Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to The Guardian, climate change caused 200 reindeer to starve to death in Svalbard, though the scientists conducting the study think overpopulation might have been a factor.
Starvation deaths of 200 reindeer in Arctic caused by climate crisis, say researchers
Comparable death toll has been recorded only once before, says Norwegian Polar Institute
About 200 reindeer have been found dead from starvation in the Arctic archipelago Svalbard, an unusually high number, the Norwegian Polar Institute has said, pointing the finger at climate crisis.
…
Ashild Onvik Pedersen, the head of the census, said the high degree of mortality was a consequence of climate crisis, which according to climate scientists, is happening twice as fast in the Arctic as the rest of the world.
“Climate change is making it rain much more. The rain falls on the snow and forms a layer of ice on the tundra, making grazing conditions very poor for animals,” she said.…
The increased mortality is also due in part to a significant increase in the number of reindeer in the Norwegian archipelago. That is partly thanks to climate crisis and the warmer summers, meaning more individuals compete in the same grazing areas.
…
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/30/deaths-of-200-reindeer-in-arctic-caused-by-climate-change-say-researchers
I’m starting to see this more and more, scientists genuflect to the alleged climate crisis, but they seem to qualify their statement, to let the truth about what is really causing the problem peek through what they are saying about climate change.
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When the guardian finally closes down for good ( soon one hopes) I wonder if theyll say climate change caused that too?
I canot understand how any sensible, rational human would subscribe to their vapid, hyperfaked nonsense.
So, the climate crisis caused :
– more reindeer,
– less reindeer,
– a warmer weather,
– more ice.
Nothing seems to be impossible in a chicken little’s brain.
Reminds me of a story I read a few days ago on NPR.org news. The are running an on-going series on Mongolia.
This story:
The Deadly Winters That Have Transformed Life For Herders In Mongolia
https://www.npr.org/2019/07/29/737990796/the-deadly-winters-that-have-transformed-life-for-herders-in-mongolia
starts out trying to give the impression that “deadly winters” called dzuds.
Blockquote>”a dzud — the deterioration of winter weather conditions leading to a mass death of livestock from lack of food and/or water. Dzud winters vary, characterized by harsh cold, too much snow or not enough, ice and other factors.
There are five types of “dzuds” (in Mongolia culture), and Oyutan’s animals were claimed by the deadliest — a tsagaan dzud, meaning “white death.” That’s when snow covers the pastureland, blocking animals’ access to food.”
But as you get into the article the writer opens up to what the real cuae was herd overgrazing due to an exploding Yak herds numbers.
“In 1990, Mongolia rapidly transitioned to a free market democracy. The livestock count exploded. In the communist era, from 1924 to 1992, it was 23 million. Today, the National Statistics Office of Mongolia puts the livestock count above 66 million.
So the Yak numbers tripled. The grounds became stripped bare in many high, cold landscape grazing pastures. Mining/mineral extraction has also lead to extensive ground water pumping, drying up seasonal streams. All this has led to a drying of the Mongolian pastoral climate. The writer did admit this:
““We are an inland country, so we don’t have an ocean. The exchange of moisture between the atmosphere and the biosphere are very important for us,” says Gomboluudev Purevjav, head of climate research at the institute. If rangeland is degraded, he says, transpiration — the process that carries moisture and nutrients from a plant’s roots — will be reduced.
A drier Mongolia is a death knell for animals. Drought weakens livestock, making a dzud winter all the more deadly.
Dzuds are caused by multiple factors — some climate related and others human made. Drought is a major culprit. Overgrazing is another.”
The real culprit is not the increase of a trace gas. What kills the the Yak herds is bitter cold and snow covering what little remains of grazing food for the Yaks. A warmer winter under any climate change scenario would do the opposite.
The dishonesty is so rampant now on Climate Change, that this NPR reporter (Emily Kwong) resorts to using multiple instances of DoubleThink, that is holding two incongruent ideas together at the same time, and believing both to be true to support her “Climate Change” dishonest journalism.
Here’s DoubleThink in action with a Liberal mind (remember “dzuds” are bitter cold winter spells) in the final sentence of Ms Kwong’s “jornalism” (sic intended) article:
“With all these factors in play, dzuds — as well as mass livestock loss — have become a new norm in a warming nation.”
So bitter cold winter spells (dzuds) that bring “mass livestock loss” are the “new norm in a warming nation”.
You simply can’t get any more stupid DoubleThink than that.
and add the not insignificant detail that most families now dont live in tents with their herd
they get in their 4wd and go and stay in houses in townships so the animals are left alone, where once someone would be keeping a close eye on them
200 reindeer on an island and some bristlecones- ample proof of climate change.
The scientists do not even mention a “climate crisis” , that is the Guardian’s spin misreporting by rewording what scientists actually said. The quoted text says climate change.
So what we have here is allegedly “climate crisis” leads to warmer summers and an increased population. Presumably good news if you are a reindeer farmer or like looking at reindeer. But no, this is “over population” a bad thing. They then attribute the increased deaths to increased numbers.
So if there were less reindeer it would be polar bears all over again. Reindeer going extinct because of climate crisis. More reindeer is bad too: “over population” and starvation, also a result of climate crisis. So as per usual with the pathological liars at the Guardian , it’s head I win : tail you loose. Whatever happens to reindeer population they will spin it a catastrophe and cite it as yet more evidence of their beloved “climate crisis”.
Crisis , what crisis? So Arctic is a bit warmer. Most life there is a constant battle against freezing to death. So a little warmth is a good thing, producing a boom in seal population which is feeding polar bears and helping reindeer populations.
Scientists do say it is warming quicker they do NOT say a climate crisis is happening twice as fast.
Reindeer population has doubled since 1980, to available evidence they seem to adhere to the ” never waste a good crisis” school.
Why do you post such erroneous comments
surely its fewer not less reindeer!
I hope the Guardian goes bust soon. It’s a harmful lying rag
I took a looooong time for MAD magazine to go bust.
“Nobody ever went broke underestimating the crassness of the general public.”
Mods: what’s with format issues?
mods: My long comment lost to “moderation.” I used the banned “k” word. Sigh.
I went to McDonald’s today because of climate change. Otherwise I would have cooked at home, because of climate change.
A report from the Governor on Spitsbergen from 2009 “Managment of the reindeers on Spitsbergen” inform of a variation in growth rate of the population from -47 to +68 %. From the beginning of the 19th century the population was down to 1000 individuals and increased to about 10000 in 2009. The population is now close to 20000 individuals. 200 dead animals during a winter is no crisis, just a natural variation!
In summary – Global Warming is causing so much ice, the animals cannot feed.
Did I get that right?
R
No.
200 sounds like a lot until you realize (as noted above, stated at the end of the Guardian article), that 200 is only 2% of the entire Svalbard population.
What I noticed is that other articles about this event (LiveScience, Smithsonian) failed to state the total population size. A winter die-off event of 2% is absolutely nothing to get excited about, biologically speaking.
Note that this story is not a report of peer reviewed research – it’s the same kind of emotionally-charged tragedy porn about isolated incidents of natural mortality the public has been hit with regarding polar bears and walrus. But clearly, the strategy works: media outlets lap it up and a researcher or oganizations gets international attention.
In my opinion, any researcher who makes a statement like this is attention-seeking, not transmitting information:
“It is scary to find so many dead animals,” researcher Ønvik Pedersen told the Norwegian state broadcaster NRK. “This is a terrifying example of how climate change affects nature. It’s just sad.”
And, Reindeer lifespan is short… males ~10 years, and females ~18.
So, in any given year, if the ages were evenly distribited, 1/10th of the males, and 1/18th of the females would die. Put another way, males born 10 years ago, and females born 18 years ago are now reaching end-of-life, a natural increase due to the upswing in births those years.
I live in Western Canada. Lots of deer here. White tail and Mule deer as well as antelope and moose. Some winters are mild and some are hellacious. The big factor for mortality is snow. Deer are mainly browsers which requires them to move around in winter to find edible brush. When the winters are cold and snowy they need more sustenance for the cold and can’t get to it very easily due to the snow. Then they starve. Even if people drop hay for them, many starve. In subsequent years less brush is browsed and more grows. Then the deer population grows until the next tough year with high populations.
This is how nature works. For all species.
Susan
200/22,000 = 0.009 = 0.9%
Less than 1%so they had a low death rate this year
“…but they seem to qualify their statement, to let the truth about what is really causing the problem…”
Yep, two common tactics:-
(1) The evil-twins.
“Ocean acidification and hypoxia”
Fling a bogus climate change problem together with a real (albeit in this example a localised) issue.
(2) Snake-head listing.
“Species ‘X’ is threatened by climate change, over hunting, habitat loss, introduced predatory animals….”
Tack on climate change at the top, implying it’s the most deadly factor, when it’s negligible/nil/unstudied.
Looks like dozens of people all had the exact same reaction to this story, and said so.
But because of the long delay somewhere in the process of posting comments, no one had seen that others had made the same comment.
When I made my initial comment above, there were zero other comments posted.
Now I see that I was way down the line of commenters who had already posted, some almost 30 minutes before I hit send (I am assuming the comments get tagged with the send time and not the time they appear.
Well, at least now I know I am not the only one being delayed on virtually every comment.
It has made conversing pretty much impossible.
Few have the patience to sit around refreshing the page for the time it takes for a comment to post and someone to respond.
We can see it this reflected in every comment thread now.
Can nothing be done?
Anyway, I thought they all died from anthrax in last year’s reindeer-doom climate story.
So far there are no replies that have been made to any comment in less than about 45 minutes to an hour.
I think this is likely the delay time between when a person hits send and their comment appears on the board.
The website now updates comments once per hour, a few minutes past the hour. As you see, having a conversation is now practically impossible.
We used to have other features as well including:
1) The ability to include graphs and charts in a comment.
2) The ability to include videos in a comment
3) Comment like/dislike voting
4) Comment editing for the first few minutes.
The posting of charts and graphs was particularly important. Whatever the topic, some knowledgeable people would post their own take on the data. A lively and informative discussion would develop. That was back when comments posted promptly and you could have a discussion. Anyway, these discussions were fun and informative, often covering the topic at hand in much greater detail and depth than the original post. I know that I learned a lot. WUWT was a great site back then.
Those days seem to be gone for good.
I did ask Anthony, Mods about it on a very recent thread, but they did not reply.
Reply: Not simple on this platform. It’s on the list ~ctm
The “old” comment software also had a feature where new posts would be highlighted in a different color, which made finding them very easy and eliminated the necessity of rereading the entire thread.
I saw your earlier comment to the moderators, Tony. Lots of other people have asked the same questions over many months now but for some reason there is complete silence on this subject from the powers that be at WUWT. Not one reply to all those questions.
At least this time Charles The Moderator did offer a terse reply.
Thank you Charles.
I was beginning to wonder if I was the only one who cared.
I figured there was some reason it had not been fixed, and have said as much in previous inquiries.
It is nice to get a word or two acknowledging the issue.
The only reason people ask is because they care.
I recall that the site had been upgraded to include edit feature and some like button options, and shortly thereafter some sort of hacker attack knocked it all down, but I do not recall getting any details.
I do appreciate the reply, and I understand that it is not a simple thing.
Also, this is not the only site where the same thing has occurred.
Several other climate blogs have had the same thing happen.
Yes, and why is there a deafening silence from the moderators when ever these important issues are raised? I immediately suspect outside pressure to reduce the impact of WUWT. The loss of the power of images, particularly their use as memes and the destruction of real time interaction with its potential to build bridges through the reasoned arguments of the more thoughtful contributors to these “conversations.” I notice more frequently that some interesting exchanges go private (via email) because of the limitations of the blog; which is a loss to the public.
[To be clear, “the moderators” have access to approve, edit, and delete comments. That is all. So inquiries to the mods are not effective. If one were to piece this together based on all available information, the reasons for whatever inattention you believe you’re seeing should be obvious. Recall, Anthony turned over day-to-day to Charles due to increased demands on his time. But we can assume this isn’t Charles’ day job either, so changes and upgrades may take a while to implement. Personally, I would advise you to avoid silly speculations regarding outside influences and etc. They really do make you seem overly inclined to “conspiracy ideation”. -mod]
Tony L,
You are right on the money regarding the ability to post graphs and pictures and videos that would show up as such.
It allowed a type of response packed with info, and gave us the ability to get across complex points and issues in a way which was very clear and easy to follow.
IOW…it allowed us to communicate effectively.
The delay is another thing entirely, as it is damaging to our ability to communicate in a completely different but just as devastating way.
The combined effect has been to achieve exactly what whoever did it was intending: Effectively wreck the ability of using one of the most means of communicating this incredibly important issue, disarming a huge number of people with the ability to do so.
I wonder how many people were in a position to do so?
Had the motivation, and the skills?
Which sites were effected?
I can think of a few likely candidates.
Personally, I would call the FBI.
[Your big-brother overlords do not appreciate your questioning of them. You have been warned. 🙂 Seriously though, the vast majority of comments pass through the filters sans-problem. Some get caught in the moderator queue for various reasons, OR, due to problems with their originating IP address, they get thrown into the trash or spam folder. Those comments have to be manually retrieved by moderators who are willing to go through the internet equivalent of dumpster diving. That’s it. Nothing sinister. Just the realities of online life in world filled with hackers, crazies, and personas-non-grata. (Meaning, the site has to maintain filters to keep the quality of discussions high.) -mod]
Well, I am pretty sure there was some sort of hacking event that knocked out the site, causing Anthony to have to use a backup to restore it.
And in the process, the new functions that had been added to edit and “like” and such, were lost.
This was at the same time, IIRC, that the other issues began, with long delays for every post, and no way to have photos and graphs and such appear except as links.
Is this not the case?
I do not think the delay in posting comment has anything to do with comments being sent to moderation, except for a few here and there.
We are referring to the fact that EVERY comment is delayed, by a very long time.
Close to zero comments show up any time soon after posting.
I appreciate your taking the time to offer these explanations, but I am finding myself a little puzzled by what you are saying here.
In this instance yesterday, it was plainly obvious that no one was seeing anything posted on the comment thread until 45 minutes or so after posting, which is why a whole bunch of people made the exact same observation up top (BTW proving once again that great minds do think alike), and no one can have a real time conversation anymore…ever.
Perhaps you are unaware of the issue?
IDK…but I think we are not talking about the same thing.
Thanks again for responding.
Gonna say “mods” so this gets seen. Does that really help?
PS…I actually do hesitate to antagonize people who are hackers, but somethings need to be said 🙂
How about 16,000 and 80,000, 200 pales in to insignificance compared to those figures.
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/reindeer-dead-climate-change_n_5832bda6e4b058ce7aabe78e?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9kdWNrZHVja2dvLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAM28lMiv8lksavOXaGBqdjG2n1XbjssqdwWfpIxZIlMsvvfCS-8gJWTvLfzAgwcS-5VNXqj7H7-spUJqPU8_owBlUzO-khCFaAvqOUeFifZiv-sgefXfe4ouBDH_bsCJzfAsKf6wkzK2RZefqYyT2tjHD1czRQaL98oy_wGqnbOC
overpopulation “might” have been a factor?
Those aren’t scientists. Overpopulation is always the first thing you check in a wild land starvation scenario.
Ancillary you also check whether they’re under-predated.
No they aren’t scientists and never claimed to be … it’s an article from Griff number 1 reference the Grauniad (AKA the Church of Climatastrophy).
I was in Svalbard a couple of weeks ago on a National Geographic Cruise… There were healthy-looking herds of reindeer on most of the islands we visited (calves and adults).
Death by starvation is a regular occurrence nowadays for the burgeoning Svalbard subspecies.
https://www.npolar.no/en/species/svalbard-reindeer/
A century back they were hunted ruthlessly.
The Guardian people shall wipe their tears – in Lappland they can learn how to feed caribous with the sami folks:
https://www.google.com/search?q=sami+folk+feeding+reindeers&oq=sami+folk+feeding+reindeers&aqs=chrome.
So Santa won’t be coming to town?
Take a look at the recent temp record for Svalbard… massive warming.
Here’s a podcast:
https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2019/jul/02/life-in-the-fastest-warming-place-on-earth-podcast
Ah yes, the old “recent”…you don’t seem to be aware that temperatures in lots of places fluctuate widely over a large number of different timescales.
Last week here in the UK it was 40 degrees, a few days ago we underwent “unprecedented cooling” and it was 19 degrees. Quick, declare a climate cooling emergency. Recent temperatures are much, much lower than they were. Right?
Griff, the Svalbard airport temperature series clearly demonstrates that the warming from 1915 to 1935 was far more severe that the latest warming. That earlier warming was followed by decades of cooling. The average annual temperatures experienced in the mid 1930s were not surpassed until about 2000.
Please supply your proof that the latest warming was caused by CO2 when the earlier more severe warming clearly was not. Models don’t count (they merely regurgitate the programmed CO2 presumption).
This happens whenever there is a mild period in winter causing an ice crust to form. It is not too common, but happens occasionally everywhere there are reindeer. For example it happened around 1900 in NW Greenland, totally wiping out the local reindeer herd and causing considerable hardship for the inuits (ref. Peter Freuchen: Min grønlandske ungdom (1936))
By the way that reindeer image is way off – the Svalbard reindeer belong to the platyrhynchus subspecies, also known as “dachshund reindeer”, which are very small and short-legged, there being no predators on Svalbard (Polar Bears don’t hunt reindeer). Incidentally this means that virtually all Svalbard reindeer ultimately die from starvation.
Svalbard is rather marginal habitat for reindeer, particularly in winter. Once there were reindeer on Franz Josephs land as well, but they died out about 3,000 years ago as climate cooled. The Svalbard reindeer probably originally came from Novaya Zemlya by way of Franz Josephs land.
It appears that the polar bears of Svalbard have missed a trick or two. Or have they?
No, ice bears on land in summer don’t hunt actively. They scavenge, eat bird’s eggs and young and berries and similar, but they don’t chase animals, not even Svalbard reindeer. The reason is supposedly that any heavy effort out of cold water can cause heat stroke. Polar Bears are very well insulated. Remember we are talking about animals that can swim in freezing water for several days without ill effect.
So climate change caused more reindeer and then also killed of the more reindeer.
Wow, it’s almost as if there are seasons…