Guest “just when you thought climate ‘science’ couldn’t get any dumber” by David Middleton
AUGUST 5, 2020
Bird nests attract flying insects and parasites due to higher levels of carbon dioxide
by Frontiers
Flying insects and parasites are often vectors for disease, but a mosquito needs to first find someone before they can bite them. In a recent study published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, researchers examined bird nests in order to understand how insects and parasites detect gases such as carbon dioxide and methane as a way to locate their hosts.
The researchers focused on blue tit bird nest boxes located in a deciduous forest in central Spain. They found that the nests contained more biting midges when concentrations of carbon dioxide were higher inside the nest compared to the forest air.
[…]
With the looming threat of climate change, rising carbon levels will affect every aspect of our ecosystem—from the largest to the smallest organism. “Predictions expect an increase of diseases in northern latitudes due to climate change,” he says, “But factors like gas concentrations and temperature may affect the incidence of diseases,” as well.
[…]
Phys Dot Org
First, the easiest bit:
The researchers focused on blue tit…
Now for the low hanging fruit…
They found that the nests contained more biting midges when concentrations of carbon dioxide were higher inside the nest compared to the forest air.
WTF does that have to do with this?
With the looming threat of climate change, rising carbon levels will affect every aspect of our ecosystem—from the largest to the smallest organism.
“Carbon levels”? WTF? Unless you’re working in a coal mine, the air has no “carbon levels.”
The midges are attracted to the nests because the carbon dioxide level inside the nest was significantly higher than background… And this only occurred when nestlings were present. Rising carbon [dioxide] levels have frack all to do with midges being attracted to the nests. Rising carbon dioxide levels would increase the background concentration. If anything, this would make the CO2 concentration in nests with nestlings less anomalous, relative to background.
Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution earns a Science Made Stupid award.
Science Made Stupid: How to Discomprehend the World Around Us is a 1985 book written and illustrated by Tom Weller. The winner of the 1986 Hugo Award for Best Non-Fiction Book, it is a parody of a junior high or high school-level science textbook. Though now out of print, high-resolution scans are available online, as well as an abridged transcription, both of which have been endorsed by Weller [1]. Highlights of the book include a satirical account of the creationism vs. evolution debate and Weller’s drawings of fictional prehistoric animals (e.g., the duck-billed mastodon.)
Wikipedia
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This looks like a case of “I can’t get funding so I am trying the climate change angle.” Same crap as in sea turtle gender. Sea turtles on the inside of the nest where it is warmer develop into females. On the outside where it is cooler, males form. It was impossible to get funding until the biologists involved developed a big care story about not enough male turtles due to climate change. It’s basically impossible to get funding without involving climate change so anyway you can link anything to carbon dioxide, you have to.
So the birds get food delivery, not good? Birds do eat insects…
No one ever said they were GOOD scientists.
https://youtu.be/5fvsItXYgzk?t=90
I can’t believe this is real but it seems to be real. How did the blue tit survive the midges when atmospheric CO2 was 280 ppmv? The nest/atmosphere CO2 differential would have been greater. I suppose not being in a box helped. The authors really need to explain in terms of their hypothesis how the blue tits survived the midge onslaught resulting from the 280 to 400+ ppmv CO2 increase.
Anyway, my advice to blue tits – You’re birds. Eat the midges.
It is clear to me that the CO2 build-up is due to the baby bird excrement in the nest. So the solution is to diaper the birds, change them regularly and wipe the little birds ass. The excrement will no longer decay in the nest and there will be an automatic decline in the midges.
Ask yourselves how something akin to the standard of a 6th graders science project deserving of an F grade finds its way into any comic purporting to be publishing science? Who would dare to even present such garbage lacking in critical thinking in the first place let alone the serious questions which need to be levelled at those who supposedly reviewed it and gave it the thumbs up? The stench of money is everywhere in the Climate Circus.