Here in Minnesota, one of our iconic animals is the moose. They live in the northern part of the state. I've seen several in my lifetime, canoeing in the Boundary Waters. It's an experience to see one. But they're dying off. We've known for a while that it has to do with climate change -- moose don't do well in warmer temperatures -- but the exact how's and why's were unclear. But now we have a very good idea of what's causing the decline, along with some possible solutions. But that just shows how complex the problems caused by global warming can be. http://www.startribune.com/in-savin...reakthroughs-and-difficult-choices/365163651/ There are four main causes of the moose decline, the three biggest of them related to climate change: 1. Deer. As the boreal forests have retreated northward, deer have pushed north from their traditional habitat in southern minnesota. They brought with them a disease known as brainworm, which deer can survive but moose can't. 2. Foraging habits. Simply put, moose don't eat as much or as well when the temperature gets too warm. 3. Parasites. Lately deer have been dying from infestation by a parasite known as "winter ticks", which they normally can survive. But weakness and sickness caused by poor warm-weather diet and brainworm leave them susceptible to the ticks. 4. Wolves. Their population has rebounded, but they're still a protected species. Their favorite prey is deer, but they'll take down moose as well. Each of these problems has solutions, but they conflict with each other and with the preferences of various groups of humans, such as hunters: DEER The basic answer here is to reduce the number of deer in moose country. This could be accomplished by managing the herd size through culling and hunting, as well as doing less active tree management in the north woods so they will revert to habitat that is unfriendly to deer but hospitable to moose. The problem is that hunters don't want to reduce the number of deer, and "less active management" means restricting logging and other commercial uses of the northern forest. FORAGING HABITS Allowing more natural fires to occur would provide more of the young trees that moose prefer to eat. But north woods residents (and wilderness visitors like me) aren't big fans of forest fires. PARASITES This would solve itself if we could solve the other problems, because the reason moose are susceptible to the parasites is because they're weakened by the other stuff. WOLVES The least of the moose problem, and also the thorniest to solve. We could reintroduce wolf hunting. But since the wolf's favorite prey is deer, reducing the number of wolves would primarily mean more deer, which is a bigger problem for the moose than wolves are. And politically, there are a lot of people for whom wolves are a symbol, and who would oppose any renewal of wolf hunting. CONCLUSION I like this story because it demonstrates the complex, real-world impact of climate change. It has wide-ranging, interrelated effects, and addressing them does not involve easy choices. In the end, because of human-caused climate change, we may be looking at the disappearance of moose from Minnesota. The only way we save them is if we're willing to make hard choices about how we manage and use our natural areas. Or ... we could avoid the whole problem, and thousands more like it, if we addressed climate change. Because there are thousands (if not millions) more examples like this, NOT doing something about climate change will end up being far more unpleasant and expensive than addressing it.
hahahahahahhahahhahaha, dude you've been wafered. What exactly is the climate change you speak of? What, you never gave any examples of what changed. Please enlighten us on what changed.
That would be because, like the sun rising in the east, the reality and meaning of climate change no longer needs to be explained in every news story dealing with some aspect of its effects. Here is Minnesota's temperature record: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-s...prd=true&firstbaseyear=1901&lastbaseyear=2000 We have a lot of annual variation because Minnesota, but as you can see there's a clear and significant upward trend, with 7 of the 8 warmest years occuring in the last 20 years. Or put another way, there have only been 3 cooler-than-average years in the last 20 years, compared to 17 warmer-than-average. There is a reason why people in diverse specialities are increasingly dealing with the reality of a warming planet -- because they're seeing its effects in their work, because the planet is warming. Your brain-dead denial is simply disgusting.
You are right. We have moved past the deniers at this point. We no longer need to try to explain science to them and now can work on what we will do about AGW. They will deny until they die out which can not be soon enough for me.
so if you don't know what is changing, how do you know it is? You're right the sun comes up in the east and sets in the west. It's cold in the winter and it's warm in the summer. What changed in your world that is different than that? Warmer you say, how much warmer? Do you have figures? warmer when, february, march, april, may, june, july, august, september, october, november, december, january? - - - Updated - - - you are wrong, but you go with your fantasy, you have nothing, and can't even post what it is you think is climate change, lol forever on your form of silliness. BTW, SCOTUS just shot down your supreme leader's bid to act like you just posted and boom, stopped. LOL, too funny for your silliness. Oh, and finally, if you believe like this, why are you on here?
I gave you a link to 120 years of Minnesota temperature history. Click the "Plot" button, and you'll see a chart, showing the average annual temperature for each year. The fact that you don't seem to know this data exists disqualifies you from having a meaningful opinion on it.
Your knee jerk global warming fanatasizm is duly noted. Everything in the world according to your cult is global warming. Seems like just the other day that central America frogs were going extinct because of, you guessed it, global warming. Eventually the facts come out though and you are on to your next sky is falling bed time story. "A new study in the peer-reviewed PLoS Biology, a journal of the Public Library of Science, has disproven sensationalist media reports of global warming causing a mass die-off of tropical frogs, says Aleksandrs Karnick of the Heartland Institute. In January 2006, a Nature magazine article argued global warming was behind the spread of a fungus, amphibian chytridiomycosis, in Central America that was decimating tree frog populations. Ignoring the researchers' clear bias and predisposition toward finding global warming as the cause of declining frog populations, many prominent media outlets including MSNBC, BBC, the Washington Post and the New York Times were quick to cover the Nature report and point the finger at global warming, says Karnick. However, this new study by a team of scientists specializing in zoology and animal health provides strong counterevidence to disprove the Nature magazine article, says Karnick. According to the study: There was no evidence to support the hypothesis that climate change has been driving outbreaks of amphibian chytridiomycosis, a disease that kills tropical frogs. Biologists indicated that the frogs and toads have been in their present location for thousands of years and would have experienced all types of climate fluctuations. The scientists also found that the preliminary Nature study used flawed methodology and overlooked very basic real-world information" http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=16695
Um, no. And evidence for my "fanatasizm" is overwhelming. Evidence for your "it's not happening" BS? None. Um, so now you're going to point to a single study and say that, because global warming might NOT be helping the spread of the chytrid fungus, global warming is bunk? Your logic is badly in need of some logic. The Heartland Institute? Really? Do you normally rely on completely discredited sources funded by people with an agenda? See, this is how science works: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/frog-killing-chytrid-fungus-climate-fluctuations/ One scientist has a hypothesis that seems to fit the data: climate change is helping spread the fungus. Other scientists have different hypotheses: climate change has no effect on the fungus, or it is hindering the fungus. They duel it out in papers and research until the best idea -- the one with the best data supporting it -- wins out. And, as is often the case in something like this, the answer is "you're both partly right." Climate change is helping spread the fungus; it's just not as big a cause as some of the researchers thought, and it's more of a cause than other researchers thought.
That is indeed the easiest thing to do. But is that the preferred outcome? Especially because we're helping cause the change that is killing the moose?
Perhaps this is an essential aspect of natural selection that you would be interfering with by trying to save the moose. What makes the moose more worthwhile than the parasites killing them?
Moose dying because of human-caused climate change is no more an "essential" aspect of natural selection than fish dying because we polluted the lake they live in. As far as your second question ... they are moose parasites. They NEED the moose. Without the moose, no moose parasites. (well, actually, they CAN survive on other hoofed mammals, but strongly prefer moose. If the moose go, the winter tick population will take a big dive).
Now here I thought they were deer parasites and now they need the moose, huh? Adaptation is part of the natural selection process. We thrived because those big scary lizards got killed off. The moose will adapt to survive to a changing environment or they will die off, leaving room for something else to flourish--blueberry bushes perhaps that then lead to bees doing better. The environment is not nor has it ever been static. There is no fundamental difference between a giant meteor slamming into the earth than there is with global warming. It is human arrogance to think that we can control something so massive. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen. Me using LED bulbs isn't going to save a single animal. Human-caused climate change does not exist PERIOD. The climate research shows clearly through out all that we can measure that the CO2 releases alway follow the temperature increases by a couple hundred years at that was true even before Exxon existed. We are warming still out of the little Ice Age that puts this 20th Century CO2 increase within that same pattern that predates fossil fuel use.
Face it your auto hysteria about seeing less moose is a knee jerk AGW cult response. Everything you deem out of the ordinary is automatically blamed on global warming. When frogs were dying you cultist immediately cried global warming before you even studied the situation. It turns out that was not the cause at all but even when the real cause comes out you once again exclaim GLOBAL WARMING! And once again before any real study of the issue. Now for your moose worries you hit the nail on the head when you cried wolf. In the west where I live and especially in Idaho the elk population has plummeted with the reintroduction of wolves. In Yellowstone the same holds true. Elk hunters around here are furious about it but I am one elk hunter who is not. Sure its harder to get an elk these days because their are less of them and they have abandoned open meadows in favor of thick woods to avoid predation by wolves but I believe it is strengthening the herd in the long run and a better balance of nature. Your seeing less moose wandering around in the open is largely attributable to the same thing. We have moose here too and I have noticed I see far fewer of them milling around in the open than I used to.
That looks to me like a trend of ~ 2 deg F in the last 110 years. There's no difference in the slope between the early years and the late years and of course the later years will have the warmest years if the trend is positive which it is. And there has been much greater increase in CO2 concentration in the last years than the first years. The slop is ~ 1 deg C increase per century which is ~ 0.1 deg C per decade which is what many of us "denialists" accept as the global average temperature trend based on the actual real world data. Linking that rate of change as a cause of the moose population imploding is ridiculous.
Looking at the moose population data in the linked article the moose population has dropped from a high of ~ 9000 in 2006 to ~ 3500 in 2015. The rate of temperature rise is ~ 0.1 deg C per decade. You are asking us to believe that the parasites killing the moose have gained in strength enough to basically cut the herd by 2/3's as the result of a temperature increase of 0.1 deg C ?? But I'm a "denialist" for denying the validity of such a conclusion ?? Really ??
does anyone stop to think that maybe a good reason for the decrease in moose population is the increase in wolf population?
That's how the cycle works on Isle Royale National Park. The wolves are currently in big trouble - down to only three due to inbreeding. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolves_and_moose_on_Isle_Royale
We will adapt or die as it progresses....it is too late to change what will eventually happen. It seems best to simply ignore the deniers and move on.
That's basically what we "deniers" who believe based on the real world data and science have been saying. The global warming that the globe has been experiencing since the end of the little ice age (~ 500 years ago) will continue regardless of what humans do. And any practical actions taken by the developed countries to reduce CO2 emissions will have very negligible effects on the rate of this warming. The best action then is to maximize the rate of economic wealth creation which provides the means to adapt to this ~0.1 deg C per decade warming trend. However I see very little chance of us all dying from that rate of global warming. In fact the warming will have a net positive effect on mortality rates which will decrease as temperature increases.
well, why did you have three years of cooling if we are in a warming cycle? Funny how you all try to make a point and it gets deflected back at you. if you indeed can claim cooling, then CO2 cannot be the culprit, just can't be.
