The Boston Herald (my local Murdoch rag) recently ran an article from the Seattle Times on a problem with animals:
SEATTLE — As climate change transforms their habitat, some animals are already on the move. But a new analysis from the University of Washington warns that many species won’t be able to run fast enough to survive a warming world.
On average, about 9 percent of the Western Hemisphere’s mammals migrate too slowly to keep pace with the rapid climate shifts expected over the next century, says the study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In some areas, including parts of the Appalachian Mountains and the Amazon basin, nearly 40 percent of mammals may be unable to reach safe haven in time.
This one was fun to write; I figured they'd never print it — not in a million years, with the digs at conservative media and all.
If the thousands of mammal species whose slowly-changing migratory patterns put them at risk of extinction just knew that climate change is a hoax engineered by a worldwide conspiracy of scientists and liberal environmentalists, it would undoubtedly make them feel much better about the loss of their irrecoverable habitats.
But only humans are susceptible to the misdirection practiced by conservative news networks, which means that those endangered animals will just have to get used to their newly inhospitable ecological niches, or die. Ultimately, though, it's not just regional and local ecosystems that are being transformed, but the entire planet. That's what "climate change" means — global, not local; long-term, not short-term — and the implications of the University of Washington study should be a wake-up call for any still living in the denialist dreamland.
Humans are mammals, too. Where will we go when our habitats will no longer sustain us?
Warren Senders
Ha ha! The joke's apparently on me.
They printed it, albeit in a slightly edited version. And boy, oh boy did it attract a fusillade of stupidity in the comments. Note the ratings for each comment — the Herald really attracts a high class of ignorati:
sammi99
+12 Good Comment -1 Poor Comment
Migratory patterns have been slowly changing and changing back just as the Earth's temperature slowly rises & falls since the beginning of time ! You sir are part of the Hoax jokes ! What ,no doctored data for us to peruse ? ,Please ! Give it a rest ! Global warming has been proven by many to be nothing but a scheme for money grubbing disingenious bums like Al Gore. Time to move on, that argument has long ago lost all validity !
Noonan1212 replying to sammi99
0 Good Comment -8 Poor Comment
Did you know that overactive punctuation makes you look like an idiot? Well, that and everything that pours out of your mouth.
RDC
+9 Good Comment -1 Poor Comment
Warren, my natural habitat was just fine with me. Then the deniers in government told me that giving people without the emotional or intellectual wherewithal to earn their way should be given Section 8 housing vouchers to overrun my habitat. My migratory pattern has shifted southwest.
Noonan1212 replying to RDC
0 Good Comment -8 Poor Comment
...and the Northeast is much better for it. Enjoy your now yearly crushing drought!
ALJ
+5 Good Comment -1 Poor Comment
An A from your art and english professors, an F from your science teachers.
Noonan1212 replying to ALJ
0 Good Comment -10 Poor Comment
Hey moron, science teachers (primary, secondary up to graduate level) have joined the worldwide concensus that global climate change is happening and it is the fault of man. You should read more and write less.
ALJ replying to Noonan1212
+7 Good Comment -2 Poor Comment
LOL, name calling can sure prove your point, can't it. Grow up!
MarchandJab
+8 Good Comment -2 Poor Comment
The pontificating punchline who calls himself Noonan1212 is once again showing himself to be the resident jackass. Thanks for the reminder, Noonan, though no one needed it.
Sabastian
+10 Good Comment -2 Poor Comment
The Earth is warmer now than during the aptly named Little Ice Age, but cooler than Medieval Roman and Minoan warm periods. So yes, the climate changes.
How much is caused by CO2? Very little. Major change occurs only in computer simulations that assume a forcing factor, usually about 3X the effect of CO2. The forcing factor (which is suppose to show the effect of cloud cover)is assumed; it hasn't been measured.
Since the 80s actual temperature increase tracks below the lowest projection, so in the real world the forcing function is very low and probably negative. Measurement shows the models do not forecast well. In a normal science discipline these results would result in the CO2 hypothesis being chucked into the ash bin. But too much money is at stake to let it go.
Svensmark’s cosmic ray theory is better at explaining climate cycles.
runner250
+8 Good Comment -1 Poor Comment
Someone did not read the expose about the doctored global warming data by the East Anglia "scientists."
There's a lot more, but you get the idea.
Here's a short piece in Raga Bhairavi by Steve Gorn, who'll be performing at "Playing For The Planet: World Flutes Against Climate Change" this Saturday. Please visit our page on Facebook and invite anyone in the Boston area!
Needless to say, you can find all my climate change LTEs since January 1, 2010 on my blog.
Okay, that's all for now.