Essay by Eric Worrall
Scientists ignoring obvious solutions to problems?
Climate change may cause crisis amid important insect populations, researchers say
By Adam Yamaguchi, Kerry Breen
February 24, 2024 / 11:08 AM EST / CBS NewsThey might be tiny, but insects rule the planet, making up over two-thirds of the world’s 1.5 million known animal species and the backbone of the food chain. But despite their immense impact and large numbers, bugs might be in trouble.
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In greenhouses, Sheldon simulates a warming planet to see how the beetles react. Sheldon and her team have found that smaller dung beetles struggle to dig deep enough to protect their offspring from the warming climate and extreme temperature swings.
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While climate change is contributing to insect population declines, the loss of dung beetles may in turn exacerbate extreme swings in temperature, creating a climate doom loop.
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Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-change-may-cause-crisis-amid-important-insect-populations-researchers-say/
Kimberly Sheldon seems to have written a bunch of similar dung beetle climate studies, so I’m not sure which one the CBS article refers to. Maybe all of them.
In my opinion the premise of the claim is nonsense. Dung beetles are in no danger of dying out due to climate change, because there is a substantial reservoir of hot weather extremophile dung beetles which could be used to supplement any local species which are struggling with the weather.
Between 1965 and 1985, a dung beetle introduction project was run in Australia, in which beetles from Europe, Africa and North America were introduced in an attempt to reduce buffalo fly populations. Native dung beetles couldn’t deal with dung from introduced cattle, and blood sucking Buffalo Flies, which breed in cattle dung, and cause irritation and sores on cattle, were a serious agricultural problem.
Unlike Australia’s infamous Cane Toad disaster, the dung beetle introduction was a success. While Buffalo Flies are still a significant problem, the introduced dung beetles reduced dung available for flies to breed, and substantially mitigated the problem.
But what about the impact on the dung beetles? Those introduced dung beetles have had decades, 10s, perhaps hundreds of generations, to adapt to Australia’s scorching hot climate. We know the beetles are completely compatible with the cattle industry, because they were specifically introduced to mitigate a cattle pest.
My point is, even if the very worst climate predictions came true, there is no chance dung beetles in the USA would fail. if necessary, faltering US dung beetle populations could be supplemented with their hot climate relatives from Australia, ensuring the continuity of the species and the important service they provide.
I find it difficult to believe an expert like Kimberly Sheldon would not be aware of the hot climate reservoir of European descended dung beetles in Australia. Let’s give her the benefit of the doubt, perhaps Kimberly did mention the possibility of transplanting hot climate dung beetles, but this information somehow got left out of the CBS article.
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No (Man Made) Global Warming, now called “Climate Change” due to lack of … WARMING (In the real world, of course)!!
Something that doesn’t actually exist can’t cause – ANYTHING!!
(Again, in the real world)
There is absolutely NO shortage of dung beetles-indeed, they are in plague proportions. They are the believers of cAGW. These types swallow every scrap of bovine excrement served up to them.
Did you know that the humble dung beetle used to be an extremely advanced species?
Eric might have to wait for CPAC later in the year to hear the story and decide if it is worthy of publishing. We might do a little film clip of the dung beetle skit at CPAC.
He he – I can sense a new song in the making 🙂
Sounds like Miss Sheldon’s hypothesis is full of shit.
Insects can’t take an average 2 degree change in temperature? I can’t believe they are that sensitive.
A while back James Delingpole had an organic farmer on his podcast. He said that farmers were using far too much Ivermectin. The problem was that this made the dung sterile. No insects could live in it and it did not rot down to fertilise the soil. That is probably a real threat to the dung beetles, not less severe winters.
Well I think we know what happens next, they are going to
a) introduce stinging blood sucking buffalo flies to the US,
b)then blame it on climate change,
c) then they will claim the only solution is getting rid of the cows since introducing Australian-European dung Beatles is too risky.