26 thoughts on “Audubon: Climate Change is Not for the Birds”
I think I understand it now. These silly self-serving fundraising cartoons are made to convince the ignorant and attract the distracted.
Anybody that knows anything about birds would instead look in marvel at Audubon trying to negate a lot of science, like the immense work done for many years by Peter and Rosemary Grant on Daphne Major in the Galàpagos.
There are many ways to know about their work. I will here point to http://www.uctv.ucsb.edu/more/voices/m3400Cgrant.html – a page titled Evolution in Action for a very good reason that I shall leave to the dumboldguys of the world not to understand at all.
BEWARE! Omno gibberish alert! Omno has said “I think I understand it now”, and that usually leads us into the swamps of confusion and denial of reality that he wallows in. He does not disappoint us.
Omno talks about the “immense” work done by the Majors. Yep, 20 years of studying finches in the very limited confines of the Galapagos. And done from 20 to 40 YEARS ago! From the 70’s to the early 90’s, at a time and under conditions that were and are (nearly) TOTALLY irrelevant in the context of what the Audubon report discusses today—-possible CONTINENT-wide and RAPID extinctions of MANY species of birds. The Grants did excellent work that helped us better understand evolution, but it is hardly something to cite as evidence that “Audubon is NEGATING a LOT of science”. More hyperbole and non sequitur from Omno the Confused.
I know “SOMETHING about birds” and don’t “look in marvel” at any of this, either the work of the Grants or this Audubon study. The laws of nature continue to operate, and BOTH the Grants and Audubon have gathered data that support that. Omno gives a link, look at it if you wish—it barely scratches the surface of the Grant’s work, and Omno doesn’t tell us why it is significant—does he know? See my next comment for what Omno SHOULD have brought up if he did..
Omno, in his blind narcissism, once again closes by strutting around like the demented rooster in the barnyard crowing over his imagined victory. He says “I shall leave to the dumboldguys of the world not to understand at all”.
LOL When will Omno ever examine his backside and notice all the new anal orifices that I and others have so often (and easily) torn for him on Crock ?
Some direct quotes from a recent article by Darryl Fears about the Audubon report in the Health and Science section of the WashPost. Although Darryl overreaches a bit in his zeal to be “fair and balanced”, this is the kind of thinking that Omno should have employed—-using the Grants’ findings on rapid adaptation/evolution to raise a possible “but” for us in the present context. Fears states:
“But the report has a key blind spot. It cannot reliably say that many of the species it lists as threatened and endangered by climate change will not simply adapt in their current habitat, or thrive elsewhere”.
“John W. Fitzpatrick, executive director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the nation’s premiere center for the study of bird conservation, called the report “a wake-up call.” But, he said, there are too many variables to definitively forecast a future for birds. “The uncertainty involved in this exercise is prodigious” because so many factors are involved”.
“The word ‘tricky’ is an understatement,” he said. “I suspect that all the individuals involved in the modeling would admit this is taking a few variables alone and seeing what they say. This can’t be viewed as the end of the story.”
“The report offers three scenarios on how birds might react to higher temperatures: Some might fly to a more suitable climate; others might stay and suffer as their habitats become unsuitable; and some might simply adapt”.
“The models don’t describe how heat affects them. . . . It looks at the space they live in,” Langham said. He added that “there absolutely is a chance that some birds will be able to adapt,” and repeated what scientists have long known: Plants and animals do adapt to climate change”.
“However, that usually “happens over 10,000 to 15,000 generations historically,” he said. “This will unfold over the lifetime of a 5-year-old.”
I will leave it to “Omno of the swamp” to prove to us that he really understands any of this—-the Audubon report or the commentary in the WashPost.
I’ve looked through the video again in case I missed something you saw that I did not. Nowhere does the video request financial donations to Audobon. It tells us to reduce carbon emissions – is that what you object to ? . I note that even Anthony Watts quotes from an Audobon chapter when highlighting the unfortunate bird deaths from solar and wind energy plants. What is the matter with you ?. Had it been a film on the many starving children in drought stricken Southern Sudan would you have coldly dismissed it as money grabbing, and tried to redirect the focus of the excellent post to anthropological research on adaptation elsewhere ?
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redskylite – I can’t stand abuse of science, be it from Velikovskians or the Audubon Society. but in this case they are steering dangerously into evolution-denying territory.
Birds have been seen adapting to year-on-year changes in their habitat. Instead we are told half of them are “at risk”. These silly exaggerations are meaningless until one sees the link “join us”. Yeah, right. Because on that link you’re asked to pledge your support, and then some anti-scientist has placed extremely local climate change forecasts for all to peruse.
I presume once they lost track of the science there was no way back.
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VELIKOVSKY?! Is there no limit to how far back in time Omno will go to find inane and irrelevant references? I read Velikovsky’s first two books back in the early 50’s—-over 60 YEARS ago!. He was big among us junior high-schoolers back then—-along with Buster Crabbe as Flash Gordon.
Omno is the one who abuses science by stating that the Audubon Society is “steering dangerously into evolution-denying territory” and speaking to us of “silly exaggerations”.
Omno is the one that has lost track of the science (if he ever had a grasp on it). Fortunately, there IS a “way back”, if Omno would only take it—-he has failed to do so in the past. I speak of keeping his WIFI mouth shut and instead listening to all the rest of us who DO understand the science here.
(Or perhaps Omno meant to say Lysenko rather than Velikovsky and just got his Russian morons confused? That would perhaps explain his rather muddled understanding of evolution and inheritance).
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“Audubon’s Mission: To conserve and restore natural ecosystems, focusing on birds, other wildlife, and their habitats for the benefit of humanity and the earth’s biological diversity.”
Once again I don’t see your point at all, I’m just glad that some organisations are standing up for other species in the world we share with them, the world we continue to vent out fossil fuel combustion gases with complete disregard to the consequences.
It is good to see not everyone is a single minded money worshipper, and another act of bird conservation is taking place in California.
I think his point is that he like starlings and crows–very adaptable birds–and hates hummingbirds, warblers, shorebirds, raptors and well, most other life forms. Like many conservatives, he’s unable to tolerate diversity or the seemingly chaotic reality of vibrant ecosystems and would like to see them simplified to something with just 4 or 5 kinds of creatures. Cockroaches, rats and bacteria do really well in the conditions being enabled by anti-renewable people–well, at least for a while, then those creatures also go the way of dodos and humans. Unless we change our ways. Ironically, (if there were such a thing as irony) people who cling to what we have now will destroy it and everything else more surely than anyone advocating for changes in energy sources, economic and political systems and psychology.
That’s meaningless. Anybody convinced of the reality of evolution knows life will always strive tooccupy all ppossible habitats in an extraordinary variety of species.
To believe climate change will reduce that to a few is to deny evolution.
The village idiot once again reveals his lack of understanding of evolution and science in general with his sweeping generalizations and bald assertions. That’s what fits the term “meaningless” here.
Anybody convinced of the reality of evolution knows life dies not “strive” to occupy all possible habitats, not does it deliberately seek to do so “in an EXTRAORDINARY variety of species”. Life merely exists if the conditions are favorable in a locale, no more, no less, and the laws of nature govern what happens.
This is just more hyperbole and anthropocentrism from Omno, who has never let the fact that he knows almost NOTHING about a topic keep him from spouting nonsense about that topic.
Omno finishes with the biggest bit of grandiose stupidity of all. “To believe climate change will reduce that to a few is to deny evolution”. DUH! That is a “give me liberty or give me death” type speech that only shows how WIFI Omno is.
Climate change is just one of the man-caused aspects of the Sixth Extinction, and like all the catastrophes that resulted in the first five mass extinctions, climate change is most certainly going to “reduce to a few” many types of living things, not just birds, and may even ultimately kill all living things on the planet.
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It’s killed your brain cells alright. You’re denying 2 billion years of evolution, plus life’s ability to shape and not just survive the world.
Your antiscience is based on a museal concept that is contrary to all that’s known.
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More stupidity from Omno, whose mindless narcissism forces him to keep doubling down and displaying his ignorance. TWO BILLION years of evolution? More hyperbole. We are talking about climate change RIGHT NOW as it affects BIRDS (who have only been around for ~150 million years).
And pray tell us, Omno, how birds have an ability to “shape the world” that is now being so heavily impacted by climate change? Are they going to stop burning fossil fuels?
What is being denied here is the fact that Omno refuses to accept that he is simply a FOS narcissist and just likes to hear himself talk. Will someone please buy him an “Evolution for Dummies” book?
And “Your antiscience is based on a museal concept that is contrary to all that’s known”. What the heck does “museal” mean? I assume it’s related to “museum” and therefore implies “archaic” or some such? I find it laughable that someone who has virtually NO knowledge at all on a topic should set himself up as a supreme judge of what’s “contrary to all that’s known”. Omno is a walking oxymoron.
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Your ignorance is truly extraordinary, no doubt about that. Life has occupied all possible niches from below ground to the edge of the stratosphere, apart perhaps from the Dry Valleys in Antarctica, and you still believe it is only a matter of survival against a harsh nasty world. Birds like all sorts of species have been shaping their habitats for millions of years, and you believe instead they will remain motionless and defenceless against whatever climate change will come their way.
I wonder how many bird species died off because of the end of the last ice age…
I think we have eviscerated this point well enough. you believe nature is a museum where nothing changes and thus anything that changes in the space of decades is bad bad bad. I believe evolution has been shown as an extraordinary mechanism to overcome any obstacle. I can only leave you to your godless creationism.
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I give up. Trying to reason with Omno about anything is like trying to explain relativity to a low-IQ 5-year-old. I will leave it to others to play with him on this thread and satisfy his need for attention.
PS This is a classic Omnobabble closing “smackdown”—-“I can only leave you to your godless creationism”. LOL It is matched only by “Birds have been shaping their habitats for millions of years” in its awesome mindlessness and ignorance.
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PS Forgot to mention this one—Omno DECLARES his extraordinary BELIEF!
“I believe evolution has been shown as an extraordinary mechanism to overcome any obstacle”.
Uh-huh—-overcome ANY “obstacle”? Yep, like the many extinction events that have occurred in the planet’s history? And the one we’re in now? Omnofool!
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My wife and I are amateur birders and have witnessed changes over the past decade in the bird species here in Austin. Some of these changes are related to changes in habitat due to development, but one one in particular is definitely AGW related.
About five years ago we first noticed large handsome ducks waling around in the canopy of a large Live Oak about a half mile from any body of water. (Anybody who knows birds will know that that is decidedly ‘unducky’ behavior.) We headed for our field guides for North American birds and found out that they are Black-bellied Whistling Ducks. What’s interesting is how the different editions of field guides describe them.
1946 – no mention
1980 – “Accidental from the Tropics”
1995 – “Breed in Southern Arizona, resident in Southern Texas”
2003 – year-round central and east Texas and Florida, occasional through Midwest to Great Lakes
2006 – “Casual west to California. Recent sighting in the East, north to Canada.”
That’s a large range expansion over the past several decades, due IMO to warming temperatures opening up more habitat. But not all bird species are as flexible and I’m certain that many are trying to cope with declining habitats.
1. De-carbonize our electric grid completely. The best examples of this include France, Sweden and Ontario. Follow their lead. (Denmark, at nearly 400 grams of CO2 per kWh and burning coal for 48% of its electricity, should be castigated for greenwashing, not emulated.)
2. Electrify everything we can using the carbon-free grid. This includes most ground transport. To reduce maintenance costs, loads now moved on pavement should be shifted to electrified rail. Dual-mode vehicles may use rail as “steel highways”, with switched third rails or overhead wires for battery-free operation on electric power.
3. Convert industrial energy consumption to electric, direct carbon-free heat, or biofuels. Biofuels are limited in supply and weather can affect the supply, so they should not be targeted for large expansions lest shortfalls cause problems downstream.
Embark on a personal exercise program to greatly increase flexibility. This is so that you will be able to bend and twist enough to kiss your ass goodbye when the SHTF.
1, 2, and 3 might do the job, but we will likely not implement any of them in time.
(PS Have you seen that the Japanese are planning to reopen two of those plants whose power source must not be mentioned?)
Interesting that E-P focuses on those countries and ignores Germany, Japan, Spain, Portugal, and above all Iceland. Iceland, with its warm, tropical climate and thus very low energy needs, produces essentially 100% of its electricity from renewables (geothermal, hydro, wind) and 85% of its energy, and is ramping up wind to supply even more. Japan obviously has recently learned how bad a mistake reactors are and is using conservation and also ramping up renewables. Spain, Portugal and Germany and the Scandinavian countries have done wonders with solar and wind, and have potential for a lot more with solar, wind and other renewables like waste biomass, wave, tidal, micro-hydro… especially considering their very low potential compared to the US. Germany in particular continues to grow its economy (5% unemployment) and export more electrical power than it imports. It’s reduced carbon emissions by switching to renewables after the German people demanded its reactors be shut down in response to Fukushima (and Chernobyl, and TMI, and Browns Ferry, and hundreds of near-misses over the years…). Germany is setting records for percent of electricity from renewables (74% peak), although both Spain and Portugal are providing good competition. The US, not so much. We’re building out both at a tremendous pace–consistently 30% a year–but it’s not even close to our potential. In a reminder of why it’s called Faux News, a commenter there said the US lags behind Germany because Germany gets so much more sun. Maybe E-P has been watching too much of that network.
(I’d love to see a map with the combined potential of distributed generation wind, solar, micro-hydro and geothermal but as far as I know it hasn’t been done yet this way)
The US is blessed with phenomenally abundant renewable resources: more than enough onshore and offshore wind alone to satisfy all our energy needs, or more than enough solar alone; plus abundant and ecologically benign micro-hydro in many parts; geothermal (including ACES, using Earth as an automatic solar flywheel); with smaller but locally important backups in waste biomass, wave, tidal, and amazing untapped potential for efficiency. We use 4 times the per capita energy that Japan did before they shut down their nukes and replaced them with…no energy.
NREL did a study showing that even without battery storage or the inevitable improvements on current technology, renewables can supply 90% of Texas’ needs. Other states are similar.
Birds … Ecology of the population. My (one of the) favorite topic.
Basic information – laws of ecology.
Any climate change poses a threat to ecosystems – plant and animal species. Even if the sum of the effects of the changes will be positive. Why? Always some species “will suffer”. Each of climate change must be regarded as bad – undesirable for nature and people.
How much wrong? It depends on the actual size of the change.
Eg. Goosse et al., 2011. (http://www.pages-igbp.org/download/docs/NL2011-1_lowres.pdf):
“… wetter summers are found during the 13th and 14th centuries, in parallel to the global onset of the LIA, and may have added to the widespread famine in northern/central Europe in that period …”
Now, the caveats: This Audubon study is only a first pass at the question. Their conclusions require the exact verification. Maybe are premature.
Worth read these sentences with this comment (http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/274551231.html):
“Vegetation can’t keep up with weather change,” said Williams. “A new spruce forest can’t grow in time for the birds who live there to survive.”
Is it really the climate changes are so fast and large (also significant)?
Or maybe …
“… other issues may pose even bigger — and much more immediate — problems for the state’s bird population. He’s [Henderson] particularly concerned about contaminants in lakes, especially lead used in fishing gear, that’s poisoning the loons. He also pointed to the loss of grasslands [I would add fragmentation of environments] and an increasing use of pesticides. “If people want to do something to help the loons, they can start requesting nontoxic, loon-safe fishing tackle,” he said.”
Arky is back with his confused analysis and links that don’t exist (the first), don’t support his quotes (the last—no such wording exists or is even hinted at in the abstract), and just ONE that is marginally on the topic of the Audubon study.
Talking about the bird populations in MN being more impacted by lead sinkers and pesticides than climate change is irrelevant. That’s a local problem in many places around the world.
What is relevant is “Vegetation can’t keep up with weather change…..A new spruce forest can’t grow in time for the birds who live there to survive.” That’s the whole point—-the plants may not be able to migrate fast enough to stay ahead of the advancing warming front and will therefore go extinct. The birds that fed on them can migrate ahead of the extinction front, but may not find food sources they are adapted to utilize, or may find better adapted bird species already there that they can’t compete with. The wide open North American continent is NOT the Galapagos, where isolation allowed evolution to proceed in textbook fashion.
I think I understand it now. These silly self-serving fundraising cartoons are made to convince the ignorant and attract the distracted.
Anybody that knows anything about birds would instead look in marvel at Audubon trying to negate a lot of science, like the immense work done for many years by Peter and Rosemary Grant on Daphne Major in the Galàpagos.
There are many ways to know about their work. I will here point to http://www.uctv.ucsb.edu/more/voices/m3400Cgrant.html – a page titled Evolution in Action for a very good reason that I shall leave to the dumboldguys of the world not to understand at all.
BEWARE! Omno gibberish alert! Omno has said “I think I understand it now”, and that usually leads us into the swamps of confusion and denial of reality that he wallows in. He does not disappoint us.
Omno talks about the “immense” work done by the Majors. Yep, 20 years of studying finches in the very limited confines of the Galapagos. And done from 20 to 40 YEARS ago! From the 70’s to the early 90’s, at a time and under conditions that were and are (nearly) TOTALLY irrelevant in the context of what the Audubon report discusses today—-possible CONTINENT-wide and RAPID extinctions of MANY species of birds. The Grants did excellent work that helped us better understand evolution, but it is hardly something to cite as evidence that “Audubon is NEGATING a LOT of science”. More hyperbole and non sequitur from Omno the Confused.
I know “SOMETHING about birds” and don’t “look in marvel” at any of this, either the work of the Grants or this Audubon study. The laws of nature continue to operate, and BOTH the Grants and Audubon have gathered data that support that. Omno gives a link, look at it if you wish—it barely scratches the surface of the Grant’s work, and Omno doesn’t tell us why it is significant—does he know? See my next comment for what Omno SHOULD have brought up if he did..
Omno, in his blind narcissism, once again closes by strutting around like the demented rooster in the barnyard crowing over his imagined victory. He says “I shall leave to the dumboldguys of the world not to understand at all”.
LOL When will Omno ever examine his backside and notice all the new anal orifices that I and others have so often (and easily) torn for him on Crock ?
Some direct quotes from a recent article by Darryl Fears about the Audubon report in the Health and Science section of the WashPost. Although Darryl overreaches a bit in his zeal to be “fair and balanced”, this is the kind of thinking that Omno should have employed—-using the Grants’ findings on rapid adaptation/evolution to raise a possible “but” for us in the present context. Fears states:
“But the report has a key blind spot. It cannot reliably say that many of the species it lists as threatened and endangered by climate change will not simply adapt in their current habitat, or thrive elsewhere”.
“John W. Fitzpatrick, executive director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the nation’s premiere center for the study of bird conservation, called the report “a wake-up call.” But, he said, there are too many variables to definitively forecast a future for birds. “The uncertainty involved in this exercise is prodigious” because so many factors are involved”.
“The word ‘tricky’ is an understatement,” he said. “I suspect that all the individuals involved in the modeling would admit this is taking a few variables alone and seeing what they say. This can’t be viewed as the end of the story.”
“The report offers three scenarios on how birds might react to higher temperatures: Some might fly to a more suitable climate; others might stay and suffer as their habitats become unsuitable; and some might simply adapt”.
“The models don’t describe how heat affects them. . . . It looks at the space they live in,” Langham said. He added that “there absolutely is a chance that some birds will be able to adapt,” and repeated what scientists have long known: Plants and animals do adapt to climate change”.
“However, that usually “happens over 10,000 to 15,000 generations historically,” he said. “This will unfold over the lifetime of a 5-year-old.”
I will leave it to “Omno of the swamp” to prove to us that he really understands any of this—-the Audubon report or the commentary in the WashPost.
why do any work, when you perfectly summed up all that is wrong with “hummingbirds begone in 36 years, send us money”?
why, thanks 🙂
tu sei un deficiente, Omnino!
I’ve looked through the video again in case I missed something you saw that I did not. Nowhere does the video request financial donations to Audobon. It tells us to reduce carbon emissions – is that what you object to ? . I note that even Anthony Watts quotes from an Audobon chapter when highlighting the unfortunate bird deaths from solar and wind energy plants. What is the matter with you ?. Had it been a film on the many starving children in drought stricken Southern Sudan would you have coldly dismissed it as money grabbing, and tried to redirect the focus of the excellent post to anthropological research on adaptation elsewhere ?
redskylite – I can’t stand abuse of science, be it from Velikovskians or the Audubon Society. but in this case they are steering dangerously into evolution-denying territory.
Birds have been seen adapting to year-on-year changes in their habitat. Instead we are told half of them are “at risk”. These silly exaggerations are meaningless until one sees the link “join us”. Yeah, right. Because on that link you’re asked to pledge your support, and then some anti-scientist has placed extremely local climate change forecasts for all to peruse.
I presume once they lost track of the science there was no way back.
VELIKOVSKY?! Is there no limit to how far back in time Omno will go to find inane and irrelevant references? I read Velikovsky’s first two books back in the early 50’s—-over 60 YEARS ago!. He was big among us junior high-schoolers back then—-along with Buster Crabbe as Flash Gordon.
Omno is the one who abuses science by stating that the Audubon Society is “steering dangerously into evolution-denying territory” and speaking to us of “silly exaggerations”.
Omno is the one that has lost track of the science (if he ever had a grasp on it). Fortunately, there IS a “way back”, if Omno would only take it—-he has failed to do so in the past. I speak of keeping his WIFI mouth shut and instead listening to all the rest of us who DO understand the science here.
(Or perhaps Omno meant to say Lysenko rather than Velikovsky and just got his Russian morons confused? That would perhaps explain his rather muddled understanding of evolution and inheritance).
“Audubon’s Mission: To conserve and restore natural ecosystems, focusing on birds, other wildlife, and their habitats for the benefit of humanity and the earth’s biological diversity.”
Once again I don’t see your point at all, I’m just glad that some organisations are standing up for other species in the world we share with them, the world we continue to vent out fossil fuel combustion gases with complete disregard to the consequences.
It is good to see not everyone is a single minded money worshipper, and another act of bird conservation is taking place in California.
http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/9026/20140913/pop-up-wetlands-ideal-landing-zones-thirsty-birds.htm
I think his point is that he like starlings and crows–very adaptable birds–and hates hummingbirds, warblers, shorebirds, raptors and well, most other life forms. Like many conservatives, he’s unable to tolerate diversity or the seemingly chaotic reality of vibrant ecosystems and would like to see them simplified to something with just 4 or 5 kinds of creatures. Cockroaches, rats and bacteria do really well in the conditions being enabled by anti-renewable people–well, at least for a while, then those creatures also go the way of dodos and humans. Unless we change our ways. Ironically, (if there were such a thing as irony) people who cling to what we have now will destroy it and everything else more surely than anyone advocating for changes in energy sources, economic and political systems and psychology.
correction: should be “likes starlings and crows”…
That’s meaningless. Anybody convinced of the reality of evolution knows life will always strive tooccupy all ppossible habitats in an extraordinary variety of species.
To believe climate change will reduce that to a few is to deny evolution.
The village idiot once again reveals his lack of understanding of evolution and science in general with his sweeping generalizations and bald assertions. That’s what fits the term “meaningless” here.
Anybody convinced of the reality of evolution knows life dies not “strive” to occupy all possible habitats, not does it deliberately seek to do so “in an EXTRAORDINARY variety of species”. Life merely exists if the conditions are favorable in a locale, no more, no less, and the laws of nature govern what happens.
This is just more hyperbole and anthropocentrism from Omno, who has never let the fact that he knows almost NOTHING about a topic keep him from spouting nonsense about that topic.
Omno finishes with the biggest bit of grandiose stupidity of all. “To believe climate change will reduce that to a few is to deny evolution”. DUH! That is a “give me liberty or give me death” type speech that only shows how WIFI Omno is.
Climate change is just one of the man-caused aspects of the Sixth Extinction, and like all the catastrophes that resulted in the first five mass extinctions, climate change is most certainly going to “reduce to a few” many types of living things, not just birds, and may even ultimately kill all living things on the planet.
It’s killed your brain cells alright. You’re denying 2 billion years of evolution, plus life’s ability to shape and not just survive the world.
Your antiscience is based on a museal concept that is contrary to all that’s known.
More stupidity from Omno, whose mindless narcissism forces him to keep doubling down and displaying his ignorance. TWO BILLION years of evolution? More hyperbole. We are talking about climate change RIGHT NOW as it affects BIRDS (who have only been around for ~150 million years).
And pray tell us, Omno, how birds have an ability to “shape the world” that is now being so heavily impacted by climate change? Are they going to stop burning fossil fuels?
What is being denied here is the fact that Omno refuses to accept that he is simply a FOS narcissist and just likes to hear himself talk. Will someone please buy him an “Evolution for Dummies” book?
And “Your antiscience is based on a museal concept that is contrary to all that’s known”. What the heck does “museal” mean? I assume it’s related to “museum” and therefore implies “archaic” or some such? I find it laughable that someone who has virtually NO knowledge at all on a topic should set himself up as a supreme judge of what’s “contrary to all that’s known”. Omno is a walking oxymoron.
Your ignorance is truly extraordinary, no doubt about that. Life has occupied all possible niches from below ground to the edge of the stratosphere, apart perhaps from the Dry Valleys in Antarctica, and you still believe it is only a matter of survival against a harsh nasty world. Birds like all sorts of species have been shaping their habitats for millions of years, and you believe instead they will remain motionless and defenceless against whatever climate change will come their way.
I wonder how many bird species died off because of the end of the last ice age…
I think we have eviscerated this point well enough. you believe nature is a museum where nothing changes and thus anything that changes in the space of decades is bad bad bad. I believe evolution has been shown as an extraordinary mechanism to overcome any obstacle. I can only leave you to your godless creationism.
I give up. Trying to reason with Omno about anything is like trying to explain relativity to a low-IQ 5-year-old. I will leave it to others to play with him on this thread and satisfy his need for attention.
PS This is a classic Omnobabble closing “smackdown”—-“I can only leave you to your godless creationism”. LOL It is matched only by “Birds have been shaping their habitats for millions of years” in its awesome mindlessness and ignorance.
PS Forgot to mention this one—Omno DECLARES his extraordinary BELIEF!
“I believe evolution has been shown as an extraordinary mechanism to overcome any obstacle”.
Uh-huh—-overcome ANY “obstacle”? Yep, like the many extinction events that have occurred in the planet’s history? And the one we’re in now? Omnofool!
My wife and I are amateur birders and have witnessed changes over the past decade in the bird species here in Austin. Some of these changes are related to changes in habitat due to development, but one one in particular is definitely AGW related.
About five years ago we first noticed large handsome ducks waling around in the canopy of a large Live Oak about a half mile from any body of water. (Anybody who knows birds will know that that is decidedly ‘unducky’ behavior.) We headed for our field guides for North American birds and found out that they are Black-bellied Whistling Ducks. What’s interesting is how the different editions of field guides describe them.
1946 – no mention
1980 – “Accidental from the Tropics”
1995 – “Breed in Southern Arizona, resident in Southern Texas”
2003 – year-round central and east Texas and Florida, occasional through Midwest to Great Lakes
2006 – “Casual west to California. Recent sighting in the East, north to Canada.”
That’s a large range expansion over the past several decades, due IMO to warming temperatures opening up more habitat. But not all bird species are as flexible and I’m certain that many are trying to cope with declining habitats.
I wish that there was an ‘Edit’ feature. What I wrote as ‘waling’ should have read ‘walking’. Sorry for any confusion.
Jeezum – and I thought you meant they were up there with harpoons! 😉
Three things we can do:
1. De-carbonize our electric grid completely. The best examples of this include France, Sweden and Ontario. Follow their lead. (Denmark, at nearly 400 grams of CO2 per kWh and burning coal for 48% of its electricity, should be castigated for greenwashing, not emulated.)
2. Electrify everything we can using the carbon-free grid. This includes most ground transport. To reduce maintenance costs, loads now moved on pavement should be shifted to electrified rail. Dual-mode vehicles may use rail as “steel highways”, with switched third rails or overhead wires for battery-free operation on electric power.
3. Convert industrial energy consumption to electric, direct carbon-free heat, or biofuels. Biofuels are limited in supply and weather can affect the supply, so they should not be targeted for large expansions lest shortfalls cause problems downstream.
You forgot #4.
Embark on a personal exercise program to greatly increase flexibility. This is so that you will be able to bend and twist enough to kiss your ass goodbye when the SHTF.
1, 2, and 3 might do the job, but we will likely not implement any of them in time.
(PS Have you seen that the Japanese are planning to reopen two of those plants whose power source must not be mentioned?)
Interesting that E-P focuses on those countries and ignores Germany, Japan, Spain, Portugal, and above all Iceland. Iceland, with its warm, tropical climate and thus very low energy needs, produces essentially 100% of its electricity from renewables (geothermal, hydro, wind) and 85% of its energy, and is ramping up wind to supply even more. Japan obviously has recently learned how bad a mistake reactors are and is using conservation and also ramping up renewables. Spain, Portugal and Germany and the Scandinavian countries have done wonders with solar and wind, and have potential for a lot more with solar, wind and other renewables like waste biomass, wave, tidal, micro-hydro… especially considering their very low potential compared to the US. Germany in particular continues to grow its economy (5% unemployment) and export more electrical power than it imports. It’s reduced carbon emissions by switching to renewables after the German people demanded its reactors be shut down in response to Fukushima (and Chernobyl, and TMI, and Browns Ferry, and hundreds of near-misses over the years…). Germany is setting records for percent of electricity from renewables (74% peak), although both Spain and Portugal are providing good competition. The US, not so much. We’re building out both at a tremendous pace–consistently 30% a year–but it’s not even close to our potential. In a reminder of why it’s called Faux News, a commenter there said the US lags behind Germany because Germany gets so much more sun. Maybe E-P has been watching too much of that network.
http://thesolutionsproject.org/infographic/
http://humannaires.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/pvmap_nrel.jpg
(I’d love to see a map with the combined potential of distributed generation wind, solar, micro-hydro and geothermal but as far as I know it hasn’t been done yet this way)
The US is blessed with phenomenally abundant renewable resources: more than enough onshore and offshore wind alone to satisfy all our energy needs, or more than enough solar alone; plus abundant and ecologically benign micro-hydro in many parts; geothermal (including ACES, using Earth as an automatic solar flywheel); with smaller but locally important backups in waste biomass, wave, tidal, and amazing untapped potential for efficiency. We use 4 times the per capita energy that Japan did before they shut down their nukes and replaced them with…no energy.
NREL did a study showing that even without battery storage or the inevitable improvements on current technology, renewables can supply 90% of Texas’ needs. Other states are similar.
http://theenergycollective.com/rosana-francescato/215641/100-percent-renewable-energy-100-percent-possible
We can power all the world’s needs with clean, renewable energy and efficiency.
http://thinkprogress.org/clima…
http://www.newsecuritybeat.org/2014/03/report-china-generate-80-percent-energy-renewables-2050-cost-coal/
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/04/10/3425406/japan-energy-efficiency-replacement/
Birds … Ecology of the population. My (one of the) favorite topic.
Basic information – laws of ecology.
Any climate change poses a threat to ecosystems – plant and animal species. Even if the sum of the effects of the changes will be positive. Why? Always some species “will suffer”. Each of climate change must be regarded as bad – undesirable for nature and people.
How much wrong? It depends on the actual size of the change.
Eg. Goosse et al., 2011. (http://www.pages-igbp.org/download/docs/NL2011-1_lowres.pdf):
“… wetter summers are found during the 13th and 14th centuries, in parallel to the global onset of the LIA, and may have added to the widespread famine in northern/central Europe in that period …”
Now, the caveats: This Audubon study is only a first pass at the question. Their conclusions require the exact verification. Maybe are premature.
Worth read these sentences with this comment (http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/274551231.html):
“Vegetation can’t keep up with weather change,” said Williams. “A new spruce forest can’t grow in time for the birds who live there to survive.”
Is it really the climate changes are so fast and large (also significant)?
Or maybe …
“… other issues may pose even bigger — and much more immediate — problems for the state’s bird population. He’s [Henderson] particularly concerned about contaminants in lakes, especially lead used in fishing gear, that’s poisoning the loons. He also pointed to the loss of grasslands [I would add fragmentation of environments] and an increasing use of pesticides. “If people want to do something to help the loons, they can start requesting nontoxic, loon-safe fishing tackle,” he said.”
… and (Beer et al., 2010. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/329/5993/834.abstract):
“… in process-oriented models can be improved by including negative feedback mechanisms (eg, adaptation) that might stabilize the systems.”?
Arky is back with his confused analysis and links that don’t exist (the first), don’t support his quotes (the last—no such wording exists or is even hinted at in the abstract), and just ONE that is marginally on the topic of the Audubon study.
Talking about the bird populations in MN being more impacted by lead sinkers and pesticides than climate change is irrelevant. That’s a local problem in many places around the world.
What is relevant is “Vegetation can’t keep up with weather change…..A new spruce forest can’t grow in time for the birds who live there to survive.” That’s the whole point—-the plants may not be able to migrate fast enough to stay ahead of the advancing warming front and will therefore go extinct. The birds that fed on them can migrate ahead of the extinction front, but may not find food sources they are adapted to utilize, or may find better adapted bird species already there that they can’t compete with. The wide open North American continent is NOT the Galapagos, where isolation allowed evolution to proceed in textbook fashion.