Arguments
Sportsmen’s and Anglers’ Views Highlighted in New ‘This Is Not Cool’ Video
Posted on 7 April 2013 by greenman3610
This is a re-post of Peter Sinclair's latest video at the Yale Forum on Climate Change & The Media.
This month’s Yale Forum video captures the first-hand views of climate change impacts through the eyes of sportsmen, anglers, hunters, and outdoor enthusiasts.
Peter Sinclair’s latest video in his monthly “This is Not Cool” series captures the views of sportsmen and anglers as they’ve personally experienced what they describe as impacts of a warmer world.
Field and Stream Conservation Editor Bob Marshall, Conservation Hawks Chairman Todd Tanner, and Bozeman, Mt., outdoor writer Ken Barrett point to changes they’ve seen across the country.
“Say ‘global warming,’ say ‘climate change,’ and people are a bit reticent to sign-on,” says Barrett. “It’s got a political agenda in this country, sadly, but here’s the irony: You can take the most conservative person, the person who would never admit to climate change, and ask them if the weather has changed in their part of the world. And invariably they’ll have stories about how the weather’s not the way it used to be.”
Outdoors enthusiasts — those “walking the fields of the country every day” — have “actually experienced climate change impacts” and “know that something is going on,” the interviewees say. “We’re seeing something here [Montana] that we’ve literally never seen before,” adds Tanner, pointing to last fall’s wildfires.
People “aren’t always making the connection to climate change,” Tanner said, in part because of what he sees as flawed media coverage of “some huge conspiracy.”
In writing about peer-reviewed climate science, Mitchell said, “there’s this instant blow-back, usually from a lot of the same people actually. I’ve begun to recognize a lot of the same, of course, anonymous handles by these people.”
Posted on a friend's blog 16 June 2010: "The massive environmental upheaval caused by global warming in the pine and spruce forest of Idaho and Montana is stunning. The forest is dieing. Pine Beetle and Spruce Moths are unchecked by the long frosts of winter. The result is hundreds perhaps thousands square miles of dead and dieing forests. There is the loss of the wood and timber...the water holding of the trees, the air purification, the oxygen generation but, more.... The millions of pine and spruce needles in the waters have changed the PH of the lakes and streams. The water born insect life is gone. Three different streams, three hoops set out for three days each ... less than 20 insects collected where there should have been thousands. Breeding salmon seen but no fry, no first or second year fish, no trout, no white fish, no suckers...the streams are dead.
"Sorry my mind is still struggling with the facts and unsure as to how I will deal with those who say my truth is lies. Will they come walk the streams, roll the rocks, hang the hoops, count the insects, float the rivers and prove me wrong or will they simply move their mouths in denial? I was unable to write this last summer and do not know what I can do this year."
Bill, that highlights one of the great unknowns about the consequences of rapid warming on top of an interglacial. We don't have a good analogue for the rapid transmutation of the biosphere in the post-glacial regions. The dis-integration and trans-integration of species is, even as an 'issue', largely ignored by the general public living in developed areas. The typical response I see when a relevant article does happen to be published in mainstream press is "See how goofy they are? They blame everything on global warming."