Climate Change Denial (2 Viewers)

[jurek]

what Simon M. has been trying to say...

I think Simon M regards any change as bad, and has false view of ecology as something static.

Neither caribou, moose or wolf are even close to endangered status, and in fact, all coexist with Grizzlies further south. They might be in a different kind of balance, but all are living together.

 

[John Cantelo]

Speaking of gravy trains ..... Fred Singer & Robert Carter $5,000 & $1,667 per month respectively as co-authors.

Having read the aforementioned "Merchants of Doubt" I would be reluctant to accept anything that Fred Singer had a hand in at face value. His track record for denying the harmful results of industry (e.g. passive smoking, ozone hole, etc), despite persuasive evidence, appears to suggest he has another agenda entirely,

 

[jurek]

Most of the European and world population lives in temperate or Mediterranean climates. These areas are projected to have increasing difficulty with crop growth etc.

Look again:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16730834
"The report's positive findings include...) Wheat yields to increase by 40-140% and sugar beet yields by 20-70% because of longer growing seasons by the 2050s."

I admit, that reports on effects on agriculture, industry etc. are usually not scientific in a sense of purely biological studies.

 

[Simon M]

I think Simon M regards any change as bad, and has false view of ecology as something static.

I never said change was neccesarily bad, this is a complete strawman of my argument. I argued that ecologically speaking athroprogenic change (including climate change) is so rapid that species, communities and ecosystems cannot cope. It is patently clear from the scientific literature that biodiversity is being reduced, eco-system function is being undermined and biomes are being pushed to the point of collapse. I guess to you that constitues 'opportunity'?

 

[jurek]

There is something which I did not look in primary literature, although maybe SImon M knows. It is effect of current economic downturn on conservation, and competition between funds spent on stopping global warming vs free funds avialable for other types of conservation.

Everybody accepts than species survival depends primarily from old-fashioned habitat conservation, restoration, stopping chemical pollution etc. If stopping global warming in times of economic crisis limits money for traditional conservation (including in tropics dependent on local growth and foreign help) - this potentially is larger catastrophe for biodiversity.

To be fair to Jurek, at least he's gone out & found some of the actual science as has appeared in peer-reviewed journals.

To be fair, I have no time to look 100s of examples of species, including rare ones, appearing north, increased winter survival of birds etc.

The pattern which Simon M fails to grasp is that ranges move - spreading north is inevitably linked with extinction south. And valuable species move, too. Picking only southern extinction of valuable species and northern colonization of parasites is wrong.

 

[jurek]

I argued that ecologically speaking athroprogenic change (including climate change) is so rapid that species, communities and ecosystems cannot cope.

I suggest looking at climatic history, for example often quoted Lower Dryas event, when climate flopped from temperate to Arctic and back to temperate - change lasted just decades - wildlife coped.

There are ways to mitigate climate change. For example, experimental translocating plants and small animals north (done already with some butterflies) or restoring habitat corridors for natural migration. But they depend from money. If money is spent on inefficent fighting global warming, there will be no more for these. They also require scientists understanding the change. If scientists oppose those ways, because it is ideologically right only to fight global warming not accept it, these species will go extinct.

 

[Simon M]

Look again:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16730834
"The report's positive findings include...) Wheat yields to increase by 40-140% and sugar beet yields by 20-70% because of longer growing seasons by the 2050s."

I admit, that reports on effects on agriculture, industry etc. are usually not scientific in a sense of purely biological studies.

I agreed some benefits exist, but argued that they are far outweighed by the costs. And as I have pointed out before you cannot take individual regions alone since global societies and economics are inextricably linked.
Furthermore the examples you cite are increases in yields only with out any ecological understanding of other factors beyond temperature and rainfall. Even cultivated crops have blights and pests, how these species respond is not dealt with. For example Potato Blight is expected to become more common worldwide http://www.inforesources.ch/pdf/focus08_1_e.pdf
Ultimately what can be charaterised as 40% increase in british wheat yields can also be characterised as a complete inability to grow in much wider areas. The 'opportunity' of growing more crops at higher latitudes is more than offset by the inability to grow them predictably nearer the equator.
Adaptation will undoubtedly occur to some degree anyway - we will grow things where we can and take advantage of new resources that might become available, but to characterise the impacts of warming as an opportunity on the whole is a deviation from the evidence available.

 

[Simon M]

There are ways to mitigate climate change. For example, experimental translocating plants and small animals north (done already with some butterflies) or restoring habitat corridors for natural migration. But they depend from money. If money is spent on inefficent fighting global warming, there will be no more for these. They also require scientists understanding the change. If scientists oppose those ways, because it is ideologically right only to fight global warming not accept it, these species will go extinct.

I agree and since we are already committed to a good amount of warming these are prudent. It will be neccesary to implement as many of these adaptive strategies as possible but this will require a good understanding of the ecology of the systems we want to take action on. If we take the 'opportunity' of introducing species to areas they can better survive we need to know what niche they occupy, what ecological functions they provide and what the consequences will be upon other species in the areas we introduce them to. However according to you ecology has no real application and ecological consequences is a 'meanless catchphrase'.
No scientist has opposed conservation measures mitigating the effects of climate change on the basis of an ideology of only stopping climate change. However what you are explicitly saying is that because things change all the time we don't need to worry about climate change because eveything can adapt. This is, I'm afriad, utter nonsense.

 

[Imaginos]

There is something which I did not look in primary literature.

I suggest looking at climatic history, for example often quoted Lower Dryas event, when climate flopped from temperate to Arctic and back to temperate - change lasted just decades - wildlife coped.

jurek, do me a favour and read the one I linked to earlier. We can all agree I'm sure that birds are among the most mobile of species & thus best able to cope with shifting climactic boundaries which makes this paper particularly apposite to your argument.

Here it is again in case you missed it: Change in community composition was thus insufficient to keep up with temperature increase: birds are lagging approximately 182 km behind climate warming.

 

[Simon M]

I suggest looking at climatic history, for example often quoted Lower Dryas event, when climate flopped from temperate to Arctic and back to temperate - change lasted just decades - wildlife coped.

The wildlife which didn't become extinct coped...

Wildfire and abrupt ecosystem disruption on California's Northern Channel Islands at the Ållerød–Younger Dryas boundary (13.0–12.9 ka)
"We argue that the ultimate demise of M. exilis was more likely a result of continental scale ecosystem disruption that registered across North America at the onset of the Younger Dryas cooling episode, contemporaneous with the extinction of other megafaunal taxa. "
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379108002394

And assessing extinction of less obvious taxa from the fossil record is very difficult. The fact is that most major extinction events in the earth's history have been associated with periods rapid climatic change.

Please don't continue to ascert things without at least doing some basic fact-checking first.

 

[Simon M]

To be fair, I have no time to look 100s of examples of species, including rare ones, appearing north, increased winter survival of birds etc.

The pattern which Simon M fails to grasp is that ranges move - spreading north is inevitably linked with extinction south. And valuable species move, too. Picking only southern extinction of valuable species and northern colonization of parasites is wrong.

One of the examples I cited was Cetti's Warbler's range expansion into Britian, which isn't a parasite. I think after five years studying ecology I have some grasp of the overall patterns, mechanisms and general trends observed and predicted by global warming. However, its seems you don't which is why you keep making ascertains which are simply untrue.

 

[Simon M]

Jurek, please just read this publication, hopefully it will answer some of the questions I couldn't. http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/83/1/thomascd1.pdf
By modelling a wide variety of 'good and bad' sample species from various destinations world wide they've shown that ~18% of all species will be committed to extinction by 2050. This assumes that all species are able to keep up with their climatic envelopes (i.e spread north and adapt or change their phenologies (arrival dates) as you have been suggesting). It also assumes that species won't sent one another extinct through new interactions such as competition parasitism and predation. It also assumes that species have corridors of suitable habitat to move north in or will be aided by translocations. Even after all that at least ~11% will be commited to extinction by 2050.
'Adaption' to climate change may help but, at least for the world's biota it won't be enough.

 

[Squonk]

How about we discuss why the HSI (published 2010) goes into so much detail on a graph published in 1998, when the authors of the paper in question had published an update on it in 2008?

You obviously haven't read the book you have been criticising, as this is one of the 'hockey stick' papers that are dealt with in it. Wahl and Ammann 2007 is also dealt with, at length.

 

[Imaginos]

You obviously haven't read the book you have been criticising, as this is one of the 'hockey stick' papers that are dealt with in it. Wahl and Ammann 2007 is also dealt with, at length.

So tell me, in your own words, what the critiscism is.

 

[Squonk]

So tell me, in your own words, what the critiscism is.

As Judith said to Gavin, read the book! It's fascinating stuff, even if you decide at the end that you don't agree with it.

And truthfully Imaginos, to go back to an earlier question of yours "Why leave it there?" surely a valid answer to that is that we both have lives to live. I know I provoked this argument, and so have brought it on myself to have spent more time on here recently than I wanted to. But now that we've both provided our arguments and links, I'd rather just leave it there and get on with other things. For example, I had great views of a Rough-legged Buzzard yesterday

 

[Imaginos]

As Judith said to Gavin, read the book!

I have, or "portions therof" it's analysed quite extensively here, here, here, here and elsewhere.

Enjoy your birding, try to apply a more sceptical eye to your sources in future.

 

[Squonk]

I have, or "portions therof" it's analysed quite extensively here, here, here, here and elsewhere.

As I said in my original post on Alan's thread, it's easy to find rebuttals in this discipline, but it doesn't mean they are valid. For example, the first one you link to here is the one Judith Curry was taking issue with (see above).

Enjoy your birding, try to apply a more sceptical eye to your sources in future.

You too

 

[Imaginos]

As I said in my original post on Alan's thread, it's easy to find rebuttals in this discipline, but it doesn't mean they are valid. For example, the first one you link to here is the one Judith Curry was taking issue with (see above).



You too

We're going round in circles here but I'll point out that Curry's criticisms were shown to be unfounded (see above).

 

[Bonsaibirder]

Far too many mentions of one particular blog on this thread. Try reading this one instead:

http://www.realclimate.org/

There are plenty of dissenting voices in the comments and lots of intelligent discussion and argument. Lots and lots of good (ie. published and peer-reviewed) background information in the archives too.

[apologies, I seem to have missed a whole load of posts and this has been covered already]

 

[fugl]

The latest gleanings from the dark underbelly--

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/16/s...n-to-discredit-climate-teaching.html?_r=1&hpw