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Comments 120901 to 120950:

  1. Karl_from_Wylie at 14:18 PM on 15 April 2010
    Flowers blooming earlier now than any time in last 250 years
    #74 Alexandre "Try to find something as comprehensive showing cooling, or insensitivity of ecosystems to temperature, or whatever your working hypothesis is. " I don't have a "belief" to defend. I am not a denier. But I am skeptical of things that are presented as fact, when discovered that the underlying methodologies are flawed, or when people don't follow the rules they set for themselves.
  2. Ocean acidification: Global warming's evil twin
    John, have you considered posting this as a reply to the argument "Ocean acidification isn't going to happen"?
    Response: I was planning to do a synthesis of a number of papers into a single post but rather than let perfect be the enemy of good, for now I've used this post to add the 107th skeptic argument "ocean acidification isn't going to happen". Thanks for the suggestion.
  3. Are we too stupid?
    Shawnhet, the reason why PV systems and the like are "unaffordable" is the same reason why, for any country with substantial access to coal and the willingness to burn it, nuclear also is unaffordable, at least in the eyes of the economist's "rational man" and his present inability or unwillingness to integrate external costs of fossil fuel consumption into his equations. The capital cost of coal generation plant commissioning is substantially less than that of nuclear, somewhere in the neighborhood of half as much. And of course that's the estimate for "overnight" building costs, the perfect world. Folks like to ascribe the cost intensive nature of nuclear plant construction to excessive regulations, but I would caution anybody expecting to winnow down the overnight capital cost of a nuclear plant by eliminating regulations, operating rules and the like to think again. It's too easy to condemn construction standards and inspections without taking into a account the reason for each and every iota of regulation; there's not as much fat in nuclear regulation as we might imagine from popular literature. I've got nothing particular against nuclear power; clearly in certain contexts it works. My point in singling out nuclear plants is simply to help avoid making the mistake of imagining investors will flock to nuclear plants if given half the chance. Where are those investors today? Putting the money where they get faster ROI, such as coal plants. Why? At least in part because we're not doing full cost accounting for using coal and other fossil fuels for electrical generation. So, whatever are our pipe dreams of future energy supply, as long as there's plentiful coal and an incomplete accounting structure the private sector will have a strong preference for building coal generation plants and will continue to ignore the entire spectrum of seemingly more expensive systems.
  4. Are we too stupid?
    Doug, It seems as though your only response is to make carbon more expensive. The point about PV systems is not that they are cheaper now than all other forms of energy *right now*, but that their cost effectiveness is increasing exponentially quickly. This makes them a better investment *long-term* than the marginal sorts of improvements you are talking about in #83 IMO. As I have said before, nuclear power is the simplest near term solution for *large* reductions in GH emissions. These have already been used by, for example, the French. I don't really follow the example of the solar capture technology you advocate, but if I understand you correctly implementation of it requires a tax increase on carbon emissions(IOW it is currently too expensive, but when carbon is priced "correctly" this tech would be simple and easy to implement). As I have already argued, I think these sorts of tax increases will be increasingly difficult to bring forward, so I recommend other options. As to why the different options will be funded, this is not so terribly difficult to understand. I am pretty sure that most industrial countries actively impede the construction of nuclear power plants, we could move to a lower carbon footprint with just a shift in priorities (see the French example). As for why PV will be funded, again it comes back to the exponential nature of the growth. When PV finally becomes truly economical whoever has invested in the winning version will become absurdly, disgustingly wealthy (similar to folks who bought IBM in the 50s or Microsoft in the early 80s). You can hardly go a full week these days without some new piece of research or product that increases the efficiency or decreases the cost of solar power. Government investment in research can only speed that along. IMO, you continue to argue for a false choice where there is no way to make any progress on the GH gas front without what you might call pricing carbon accurately. There are clear alternatives that do not require this, and that would work. Cheers, :)
  5. Arctic Sea Ice (Part 1): Is the Arctic Sea Ice recovering? A reality check
    Russia among other nations has had a fleet of ice breakers and ice breaking cargo ships operating in the Arctic, breaking ice to open their ports and rivers and even taking excursions to the North Pole. The latest of 8 operating nuclear powered versions will make ten knots through 8 feet of ice with a maximum ice depth of 9 feet. The USSR's first nuclear ice breaker was launched in 1959. The first of the latest Antarctica class was launched in 1975 they are used for clearing the sea lanes north of Siberia and for sightseeing, with excursions to the North Pole. The effect of breaking up all this ice and exposing the broken surfaces to the warmer seawater plus the heating effect of sunlight on the exposed water cannot help but have an effect on the system. Broken ice would experience accelerated melting in the summer and slower ice build up in the winter due to precipitation falling on water and not having a chance to freeze and accumulate as it would on ice. How much has this disturbance changed the balance of nature in the arctic? -T http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6OHHGrVM3g&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4RQXkI3B8w&feature=related http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_icebreakers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenin_(nuclear_icebreaker) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arktika_(icebreaker) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arktika_class_icebreaker http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Manhattan_(1962) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_breaker http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_powered_icebreaker
  6. Earth's five mass extinction events
    Re #4 Karl_from_Wylie: I'd echo Doug Bostrom's question in #5 above. I'd also add this one: if the only identified flaws in a methodology are that it underestimates adverse impacts of CO2 emissions, should we not take action to mitigate the impacts that it predicts? Or should we wait until we know with more certainty how bad the train wreck is going to be before we think about applying the brakes? Call me cynical, but that's like saying "Hey, this analysis suggests only some of the passengers in the first carriage are going to be killed, but there are some train experts who think it could be worse, so hold off on that brake lever until we figure out exactly what's going to happen."
  7. Flowers blooming earlier now than any time in last 250 years
    #68 Karl_from_Wylie The IPCC is doing a great job gathering the available science on this issue. I recommend Rahmstorf 2007 as a reference of how their projections are doing compared to observations. But even if you don't like this panel: I'm sure you're aware of the fact that the IPCC does not produce science itself. It just gathers it in a report. The evidence in this case, therefore, is not the AR4, but the underlying 75 peer reviewed papers. Try to find something as comprehensive showing cooling, or insensitivity of ecosystems to temperature, or whatever your working hypothesis is.
  8. Earth's five mass extinction events
    I haven't managed to get hold of Veron's paper, so it's premature for me to comment on it. However, there were reefs in the Palaeocene, after the K/T event. A big decline in reefs seems to have happened later at the Palaeocene-Eocene thermal maximum. Reference
    Response: Here's a link to the full version of Veron 2008.

    Thanks for the link to Decline of coral reefs during late Paleocene to early Eocene global warming (Scheibner 2008). I'm building a list of peer-review papers on the risks to coral reefs and have added this paper.
  9. Flowers blooming earlier now than any time in last 250 years
    Ah, Karl_from_Wylie, you DO think headlines are the most important part of an article. OK, we disagree then : I will stick to the contents of the articles themselves and will treat them as more important than the headlines above them. In fact, I only really scan headlines before moving onto the detail contained in the articles, but that's me.
  10. Earth's five mass extinction events
    Which methodology, Karl? Can you be more precise?
  11. Karl_from_Wylie at 09:29 AM on 15 April 2010
    Earth's five mass extinction events
    #2 cbrock The point of the article, is how can conclusions be trusted if the methodology is questionable.
  12. watchingthedeniers at 09:26 AM on 15 April 2010
    Flowers blooming earlier now than any time in last 250 years
    To be frank, Karl's posts are full of non sequiturs and logical fallacies. Your analogy is a poor one: what did you hypothetical men die off? Could they have lived to 100+ Was it cancers? What % of the population does that demographic apply to. What is the average life span? 40 years? 50? 90? Hence, it does not follow that it is an appropriate analogy. Re IPCC credibility and the so called "scandals" - those arguments won't fly here. Climategate investigation: no proof of fraud, better disclosure called for Mann, Jones et.al cleared of all wrong doing.
  13. Karl_from_Wylie at 09:20 AM on 15 April 2010
    Flowers blooming earlier now than any time in last 250 years
    #71 JMurphy "....Was it "Please add a section to the "Climate Alarmist" section." ? Bingo! Headline reads, "Flowers blooming earlier now than any time in last 250 years" But when read, the article is only about the UK. Analogy..... Headline - "Worldwide, men are dying at a high rate" Story - Men over the age of 90 years old are dying at a rate higher than the general population. Studies are suggested for other age groups to be studied.
  14. Sea level rise is exaggerated
    On the other hand: "Sea levels in New Zealand have remained relatively stable throughout the past 7000 years, but salt-marsh cores from southern New Zealand show evidence of a recent rapid rise. To date and quantify this rise we present a proxy sea-level record spanning the past 500 years for Pounawea, southeastern New Zealand, based on foraminiferal analyses. Ages for ten sea-level index points are established from AMS14C, Pb concentrations, stable Pb isotopes, pollen markers, charcoal concentrations and 137Cs. Sea level was rising slowly (0.3 ± 0.3 mm yr−1) from AD 1500 to AD 1900, but during the 20th century the rate increased to 2.8 ± 0.5 mm yr−1, in agreement with instrumental measurements commencing in 1924. This is the first sea-level record from the southern hemisphere showing a significantly higher rate of sea-level rise during the 20th century as compared with preceding centuries." A 20th century acceleration of sea-level rise in New Zealand Found in list of articles citing the Hannah article cited by butareyousure...
    Response: Just letting you know I've added a new argument "New Zealand sea level is not accelerating" along with the two peer-reviewed links from these last two comments. Good to have these papers at our fingertips for future reference.
  15. butareyousure at 08:53 AM on 15 April 2010
    Sea level rise is exaggerated
    Speaks for itself! "These new results indicate that relative sea levels in New Zealand have been rising at an average rate of 1.6 mm/yr over the last 100 years - a figure that is not only within the error bounds of the original determination, but when corrected for glacial-isostatic effects has a high level of coherency with other regional and global sea level rise determinations. There continues to be no evidence of any acceleration in relative sea levels over the record period." http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2004/2003GL019166.shtml
  16. Tarcisio José D at 08:03 AM on 15 April 2010
    Earth's five mass extinction events
    Fine subject for discussion Mr. John. A possible explanation for these extreme events is in the soil sealing caused by excess ammonium in the soil derived from the decomposition of organic matter. This is not "peer-rewied" but it is a matter to be discussed because in the sealing soil, the rain water does not infiltrate. It runs through the surface and goes straight into the oceans. To balance the evaporation rate of water into the atmosphere nature calls for the warming of the oceans. This sealing is a natural cause and is verifiable olso in forest soils. Here in Manaus the infiltration of water into the soil goes up to 20 cm depth only. With the lack of water to evaporate soil temprature in summer reaches 48 degrees centigrade. This problem must be present throughout the intertropical zone. In the Americas, Africa and New Zealand.
  17. Earth's five mass extinction events
    Karl_from_Wylie But when you read the New Scientist article, you find "But when New Scientist contacted the authors of those critiques, none demurred from the IPCC finding. One, John Harte at the University of California, Berkeley, said most of his criticisms suggested that Thomas underestimated extinction rates. Far from the IPCC being guilty of exaggeration, he says, its caution may have led it to underplay the extinction holocaust awaiting the planet's biodiversity in the coming century." So one of the big issues with the IPCC process is that they often end up being conservative to build consensus statements.
  18. Flowers blooming earlier now than any time in last 250 years
    Karl_from_Wylie, you state that you read the last sentence in the last paragraph from this article (which calls for more study to determine regional and global results), and yet then claim that it supports your comments in your first post. Since the 'comments' in that first post of yours consisted of just three sentences, perhaps you could show which ones are supported : Was it "Please add a section to the "Climate Alarmist" section." ? Can't see how but await your explanation. Was it "If a study shows something is happening in the UK, it must be a world-wide phenomenon." ? Reading that last sentence from the article again, I can't see how. Was it "Ha ha." ? Hmmm... Perhaps you read a lot into headlines, since you spent most of your response to me, detailing how 'alarming' the headline on this article is because it doesn't mention the word 'UK' ? Don't you think that the article is more important (the article that mentions the 'UK' and 'British' in the first paragraph), or do you believe that headlines matter most.
  19. Karl_from_Wylie at 07:52 AM on 15 April 2010
    Earth's five mass extinction events
    IPCC's 2007 report predicted that ... "20 to 30 per cent of plant and animal species assessed so far are likely to be at increased risk of extinction if increases in global average temperature exceed 1.5 - 2.5 °C" above current levels" But you can see the issues with their "assessment" at www.NewScientest.com
  20. Flowers blooming earlier now than any time in last 250 years
    doug_bostrom at 03:27 AM , I think all plants respond to soil temperature and soil moisture. Soil temperature will bear some form of relationship to photoperiod, but as can be seen now in Victoria, growing conditions for plants, and those animals that live on them, are more spring like than autumn like, at least until soil temperatures begin to fall below optimum.
  21. Peter Hogarth at 07:07 AM on 15 April 2010
    Arctic Sea Ice (Part 1): Is the Arctic Sea Ice recovering? A reality check
    Berényi Péter at 05:55 AM on 15 April, 2010 I like the animation, but you are basing a controversial statement based on a snapshot of a section of data that is far less than 10% of total Arctic “edge”, with uncertain navigation errors, and with unknown definition of ice concentration. If I thought the ACSYS data was representative of overall Arctic Ice extent I would have used it, but their accompanying documentation gives fair warning. I'd have liked to push the data as far back in time as possible and presumably so would Vinje and Goosse (ACSYS). Anyway, here is their modeled estimation of historical Northern Hemisphere ice extent anomaly.
  22. Flowers blooming earlier now than any time in last 250 years
    Karl, I know, I use too many commas, but, thanks.
  23. Arctic Sea Ice (Part 1): Is the Arctic Sea Ice recovering? A reality check
    BP my point is, surely there is some relationship between temperature and sea ice extent? I think we could agree that if the polar regions never dipped below freezing, we'd see lower ice extent? Not to be snarky or facetious but instead just point out there's a continuum here that is sort of inevitable. Also I agree w/Riccardo; I don't think the extent information you've got is sufficient to warrant much in the way of conclusions about where we're headed with regard to ice mass. The gif movie is cool but you ought to add some indication of recent median extent to the base image.
  24. Karl_from_Wylie at 06:11 AM on 15 April 2010
    Flowers blooming earlier now than any time in last 250 years
    #57.Alexandre You are presenting a "Straw Man" argument. I didn't say there was no evidence. I pointed out the limitation of this study. Your post from the IPCC was enlighting. I'm glad that the IPCC doesn't have credibilty issues.
  25. Karl_from_Wylie at 06:06 AM on 15 April 2010
    Flowers blooming earlier now than any time in last 250 years
    #63 JMurphy I did read that, and supports my comments. Headline reads, "Flowers blooming earlier now than any time in last 250 years" It would have been more appropriate to say, "UK Flowers blooming earlier now..." But that wouldn't be as alarming would it?
  26. Karl_from_Wylie at 06:03 AM on 15 April 2010
    Flowers blooming earlier now than any time in last 250 years
    #64 doug_bostrom 1. All previous posts were read prior to my post. 2. I'd suggest you google the term "ad hominem" comments. Additionally if we want to start exchanging personal advice, I've got a bunch for you. Cheers
  27. Berényi Péter at 05:55 AM on 15 April 2010
    Arctic Sea Ice (Part 1): Is the Arctic Sea Ice recovering? A reality check
    #34 doug_bostrom at 03:32 AM on 15 April, 2010 Surely you can better qualify that remark? Do I have to? The LIA is the coldest period during the last eight thousand years. On the other hand, the last decade is claimed to be at least as warm as the Holocene Optimum five thousand years ago. Still, some years in LIA show sea ice extent lower than the lowest recent summer one. Therefore sea ice extent and temperature should not be closely related. Either this or the last decade is not so warm after all.
  28. Arctic Sea Ice (Part 1): Is the Arctic Sea Ice recovering? A reality check
    This is what i'd call extreme cherry-picking: one day, in one year, in a small portion of the arctic where extreme melting in 2007 did not occur. People could use their time and intelligence more productively.
  29. Flowers blooming earlier now than any time in last 250 years
    Karl_from_Wylie Maybe you´d like to take a look at my comment #57 above. To claim that there´s no evidence, one has to at least try to look at the evidence.
  30. Flowers blooming earlier now than any time in last 250 years
    Karl_from_Wylie you should take a moment to read some of the comments here that are less flippant than yours. I'd also suggest using Google Scholar w/the search term "phenology climate change." It's worth remembering, we've only got one reputation per login, may as well make 'em last.
  31. Flowers blooming earlier now than any time in last 250 years
    Karl_from_Wylie, you seem to have missed this bit, right at the end of the article above : The next step in this research is to see whether the same techniques can be employed on a larger scale, to give a regional or global picture of nature's response to temperature change. It was at the end, so perhaps you didn't get that far ? Ho hum.
  32. Karl_from_Wylie at 03:43 AM on 15 April 2010
    Flowers blooming earlier now than any time in last 250 years
    Please add a section to the "Climate Alarmist" section. If a study shows something is happening in the UK, it must be a world-wide phenomenon. Ha ha.
  33. Arctic Sea Ice (Part 1): Is the Arctic Sea Ice recovering? A reality check
    Berényi Péter while I can think of all kinds of problems with trying to generalize conclusions from Arctic ice in 1664 versus Arctic ice in the present, you are as usual to be congratulated for actually doing original work on this topic. But your conclusion "sea ice extent and temperature are not closely related" is not up to your usual snuff. Surely you can better qualify that remark?
  34. Flowers blooming earlier now than any time in last 250 years
    Actually JohnD you're wrong in saying that plants are decoupled from our calendar. Different organisms take their cues from different things. Some plant and animal behaviors are dominated by temperature, others by photoperiod. Our calendar of course is descriptive of photoperiod so in fact we find that many plants do follow the calendar, or try to. By exerting our imaginations a little bit, we can hypothesize that if plants that are dominated by the calendar attempt to perform in their normal way when the temperature regime they inhabit is no longer appropriate, they'll perform differently. Maybe better, maybe worse, but not the same.
  35. Berényi Péter at 03:12 AM on 15 April 2010
    Arctic Sea Ice (Part 1): Is the Arctic Sea Ice recovering? A reality check
    OK, arctic sea ice extent in 2007 was low. Is it unprecedented? Not quite so. Ice edge in mid July was never 200 km north of Svalbard in recent times. You can check it here and here. And 1664 was deep in the Little Ice Age, winter of 1664/65 being one of the coldest ever in England. Looks like sea ice extent and temperature are not closely related. I have also made a rather boring gif movie using ACSYS historic sea ice data.
  36. Flowers blooming earlier now than any time in last 250 years
    Whilst changes to the timing of plants flowering might be taking place when measured against the calender, being temperature driven, all other related natural activities in the ecosystem will be similarly driven by the same processes rather than by the calender as the article seems to suggest. Anyone who has any knowledge of agriculture knows that the beginning and the ending of a growing season can vary widely, and if allowed, the breeding cycle of livestock will adjust accordingly. But still there are many owners who will try to breed or plant according to the the calender irrespective of how the season is evolving. Animals in the wild respond to the conditions rather than the calender the same as the plants do. Surely humans can do likewise without too much drama.
  37. Flowers blooming earlier now than any time in last 250 years
    Berényi Péter, could you give any links to those 'chronicles' or those old folks' descriptions, please ?
  38. Climategate CRU emails suggest conspiracy
    Here's a link to the report from that second inquiry: the Oxburgh Report.
  39. Climategate CRU emails suggest conspiracy
    Good to hear that the second enquiry into CRU has (generally) backed them. I know the so-called skeptics will be shouting 'whitewash' again, but they must be ever-so desperate now for something to come out of the final enquiry - not that anything will, of course, but surely the more intelligent of them will be questioning some of their scepticism ? That is, will they be true sceptics or so-called skeptics ?
  40. Berényi Péter at 23:53 PM on 14 April 2010
    Flowers blooming earlier now than any time in last 250 years
    The thing is here in Central Europe we have chronicles going back to a thousand years and more. This way we don't really need proxies to reconstruct past climate, it is enough to be able to read. Latin, of course, for at that time it was the language of law, science and history. This is how we know fruit trees were blooming in January, 1182. According to Julian calendar of course, because present day Gregorian calendar was not invented yet. So it might have been early February. Anyway, this year we had heavy snow until mid March with not a single bud. And no blooming has ever occurred in living memory as early as described by the old folks.
  41. Flowers blooming earlier now than any time in last 250 years
    HumanityRules #43 Thanks for pointing it out. I thought this map from the AR4 was based on Parmesan 2003. Actually, it's based on 75 different studies. Research is still much more intense in the Northern Hemisphere, but you can see the change in biological patterns in all continents point to warming, much like the thermometers.
  42. Flowers blooming earlier now than any time in last 250 years
    Leo G:
    How are humans not natural?
    It's called "language". It's a distinction in language that goes back centuries, and everyone knows of the distinction, even if they want to play word games to derail discussion. Here are some dictionary definitions that might be of use:
    1. the material world, esp. as surrounding humankind and existing independently of human activities. 2. the natural world as it exists without human beings or civilization. 3. the elements of the natural world, as mountains, trees, animals, or rivers.
    Now that the context has been set, perhaps the conversation can go forward without such needless diversions such as questioning the definition of common English words?
  43. Flowers blooming earlier now than any time in last 250 years
    I'm glad that this paper was available only untill Wednesday, but it might have been better if it was not made available at all. So. Imagine that I have "derived an index" to describe the weight of annual crops of apples AND oranges that are grown in Somerset. What would the mean and standard error of the mean actually signify when I apply it to this index? You don't like that there are few oranges grown in somerset and you might ge t an n=0 in the data? Thats OK. Just "derive an index" for apples AND pairs instead No. Better still, "derive an index" that describes the date of the first Cuckoo-call (as reported in The Times) AND the date of arrival of the first Swallow that doesn't make make a Summer (an unladen Swallow, of course). Now do some statistics on this index and make a plot with overlapping error bars. C'mon, people.
  44. Peter Hogarth at 22:32 PM on 14 April 2010
    Arctic Sea Ice (Part 1): Is the Arctic Sea Ice recovering? A reality check
    Don Gisselbeck at 10:36 AM on 14 April, 2010 Not sure on those specific glaciers! I guess it depends on how much is left after summer as well as how much falls in winter. More snow and more melt are not necessarily exclusive. But have a look at Bolch 2010 which looks at the pretty high glacier loss trends in BC and Alberta (25% loss in glacier area in Alberta 1985-2005, a bit better in BC)
  45. Flowers blooming earlier now than any time in last 250 years
    Conservationists-or contrarians-who claim that dealing with climate change is "distracting us" from dealing with other environmental issues clearly have little faith in humanity's ability to multi-task. Last I checked we had the ability to walk & chew gum at the same time. The fact is that one great way to reduce CO2 emissions is to conserve more existing forest, & to grow more trees where possible-this will increase biodiversity, reduce soil & catchment degradation & save many species from extinction-so this is just one example of where tackling climate change dovetails nicely with saving the environment more generally. There are other examples, but this is the most obvious. Of course, most of the contrarians who make these kinds of claims couldn't give two hoots about any other environmental issues-& would happily promote environmental degradation if it boosted the bottom line!
  46. Peter Hogarth at 22:05 PM on 14 April 2010
    Visual depictions of Sea Level Rise
    Berényi Péter at 22:28 PM on 8 April, 2010 If you extrapolate your curve backwards in time what happens?.... the curve I fitted to sea level rise is a fit to observed data, rather than an extrapolation. Anyway, first you need to get hold of The latest satellite altimetry data, as Jason 1 data has not been updated on the Boulder site since late 2009. Jason 2 and Envisat altimeters are both currently active. Now do your trend, but extrapolate the trend plus error contributions as well. To emphasise the danger in your treatment of the data, take the Envisat data which starts late 2002. Fit a second order curve to this and extrapolate. Better start building your ark. I suggest that the correct interpretation is that the overall satellite record trend is statistically indistinguishable from a straight line, but we have to remember the errors, consider the tidal data that allows us to look longer term, and extrapolate carefully, taking all known information and driving factors into account. I’m not clever enough to do that, but I can say the trend over past 200 years is accelerating, the indications are that it will continue to do so, and point to the data and peer reviewed analysis to support this statement.
  47. Flowers blooming earlier now than any time in last 250 years
    HumanityRules, you state that your personal views on biodiversity are 'more pragmatic' : what does that mean ? As for the 'Natural England' report, I did not state it to be a 'report about climate change' but, rather, a pointer as to how climate change will affect species in this country. The web summary may not have mentioned the words 'climate change' but the report certainly does and has a graph (Figure 5 : The most significant threats faced by BAP priority species in 2008) which has climate change as a midway serious threat - below land-use changes but above pollution. It also has a whole section (Species losing their English ‘climate space’) which gives more prominence to climate change. Would you disregard all that or disbelieve it for some reason, or do you think it's all hyperbole ? How does your pragmatism allow you to belittle the threat ? And again (as you have asserted previously with regard to 'catastrophe peddlers'), you blithely reckon that 'conservationists are begin[ning] to suggest that the focus on climate change is a distraction from issues associated with an expanding global human population'. So, again, I ask for back-up and references for those 'conservationists' (on top of the request for the 'catastrophe peddlers'). Instead of making assertions, how about naming names ?
  48. watchingthedeniers at 15:44 PM on 14 April 2010
    Flowers blooming earlier now than any time in last 250 years
    Just to make it clear Leo, a collapse of key components of our logistical networks (food distribution, medical services, trade) will have profound and devastating effect. This is why the US military, NSA and other American intelligence agencies are taking the issue very seriously: http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/08/us-military-declares-war-on-cl.html This is not a green/left/right wing issue. It's a civilizational challenge.
  49. watchingthedeniers at 15:40 PM on 14 April 2010
    Flowers blooming earlier now than any time in last 250 years
    @ Leo G post 48 "...How are humans not natural? Unless the bible is right and we were created by an omniscient being, which I doubt, then we must have evolved as all other natural things have for the past 14 billion years. Don't forget that as a species, we have inhabited this planet for approx. 200K years, thus we have survived through at least 2 ice ages, and 2 warming periods..." It may very well that we survive as a species, however the transition period may be difficult. As a species we number <6bn. However, our global civilisation rests on same fragile foundations: a global food supply network; advanced medical technology; sophisticated global logistic network that allows trade etc. As the global financial crises clearly indicated, a disruption to a key component of a sophisticated network can have profound effects. Remember, 70,000 years ago the human population was reduced to a around to >15,000 individuals: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory There are also other instances of genetic bottlenecks in evolutionary history, not just for H.Sapiens. This is where the denial movements fails completely to understand what we are saying: civilisation is a precious thing that we should both celebrate and protect. Climate change is a threat to our advanced, industrial civilisation. We want to mitigate the impact and the damage it could cause. Nothing more, nothing less. To draw an analogy: it's like when the Americans ignored all the warning signs that lead to Pearl Harbour; or when the Soviets ignored the massive preponderance of evidene pointing to a massive German invasion. Neither went well. The science supporting climate change is *valuable intelligence* that should be informing our political and economic debates. Instead, we are stuck at the "denial phase".
  50. Flowers blooming earlier now than any time in last 250 years
    Leo, sorry, I have to keep pointing out that we're not mindless like bacteria or a tropical cyclone or a nest of ants. We're of nature but we don't act like nature. Or at least we shouldn't. I'm not a religious person but I think the Bible has some stuff to say about that, something about stewardship which implies a sense of responsibility and thus mindfulness. So we needn't feel guilty unless we have reason.

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