Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to the BBC cockroaches will survive, but Pandas and humans won’t make it. Reptiles are also doomed because they can’t regulate their body temperature.
The animals that will survive climate change
With one in every four species facing extinction, which animals are the best equipped to survive the climate crisis? (Spoiler alert: it’s probably not humans).By Christine Ro
5 August 2019“I don’t think it will be the humans. I think we’ll go quite early on,” says Julie Gray with a laugh. I’ve just asked Gray, a plant molecular biologist at the University of Sheffield, which species she thinks would be the last ones standing if we don’t take transformative action on climate change. Even with our extraordinary capacity for innovation and adaptability, humans, it turns out, probably won’t be among the survivors.
This is partly because humans reproduce agonisingly slowly and generally just one or two at a time – as do some other favourite animals, like pandas. Organisms that can produce many offspring quickly may have a better shot at avoiding extinction.
…
Another source of uncertainty has to do with life forms’ capacity to adapt. Take ectotherms (cold-blooded animals like reptiles and amphibians), which have historically been slower to adapt to climatic change than endotherms. For one thing, they are less able to adjust their body temperatures. But there are exceptions, like the American bullfrog, which may actually find more habitable environments as a consequence of warming.
…
The historical record does point to the tenacity of cockroaches. These largely unloved critters “have survived every mass extinction event in history so far”, says Asmeret Asefaw Berhe, a soil biogeochemist at the University of California, Merced. For instance, cockroaches adapted to an increasingly arid Australia, tens of millions of years ago, by starting to burrow into soil.
…
Read more: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190730-the-animals-that-will-survive-climate-change
Anyone who thinks reptiles have a problem with warm temperatures has never visited Australia. And I’m not just talking about our politicians.
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The animals most likely to go extinct are the parasites at the Biased Corp.
I wonder if Christine Ro (writer) and Julie Gray (plant biologist) are friends and/or related. Second, did Ro’s boss ask for a ‘filler’ piece on a very short deadline.
The extinction story reported isn’t interesting, but the story behind the story might be. For instance, what were these two drinking when the topic was discussed?
How did we possibly survive coming out of the last ice age? Remember the last woolly mammoth you ate? Neither do I.
‘For one thing, they are less able to adjust their body temperatures. Take ectotherms (cold-blooded animals like reptiles and amphibians), which have historically been slower to adapt to climatic change than endotherms.’
Heterothermorphism. Poikilotherms don’t care.
‘Julie Gray with a laugh. I’ve just asked Gray, a plant molecular biologist’
Ahhh, that explains it. No competent zoologist would say ‘cold-blooded.’
‘historically been slower to adapt to climatic change’
Wut? She just completely made that up.
So we have had climate change before then….?
Panda are overrated.
in a previous media release, it was rats multiplying while cuddily animals die due to global warming. John Robson wrote at National Post Why will global warming kill only the cute animals?
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/john-robson-why-will-global-warming-only-kill-the-cute-animals
My synopsis:
Monday’s Post headline actually said “Explosion of rats feared as climate warms.” So the good news is rats aren’t increasing any more than temperature. The bad news is a further increase in passive-voice predictions of doom.
Before the rats reach your face I’d like to note that this “news” story is remarkable for having the plumbing on the outside. It starts “Scientists have shown that the likely 2 degrees of global warming to come this century will be extremely dangerous, but, you know, ‘2 degrees’ is hardly a phrase from horror films. How about ‘rat explosion?’ ”
Exactly. It’s openly a story about hype not science. “The physics of climate change doesn’t have the same fear factor as the biology.” So cue the Fu Manchu-style mandibles, mould and plague because “it’s the creatures multiplying in outbreaks and infestations that generate horror.”
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2018/11/07/global-warming-favors-rats-over-cute-animals/
Reptiles regulate their body temperature by crawling under stones
Like politicians do.
Beat me to it. Obviously these ”experts” know very little about reptiles with moronic statements like this…”Reptiles are also doomed because they can’t regulate their body temperature.
But what about Keith Richards?
Beauty
Christine Ro:
Education: MPhil in Development Studies, University of Oxford; BA in English and Sociology, University of California, Berkeley
Christine Ro is amazing. She is an expert in nearly everything with an impressive output, writing on 44 different and very diverse topics. Check out her bibliography at https://christinero.contently.com/
I think she must be a conglomerate.
During the PETM 55 million years ago global temperatures rose 5-8 degrees. We don’t know how fast, because it was geologically instantaneous, too fast to be measurable at this distance in time.
Was the result a mass extinction? Contrariwise. Almost everything living flourished as never before or since. Most mammalian orders for example first show up during the PETM and spread over the Earth.
The only extinctions paleontologists have been able to scrape up is a number of benthic foraminifera (bottom-living marine micro-organisms).
The real whopper in this story is the statement that 1 in 4 species is facing extinction.
Yes, where on Earth do they get that claim? And how on earth do they report it as if it’s some settled fact?
It’s nothing more than a wild and extreme possibility based on wild and extreme assumptions. It is utterly shameful that the BBC treat as something real and scientific.
1 in 4 facing extinction? Really?
Within 5 years they will be claiming that everything is already dead.
Given they have been around on this rock for a good couple of hundred million years and have seen many climate changes, I think they would be OK too.
So this is why cold blooded reptiles and amphibians survived the KT extinction event? Clearly they should not be here since that asteroid impact surely caused more climate change than any worst case scenarios imagined for today’s world!
She is talking about a STATISTICAL ANOMALY!!!!!
Of tenths of a degree PER DECADE!!!!!
Completely unnoticeable for any animals of any KIND!!!
If her and her posse didn’t keep wailing about how HORRIBLE it is, and how HORRIBLE it will be, no one would notice the change, let alone be killed by it.
We have a stupidity problem that is a FAR greater problem than any insignificant changes in the climate, that we MIGHT be experiencing.
And then only a global average against a long term global average. The simple truth is that virtually nowhere today will have a temperature any different from the natural variability of temperatures pre-industrial levels of CO2. Where I am in the UK will be indistinguishable from 1950, 1930 and 1890.
If I remember correctly, during the nuclear winter scare of the last millennium, the only species to have a chance of surviving a nuclear war was, you guessed it, the cockroach.
his is partly because humans reproduce agonisingly slowly
Our reproduction rate is immaterial because we ceased evolving centuries ago. We are the ultimate survivor because we are the only species that can, and does, adapt the world to our needs instead of the other way around.
We clear the land of species that are no use to us, and cover it with ones that are. We call them crops and herds. Anything that threatens them (and hence our food supply) we deal with mercilessly. Herbicides, fungicides and pesticides protect our crops, fencing and other measures to ward of the predators that would feed on our herds. We modify crops and herds through breeding programs to enhance their ability to both serve us and to immunize them from harm. When climate changes (and it does) a combination of breeding programs and the ability to proactively change what crops and herds we raise where ensure their (and our) continuing survivability.
Diseases? When was the last time a friend or relative died of smallpox? Black plague? Yellow fever? Polio? We didn’t adapt to those threats, we destroyed them.
As for ability to adapt to temperature on a personal level, again, we adapt the world to us, not the other way around. The benefit of cheap energy is that when it is -30 outside, it is +20 inside. When it is +30 outside, it is +20 inside (for those of us who are lucky enough to have access to stead electricity and fossil fuels). If the earth warms by a degree or two… So at -28 it will still be +20 inside and when it is +32 outside, it will still be +20 inside.
This is a fun game you can play – google an animal with the words climate change.
If you choose a cute animal like say a koala or hedgehog, you will find that it is under threat from climate change.
But if you choose creatures generally regarded as a nuisance, like rats or mosquitoes, it always turns out that these are going to flourish because of climate change.
It’s an amazing coincidence how “the science” always works out this way.
This post… not so much an “essay”, but rather a target for negative comments and hatred.
Author had nothing intelligent to say about the piece of “journalism” presented. Net gain=0.
We can do better than just pointing at things and saying “look, this is dumb”, and then sitting back while everyone who agrees has their say.
Do something constructive. Promote dialogue, not hatred and anger.
I get that we humans love a bit of outrage with our breakfast, but it does nothing to move us forward.
This so-called educated person thinks humans won’t survive? The ONE and ONLY species capable of altering its environment to include everything from the equator to Antartica???? She is seriously lacking in intelligence. Maybe she’s thinking of herself, not the hardy members of the species?
Raccoons are mentioned above. Vancouver has too many plaguey critters.
On the north side against the mountains there are urban cougars and urban bears.
And everywhere–urban coyotes, urban raccoons, urban skunks and urban socialists.
Love you(!)
Sorry, I accepted that this was the most viewed climate change site on the internet, cos the internet=truth… But… Not true. Maybe America has it right! 🇺🇸 =more guns, less people! USA USA!
Until Climate Alarmists start telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, I will forever be a “denier.” I see no reason to radically change my life and my taxes when the rest of the world isn’t on board. Sure, you can PRETEND the Paris Agreement had 170+ countries on board but I’ve read what the countries “promised.” China, for example, promised to CONTINUE INCREASING CO2 EMISSIONS until 2030 with no promise to decrease them after 2030. India pretty much promised the same. Other countries like Zimbabwe pretty much submitted a piece of paper acknowledging there’s a potential problem, but they aren’t an emitter. Countries like Germany promised a lot, but are FAILING to meet their own goals. So, why should I be forced to pay up or change what I drive? (This is all assuming there’s a problem, and I don’t see it.) Weren’t the polar bears supposed to be suffering? Guess what?! Polar bears are THRIVING!!!
The whole thing is with a laugh, including the BBC.