The image of that Mad Magazine issue popped into my head as soon as I saw the picture of the WCS ad.
And I take the claim in the ad as seriously as I took the claim in Mad. Except I probably bought a copy of Mad,
It’s the National Lampoon, actually. Which was MAD magazine on steroids and very, very “R” rated. I really miss the O’Rourke era Lampoon.
Next thing that the leftists will say is that climate change will turn us into The Planet of the Apes.
Take a look at the leftist street riots–we’re already there!
Lol. Yes, very true! +1
We’re under what looks like more than a metre of snow in eastern Ontario and a deep freeze. The neutral temperatures along the equatorial Pacific may be lulling some into thinking we won’t get much of a La Nina cooling, but the big effect is the large Cold Blobs in the the temperate zones both NH and SH.
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.gif
Where the gorillas live, the temperature doesn’t change but marginally (think polar amplification for global warming). I was in Nigeria, Benin and Togo (equatorial) in the mid 1960s, late 1990s and in Tanzania and Kenya in the late 1980s and mid 1990s and the temps were the same as they are now.
Oops, click the pic to get February 2017
Thanks for the oops. I was stymied there for a second.
“we identified mammals and birds for which there is evidence that they have already been impacted by climate change”
I can top that easily. It applies to every mammal and bird species on the planet. Essentially all species are old enough to have lived through one or more glacial cycles, when climate changed vastly more than in recent centuries, repeatedly and often very abruptly. Essentially every species has had to live in very different cimates or has had to move, again and again and again. Usually both.
“We modelled the relationships between observed responses and intrinsic (for example, body mass) and spatial traits (for example, temperature seasonality within the geographic range). ”
And how do they model “temperature seasonality within the geographic range”. That geographic range only applies just now, and even if not affected by human interference (unusual), almost certainly does not represent the complete climatic tolerance of the species as everybody who knows anything about paleontology is well aware. Not even nearly. At the moment lions and reindeer would probably not be considered to live under the same “temperature seasonality”, and yet they have lived side by side for much of the history of both species. The same applies to e. g. horses and muskox, alligators and bison or california condor and prairie chicken, to take a few random examples. Those species aren’t extinct but the climates they lived in are (for the moment, they will come back during future ice ages).
And that’s precisely the point. Just because a species is “impacted” does not mean that it is harmful, helpful, or significant. It is such a low standard to claim that species are “impacted”. More importantly, most of the impacts may not be from ‘climate change’ as opposed to other changes such as agriculture development. (FWIW — I was always taught, “don’t use ‘impacted’ unless you are talking about teeth.” It’s a noun, not a verb.)
I used to volunteer at a zoo and speak with visitors about several African species. One of the things I told people was that our idea of an animal’s “normal” range was almost always wrong if one looked at the historical record. Example: cheetahs. They used to live in almost all of Africa, the Middle East, down into India, and up near the Caspian Sea. There are still a few cheetahs in the mountains of Iran/Afghanistan. Cheetahs can easily live in much cooler climates than one sees in an African savannah. They can also live in much less hospitable places – there is a subspecies that lives in the Sahel. Those cats probably love the CO2-caused greening. (All >250 of them.)
I’ll donate to Operation Smile instead….
I was thinking something along the same lines, so I’m donating to Operation Simile.
Thanks! They are one of my ‘main’ charities
Operation Smile folks are good people doing really good charitable work in some of the poorest 3rd world countries around the world.
Zoom