Climate Change Armageddon: 2/3rds of all species gone by 2020!
Dreaded “Sixth Mass Extinction” is a mere 4 years away
It appears as if the elite media is actually participating in conservation efforts…by recycling old stories of humanity’s impending doom.
About one year ago, news outlets were reporting that the Earth has entered a sixth mass extinction phase, with animals now dying out at 100 times the normal rate. In my detailed analysis of the other 5 extinction level events, I noted than mankind played absolutely no role.
In fact, the Permian extinction wiped out 95% of all lifeforms. Unless therapsids were driving S.U.V.’s or had air conditioning, it is difficult to condemn fossil fuels as the cause of such a massive loss of species.
Obviously, we have not been sufficiently scared. So, now a new new report has been released asserting that over 60 percent of species will be gone in four short years.
…The analysis, the most comprehensive to date, indicates that animal populations plummeted by 58% between 1970 and 2012, with losses on track to reach 67% by 2020. Researchers from WWF and the Zoological Society of London compiled the report from scientific data and found that the destruction of wild habitats, hunting and pollution were to blame.
The creatures being lost range from mountains to forests to rivers and the seas and include well-known endangered species such as elephants and gorillas and lesser known creatures such as vultures and salamanders.
The reality is a little less stark, I think.
For example, The International Union for Conservation of Nature recently took the giant panda off the endangered species list and reclassified it as “vulnerable.” Closer to my home, the range and numbers are expanding for the California Condor due to intense conservation efforts.
Additionally, new species are discovered all the time! Interestingly, in California, a new species of thread-like millipede was uncovered within a Sequoia National Park cave…and a charming creature it is, too!
This insect sounds charming, and I nominate Anthony Wiener as its namesake:
The new species may possess “only” 414 legs, compared to its relative’s 750, yet, it has a similar complement of bizarre anatomical features, including a body armed with 200 poison glands, silk-secreting hairs, and 4 penises.
Additionally, there are species of bacteria that are unknown and unclassified. Therefore, I charge that the World Wildlife Federation is being vertebrate-centric in its findings.
I suspect the “Sixth Mass Extinction” redo is related to the fact that 97% of Americans are not sufficiently indoctrinated about the seriousness of climate change.
…97 percent of Americans don’t seem to care about the issue when stacked up against other concerns such as terrorism or the economy, according to a recent Fox News poll.
A November Fox News poll of more than 1,000 registered voters found that only 3 percent listed “climate change” as the most important issue facing the country today, down from 5 percent in August. Americans were much more worried about terrorism, the economy and immigration than global warming.
I am looking forward to next year’s update, to see how many years we have left before Climate Change Armageddon!
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Comments
Can we suggest a species for extinction? I have a few!
I would suggest mosquitoes, flies, and liberals.
Not necessarily in that order.
Beat me to it. I was going to start with mosquitoes, fleas, ticks, bedbugs, lice…
Donkeys and elephants.
the Zoological Society of London compiled the report from scientific data and found that the destruction of wild habitats, hunting and pollution were to blame.
Huh? No Warmunism? I thought that was the root cause of all evil.
Species go extinct all the time; the rate does fluctuate & always has. The simple fact is we have little clue as to the reasons most of the time. Massive caldera eruptions or major asteroid strikes stir up enough to block sunlight for long periods, so in those cases the causes are clear.
Yes, warmer climate will affect some species adversely, but there is no evidence at all the sort of incremental changes the climate freaks are in such a tizzy over have any measurable effect on extinction rates.
Species are going extinct at rates far higher than normal trends. It is a problem. But the cause of the problem is not climate change. It is almost always illegal market hunting and destruction of habitats.
Can someone explain this to me.
We’re not even sure whether the number of species of life on Earth is closer to one million or ten million.
How can we possibly have an accurate assessment of the rate at which new species are appearing or old ones are dying away?
Here is the Dirty Secret. It is not Climate change that is killing off species. It is Agriculture. And, that is the truth.
“Species are going extinct at rates far higher than normal trends.”
How can we possibly know, without estimating, the current rate of extinctions, and then compare that with previous rates of extinction?
Vultures are endangered!? Where? What about the threatened and endangered species that have to fly through the wind mill lanes?
Vultures in Europe are endangered because farmers can’t simply leave dead cows in the fields like they used to for carrion eaters. EU regulations and all.
I have two letters to sum this up: BS
I am old enough to remember that report at the end of the Carter Administration that had the same dire predictions for the world for 2000. It was based more on population growth than climate change (which was not yet in vogue) but basically more Ehrlich and Malthusian nonsense.
Extinction is a problem. But it is not due to over population (not directly) and it is certainly not due to climate change. It is mostly do to over harvesting of species and habitat destruction. Both these causes are controllable. North America experienced this during the late 19th and early 20th century. We reversed those trends and wildlife rebounded. Europe, way more densely populated than North America, has had its wildlife rebound. Similar rebounds also occurred in Australia.
What happened in North America, Australia, and Europe can happen in South America, Asia and Africa. You stop killing wildlife indiscriminately and you preserve habitat for wildlife. For a fraction of what we waste on climate change, we could create economic incentives for developing countries to help them do this.
The first thing I thought of was Al Gore’s alarmist lunacy that “in five years polar bears will be extinct.” That was, what?, ten years ago or thereabouts? Polar bears are thriving.
I bought into the eco-crazies about the ozone layer hole or whatever that required that I, with my giant ’80’s perm, must forgo my then-beloved Aquanet to save the world. I stopped using it, and as I recall, there was a good bit of time (a decade or so?) during which you couldn’t even find aerosol products. They slowly crept back on the shelves as the ozone layer alarmism faded into obscurity.
Fool me once. . . .
the ozone hole was real, the reason for it was not.
Ah, so I went several years with a frizzy perm for no reason. Here I thought I was saving the world. :/
The aerosol products came back because scientists came up with new chemicals that could do the job. The CFC’s of the olden day aerosols are still banned.
Fun fact: One of the first chemicals to replace the CFCs was compressed Nitrous Oxide. The result was a fad for “huffing” among teenagers.
Unintended consequences indeed.
Overfishing is a problem too. We need sustainable fishing. Look up the tragedy of the commons. The solution is market driven environmentalism.
Overfishing is only one of the problems. If more employers would assign staff to go out and investigate fishing, I bet we could come up with some good solutions. Say one week a month each employee is assigned fishing assessment and reporting.
Fly fisherpersons on the first week and others on the last week of the month.
I love your humor, you smelly lil’ fish, you.
Yep. When your “science” has to be a religion in order to be credible (because science isn’t without some error), this is the result. Climate change alarmists are now no different from end of times doomsdayers. That community should join ranks with Seventh Day Adventists or asked some of the Armageddon preaching evangelicals like Hagee to join them?
They missed joining the Heavens Gate people. Damn!
It’s not science, of course. It’s a scam wrapped in the robes of respectable science. We’re supposed to believe it because they’ve labeled it science. If they thought religion would serve them better, they’d call it religion.
AGW is a scam, a protection racket, designed as a mechanism for global wealth redistribution and smothering environmental regulations to increase their control over businesses and people. We’d be amazed at all the things their ‘science’ says contributes to AGW and musted be eliminated – fossil fuels, fireplaces, backyard grills, motorized boats, cycles, blow dryers, hot showers, air conditioning…. all and a whole lot worse would be outlawed or restricted by paying for license fees and/or permits for everything. And if people make a fuss about it, well, their protests would threaten the Saving Of The World and would also have to be outlawed, so goodbye free speech, and so on.
As fer me, I’m agin it.
I’ve been trying to eradicate deer and other animals for the last 40 years. Just doing my part to help push them to the brink.
Darn limits have thwarted me somewhat though. But it has been a tasty experience.
The black bear population in New England is exploding. Take a look at the graphic in the article linked below. Take Massachusetts for example. It is estimated about 500 bears lived there as recently as 1985. The population is now an estimated 4500 and growing about 8% a year. Global human population growth is a bit over 1% annually.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/06/20/bears/4iQHkreqivLLYBjLvtudDK/story.html
A few years ago after Capt. Sully was forced to emergency land the commercial jet he was piloting on the Hudson River because geese got sucked into the jet engines, the FAA issued a report on wildlife strikes to aircraft. I bookmarked it because the growth in so many species is off the charts. From the report:
>> Many populations of large bird and mammal species commonly involved in strikes have increased markedly in the last few decades and adapted to living in urban environments, including airports. For example, the resident (non-migratory) Canada goose population in the USA and Canada increased from about 0.5 million to 3.8 million from 1980 to 2013 (Dolbeer et al. 2014, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 2013). During the same time period, the North American snow goose population increased from about 2.1 million to 6.6 million birds (U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service. 2013). Other large-bird species that have shown significant population increases from 1980 to 2012 include bald eagles (6.4 percent annual rate of increase), wild turkeys (9.5 percent), turkey vultures (2.7 percent), American white pelicans (7.9 percent), double-crested cormorants (6.1 percent), sandhill cranes (5.9 percent), great blue herons (1.2 percent), and ospreys (3.0 percent, Sauer et al. 2014). Dolbeer and Begier (2013) examined the estimated population trends and numbers for the 21 species of birds in North America with mean body masses >4 lbs and at least 10 strikes with civil aircraft from 1990-2012. Of these 21 species, 17 had shown population increases from 1990-2012 with a net gain of 17 million birds. Previous research had documented that 13 of the 14 bird species in North America with mean body masses >8 lbs showed significant population increases from 1970 to the early 1990s (Dolbeer and Eschenfelder 2003). The white-tailed deer population increased from a low of about 350,000 in 1900 to about 15 million in 1984 and to over 28 million by 2010 (McCabe and McCabe 1997, VerCauteren et al. 2011).<<
Those percentages are huge. The 6.4% annual growth in the bald eagle population is illustrated in a chart. It's pretty stunning (because the population started from such a low base). If you want to see it, go past the Executive Summary and a bunch of other junk to get to the "Introduction".
http://wildlife.faa.gov/downloads/Wildlife-Strike-Report-1990-2013-USDA-FAA.pdf
Finally, Matt Ridley gave a presentation to the Royal Society of London a few days ago titled, "Global Warming Versus Global Greening". A video of his speech and the full transcripts are at the link below. Many people recognize the planet is going through a massive greening phase. He cited a study that found the planet has increased vegetative growth by 14% in the past 30 years. For perspective, the researcher said "The greening over the past 33 years reported in this study is equivalent to adding a green continent to the planet twice the size of mainland USA and has the ability to fundamentally change the cycling of water and carbon in the climate system."
http://www.thegwpf.org/matt-ridley-global-warming-versus-global-greening/
WWF, Greenpeace, Sierra Club etc are in the business of separating rich people from their money. Ostensibly to promote environmentalism. Rich people won't open their wallets if they say, "hey, look at all these animal and bird species experiencing phenomenal population growth and look at how much biodiversity is being enhanced by a greening planet". They were worthwhile causes 40 years ago. They are now rackets. They need to declare victory and scale back.
you forgot to mention all the bird kills done by windmill farms etc, even endangered birds like eagles etc.
I was about to adopt an orphaned bird in Brazil, but rethought it because the ungrateful little squab was unwilling to correspond with me via email. I think I will devote that money to wildlife management in the hill country. My first donation will come on the first Saturday in November.
good.
more room around here for me w/o pesky critters getting in the way.
Extinction is neither a good nor bad thing; it is a necessary natural process. Can you imagine if every species that has ever existed still existed? The world would be covered 100 miles deep in critters.
Oil, Henry. They made oil. And coal.
What a wonderful world!!!
And a hundred miles deep in critter plop.
Removing horse droppings in major cities, such as New York City and London, was a serious job requiring the allocation of serious resources, before the automobile.
…and horses (and to a lesser extent, mules) will kill you. They have a “mind” of their own, and do weird shit at times.
I’m just surprised they are so desperate as to predict as early as 4 years out. They learned not to after their 10 year and 15 year predictions met up with the reality of observable data.
They looked like cultists who predict Global Doom and then, when that day passes and nothing happens, dust their credibility off and make a new rash of Prophecy.
So they know better than to predict only 4 years out. I’m guessing its because in 4 years, they don’t expect to be funded anyway. So this is an all-in move, amping up the hyperbole to 11, from a pair of Jacks that is short-stacked.
“Wolf! Wolf!” cried the little boy.
I survived Y2K!
Some of these green ideas really have serious collateral damage associated with them, and being too green is a problem.
For example, a few years ago, noticing that kangaroo poo doesn’t have the methane that cow poo has, researchers decided to take action. The cleared out the intestinal bacteria in a herd of cows and replaced it with bacteria from kangaroos. The plop had no methane, and the cow farts had no methane. But, they used the poo to fertilize a vegetable garden at the site. Researcher who ate from that garden began elongating their vowels, Aussie style. Not only was the experiment shut down, but they refused to even attempt to publish anything on their results. To this day, getting funding for this sort of work is impossible.
it’s always hard when there’s a need for apocalyptic rhetoric, there’s always a trade off between inspiring urgency and making false claims. at some point apocalyptic preachers jump the shark.