Monthly Archives: May 2011

GLOBAL WARMING: Do trees cause global warming?

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U.S. Representative Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican — naturally — from California’s 46th congressional district, doesn’t believe that anthropogenic global warming is occurring. However, he believes that if it is occurring, then governments should implement policies of deforestation to curb carbon dioxide emissions. He asks, “Is there some thought being given to subsidizing the clearing of rainforests in order for some countries to eliminate that production of greenhouse gases?” He continued, “Or would people be supportive of cutting down older trees in order to plant younger trees as a means to prevent this disaster from happening?” Of course, “the focus of global warming policy actually centers [and should center] on keeping the world’s trees standing, especially in places like the Amazon, Congo and Indonesia.” According to Politico, Rohrabacher’s comments are reminiscent of “Ronald Reagan’s much-lampooned statement that trees cause pollution.”

The issue of energy availability, which is connected to environmental degradation and climate change, is perhaps the most important issue facing the world’s governments and their citizens today. However, ignorant statements from politicians such as Rohrabacher will not take us forward or allow us to solve the most pressing problems facing the world today. Ignorant, uninformed, and dithering politicians, who fail to do their homework in order to educate themselves on the most pressing issues, only take us backward at our detriment. More via Politico:

Jay Gulledge, a senior scientist at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, said Rohrabacher is correct that 80 to 90 percent of gross greenhouse gas emissions do come from nature, with humans producing the rest. But it’s that small percentage that is changing the Earth’s climate — not to mention that trees help absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in huge quantities.

“How he’s using it is totally off the wall,” Gulledge said. “It’s beyond the pale. It makes no sense.”

And here’s a nugget from Bill McKibben:

Caution: It is vitally important not to make connections. When you see pictures of rubble like this week’s shots from Joplin, Mo., you should not wonder: Is this somehow related to the tornado outbreak three weeks ago in Tuscaloosa, Ala., or the enormous outbreak a couple of weeks before that (which, together, comprised the most active April for tornadoes in U.S. history). No, that doesn’t mean a thing.

It is far better to think of these as isolated, unpredictable, discrete events. It is not advisable to try to connect them in your mind with, say, the fires burning across Texas — fires that have burned more of America at this point this year than any wildfires have in previous years. Texas, and adjoining parts of Oklahoma and New Mexico, are drier than they’ve ever been — the drought is worse than that of the Dust Bowl. But do not wonder if they’re somehow connected.

If you did wonder, you see, you would also have to wonder about whether this year’s record snowfalls and rainfalls across the Midwest — resulting in record flooding along the Mississippi — could somehow be related. And then you might find your thoughts wandering to, oh, global warming, and to the fact that climatologists have been predicting for years that as we flood the atmosphere with carbon we will also start both drying and flooding the planet, since warm air holds more water vapor than cold air.

It’s far smarter to repeat to yourself the comforting mantra that no single weather event can ever be directly tied to climate change. There have been tornadoes before, and floods — that’s the important thing. Just be careful to make sure you don’t let yourself wonder why all these record-breaking events are happening in such proximity — that is, why there have been unprecedented megafloods in Australia, New Zealand and Pakistan in the past year. Why it’s just now that the Arctic has melted for the first time in thousands of years.

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Better to join with the U.S. House of Representatives, which voted 240 to 184 this spring to defeat a resolution saying simply that “climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for public health and welfare.” Propose your own physics; ignore physics altogether. Just don’t start asking yourself whether there might be some relation among last year’s failed grain harvest from the Russian heat wave, and Queensland’s failed grain harvest from its record flood, and France’s and Germany’s current drought-related crop failures, and the death of the winter wheat crop in Texas, and the inability of Midwestern farmers to get corn planted in their sodden fields. Surely the record food prices are just freak outliers, not signs of anything systemic.

It’s very important to stay calm. If you got upset about any of this, you might forget how important it is not to disrupt the record profits of our fossil fuel companies. If worst ever did come to worst, it’s reassuring to remember what the U.S. Chamber of Commerce told the Environmental Protection Agency in a recent filing: that there’s no need to worry because “populations can acclimatize to warmer climates via a range of behavioral, physiological, and technological adaptations.” I’m pretty sure that’s what residents are telling themselves in Joplin today.

VIDEO: Cuttlefish achieve colorblind camouflage

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In the video below, a cuttlefish tackles a color pattern that never occurs in nature — black and white stripes. Despite the challenge posed by the artificial background, the cuttlefish works hard to do its best to match the black-and-white striped background.

Cuttlefish readily change their color and shape to evade predation. However, although cuttlefish are apparently colorblind, they have the ability to blend into their aquatic environment on a whim. It’s unknown how cuttlefish achieve colorblind camouflage. Perhaps the cuttlefish can perceive color through some unknown mechanism.

Via Not Exactly Rocket Science

PICS OF THE DAY: Eastern narrowmouth toad

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I discovered this little guy while planting my tomatoes today. It’s an eastern narrowmouth toad (Gastrophryne carolinensis). It had buried itself into the dirt. Luckily, my shovel narrowly missed the little frog. These plump, little frogs love to eat ants, and “the skin secretions of narrowmouth toads can be irritating to human eyes and mucous membranes.”

CLIMATE CHANGE news

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Image via ecstaticist on Flickr.

  1. The melting of ice, that’s occurring in Greenland and in the rest of the Arctic at alarming rates, is thought to eventually trigger a five feet increase in sea level rise by the end of this century, and this projection is “dramatically higher than earlier projections, an authoritative international assessment says.”
  2. Some teenagers are suing the U.S. government. They are claiming that the federal government is failing to protect the Earth for future generations. The suit is relying “on the public trust doctrine, which dates to Roman times,” and the doctrine was carried over into English common law and thus, American common law. The doctrine, as applied to navigable waters, was articulated in Illinois Central R. Co. v. Illinois, 146 U.S. 387, 452-53 (1892) (emphasis added):

    [T]he state holds the title to the lands under the navigable waters of Lake Michigan, within its limits in the same manner that the state holds title to soils under tidewater by the common law we have already shown, and that title necessarily carries with it control over the waters above them, whenever the lands are subjected to use. But it is a title different in character from that which the state holds in lands intended for sale. It is different from the title which the United States hold in the public lands which are open to preemption and sale. It is a title held in trust for the people of the state, that they may enjoy the navigation of the waters, carry on commerce over them, and have liberty of fishing therein, freed from the obstruction or interference of private parties. The interest of the people in the navigation of the waters and in commerce over them may be improved in many instances by the erection of wharves, docks, and piers therein, for which purpose the state may grant parcels of the submerged lands; and so long as their disposition is made for such purpose, no valid objections can be made to the grants. It is grants of parcels of lands under navigable waters that may afford foundation for wharves, piers, docks, and other structures in aid of commerce, and grants of parcels which, being occupied, do not substantially impair the public interest in the lands and waters remaining, that are chiefly considered and sustained in the adjudged cases as a valid exercise of legislative power consistently with the trust to the public upon which such lands are held by the state. But that is a very different doctrine from the one which would sanction the abdication of the general control of the state over lands under the navigable waters of an entire harbor or bay, or of a sea or lake. Such abdication is not consistent with the exercise of that trust which requires the government of the state to preserve such waters for the use of the public. The trust devolving upon the state for the public, and which can only be discharged by the management and control of property in which the public has an interest, cannot be relinquished by a transfer of the property. The control of the state for the purposes of the trust can never be lost, except as to such parcels as are used in promoting the interests of the public therein or can be disposed of without any substantial impairment of the public interest in the lands and waters remaining. . . . The state can no more abdicate its trust over property in which the whole people are interested, like navigable waters and soils under them, so as to leave them entirely under the use and control of private parties, except in the instance of parcels mentioned for the improvement of the navigation and use of the waters, or when parcels can be disposed of without impairment of the public interest in what remains, than it can abdicate its police powers in the administration of government and the preservation of the peace.

  3. Since crop production is connected to climate, there is evidence that climate change is driving higher food prices, so “wilting yields may have contributed to the current sky-high price of food, a team of U.S. researchers reports online May 5 in Science.”
  4. A report warns that the expansion of renewable energy “will be costly and policy changes will have to be enacted to ensure that renewable energy can achieve its potential in helping reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” To expand renewable energy and reduce our enormous carbon footprint, the U.S. government must expand policies and laws that spur renewable energy development and research. Curbing fossil-fuel subsidies would certainly help level the playing field.
  5. Yesterday, House Republicans “unanimously voted down a motion from Democrats to consider legislation to end subsidies to oil companies.” Giving rising gas prices, this could be important ammunition for the Democrats in next year’s election. Also, expanding offshore drilling will not curb rising gas prices. However, it appears that a majority of Americans support more offshore drilling.

IVORY-BILLED WOODPECKER: More evidence suggests that the ivory-billed woodpecker isn’t extinct

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The images, by Dr. Michael Collins, are purported to be of ivory-billed woodpeckers living in Louisiana. Dr. Michael Collins’s images are via Wildlife Extra.

An amateur birdwatcher claims that photographs and audio recordings, which he took, are of ivory-billed woodpeckers living around the Pearl River area of Louisiana. Apparently, his evidence has been dismissed by the professional ornithological community. Nonetheless, he defends the authenticity of his data and is publishing his work in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. Via LiveScience.com:

[Michael] Collins is an outsider to the ornithology community—he’s just a hobbyist bird-watcher—and few insiders take his work seriously. His evidence has been rejected by a string of ornithology journals – often, he says, without explanation.

And so he has turned to acoustics scientists to confirm his recordings. This month he will finally publish what he believes is solid evidence that ivory-billed woodpeckers live at Pearl River in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

Collins, a researcher at the Naval Research Laboratory-Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, first started searching for the bird when a team of Cornell ornithologists captured putative footage of a specimen in Arkansas in 2005. That possible sighting, the first well-documented (though not definitive) human encounter since about 1940, made it onto the cover of Science Magazine. The birds were said to have lived at Pearl River in the past, so when Collins heard that they might still exist as a species, he decided to look for them there.

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The audio recordings, which he obtained in conjunction with the videos, also smack of the Lord God bird, which makes very distinct double knocks when pecking, and makes vocalizations somewhat like a blue jay’s and nothing like a pileated woodpecker’s. Collins used his mathematics expertise to construct sophisticated acoustical models of the bird’s vocalizations. The audio and video evidence combined, he says, give firm support to his claim that ivory-billed woodpeckers live at Pearl River.

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“Professional jealousy is a huge problem in the field of ornithology,” Collins said. “There are groups who have received a lot of funding to obtain conclusive data on these birds and haven’t managed to do so, and I’ve done it independently.” One such group, he said, is the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the country’s leading center of ornithology research and the group who may have sighted the elusive woodpecker in 2005.

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The Cornell group, which Collins accuses of having exerted its influence to keep his work out of ornithology journals, commented briefly on his new acoustics paper.  ”Although we believe the evidence presented is inconclusive, we applaud Collins’s continued efforts to locate and document possible ivory-billed woodpeckers and to publish his findings for all to evaluate,” Kenneth Rosenberg, director of conservation science in the group, said.

You can read the rest of this article at LiveScience.com. More on Collins’s claims can be found at Wildlife Extra.