alt.energy.renewable

On Mar 31, 1:38 pm, "00BNZ" <00...@dooooooooodoooooo.com> wrote:

> March 31, 2008

> http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/com...


> Warming alarmists are sure not an endangered species:






> Could Steffen name, say, just 10 of the species that have so far been
> wiped out by this "human-induced mass extinction event" in the 40-odd
> years of alleged human-induced global warming?


If Bolt were a person of intellectual substance, he wouldn't ask such
a question without specifying terms.

The vast majority of documented species extinctions are multi-causal.
Since the beginning of what may loosely be called the anthropocene
there have been many extinctions, which can, with a broad brush, be
put under the rubric 'disruption to habitat'. A number have been
largely the result of purposive human activity -- the disappearance
of
the grey wolf from Colorado during the years between 1890 and about
1930 was the direct result of deliberate bounty-driven culling.


Given that the bulk of warming has occurred in the last thirty years,
it's unlikely that the disappearance of many species of animals or
plants can be principally attributed to anthropogenic climate change
-- yet, and one may assume that our so called 'skeptics' will point
to
human activities that have little direct to do with AGW in
attributing
cause. There is also the question of what constitutes 'extinction'.
We
here in Australia assume that the Tasmanian Tiger is extinct. There
have been no confirmed sightings since the 1930s. Like the Grey Wolf,
the disappearance of this animal was driven by a culling program.
Still, it's not clear that it's extinct -- we just have no clear
evidence of its existence. In areas remote from human activity,
evidence of absence and absence of evidence are not the same thing.
So
Bolt's question really misses the point. There are many many species
of animals and plants whose habitats are dwindling or becoming less
able to sustain them as a result of climate change, and one can see
that each species that depends on this habitat is under severe
threat.
If the species *does* adapt and move someplace else, then arguably,
it's no longer the same species. And if evidence for its existence
vanishes, along with the habitat, the mere fact that some exemplar
somewhere might, in theory, exist, doesn't vitiate an extinction
claim. It's likely that the bulk of terrestrial marine and flora
species extinctions will occur with the next 1, 2 or 3 degree celsius
increase in near surface temperatures -- which may/will occur
sometime
between 2040 and 2100.


One candidate for species extinction associated with global warming
is
the Golden Toad (Bufo periglenes)


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Toad


As per above, it's likely that a range of factors were at play,
including the pattern of El Nino events, which, at this stage, is not
uncontroversially believed to be driven by climate change (much as
you, Bonzo want to cite 1998 as a benchmark year, despite its El Nino
forcing).


People point to coral reefs as an example of an ecosystem under
threat, but again, the threat to coral reefs comes not merely from
warming oceans, but oceans that are more acidic, or are being fed by
nutrient run off. More acidic oceans are caused in substantial part
by
CO2 being taken up by the oceans, so it would be truer to say that
both fossil fuel emissions AND the resultant global warming pose a
threat to coral reefs. marine species that depend on coral reefs will
also be at serious risk, as will any that can't cope with warmer and
more acidic oceans.


None of this means that we should say "oh well, since global warming
has not *yet* demonstrably caused substantial species loss, then the
threat is trivial". The suite of human activities predisposing
warming AND the warming is putting a large part of the world's
biodiversity at serious and increasing risk, and that is the issue
here.


Fran