Slashdot Log In
1/3 of Amphibians Dying Out
Posted by
kdawson
on Mon Nov 03, 2008 12:29 AM
from the world-without-frogs dept.
from the world-without-frogs dept.
Death Metal sends in a Scientific American article reporting that 2,000 of 6,000 amphibian species are endangered worldwide. A combination of environmental assaults, including global warming, seems to be responsible. "... national parks and other areas protected from pollution and development are providing no refuge. The frogs and salamanders of Yellowstone National Park have been declining since the 1980s, according to a Stanford University study, as global warming dries out seasonal ponds, leaving dried salamander corpses in their wake. Since the 1970s, nearly 75 percent of the frogs and other amphibians of La Selva Biological Station in Braulio Carrillo National Park in the Caribbean lowlands of Costa Rica have died, perhaps due to global warming. But the really bad news is that amphibians may be just the first sign of other species in trouble. Biologists at the University of California, San Diego, have shown that amphibians are the first to respond to environmental changes, thanks to their sensitivity to both air and water. What goes for amphibians may soon be true of other classes of animal, including mammals."
Related Stories
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Has someone told phelps? (Score:4, Funny)
I have seen the future... (Score:4, Funny)
...and it is filled with concrete and hairless apes.
Re:I have seen the future... (Score:4, Funny)
No kidding. I once compared my arm to some Orangutans at the zoo, and dammit, I'm hairier.
Parent
Correlation does not imply causation... (Score:5, Insightful)
Biologists at the University of California, San Diego, have shown that amphibians are the first to respond to environmental changes, thanks to their sensitivity to both air and water.
So maybe we're seeing why the dinosaurs died out. They were too sensitive to environment change. They couldn't adapt to the changes in climate and died.
The article starts out blaming man and herbicides, but then has to conclude that even areas free from herbicides, such as national parks "provide no refuge." So that is blamed on global warming (no doubt man-made), causing the ponds to dry out. Neither of these are supplemented with facts, but is all speculative. Frogs and salamanders are dying, so we must be causing it.
Even though we may want to, there is no way we can save every species from extinction. We talk time and again about survival of the fittest in science class, yet we can't seem to acknowledge that species must adapt or die. Animal species that are hardy will thrive. Those who are not will not. We could have the perfect ecosystem for frogs and salamanders, and that would threaten some other species that found the weather too damp or warm to thrive. We blame ourselves for everything, when in fact there's no evidence that, if we all vanished tomorrow, animals wouldn't continue to die out as they always have.
Re:Correlation does not imply causation... (Score:5, Insightful)
If we cause the climate and environment to change too quickly, no species gets a chance to adapt. It takes at least thousands, probably millions of years for species to actually adapt.
So, it's more likely we will kill off almost all species leaving just the small number that by sheer luck can cope with widely diverse conditions... like cockroaches.
I don't see what there is to argue about. Clearly, species are going extinct in great numbers, it's largely due to us, and most species are not adapting.
Parent
Indeed (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's say you had a group of tool wielding apes who had advanced to such a high level of technology that their activities changed the environment, and upset millions of years of evolution and balance. Despite detecting this early on, they failed to adapt the way the transport themselves, the amount of natural resources they needlessly consume, and did nothing to change course.
Let's say those apes did not survive the correction that the environment made to re-establish equilibrium. Wouldn't that be a tragedy.
You can make all the excuses you want for yourself, but your children don't exist on rhetoric, they exist on planet earth. If you're even willing to take a chance on continuing the path that has led to the decline of every single system of life on earth since the industrial revolution, you're mad, or a fool, or both.
The epidemic of cancer is certainly proof that something that we are doing to the planet it making it and us very ill, let alone the undeniable evidence, built up over the last fifty years, that wherever industrial developments are, vibrant ecosystems are not.
Parent
Cancer 'epidemic' (Score:5, Interesting)
The epidemic of cancer is certainly proof that something that we are doing to the planet it making it and us very ill, let alone the undeniable evidence, built up over the last fifty years, that wherever industrial developments are, vibrant ecosystems are not.
I don't think the basis of your argument deserves the kind of consideration that your point itself does.
The industrial junk we've been pumping out can't be good; I don't think you'll find many people that are pro-pollution... The problem with your argument is studies show cancer has been decreasing for decades -- not just mortality, but also the diagnosis and development of. Considering detection has certainly improved and pollution has certainly NOT improved, it should be on the rise in a big way. Why the discrepancy? It did increase during the 70s and 80s, but was that because of better detection rates? It is easy to write it off as such, but who knows... I don't -- and neither do you.
Unfortunately, that's the problem. We don't have much reliable data to follow because the data itself has been a work in progress for decades. For example, whether or not you believe they have an agenda, the National Cancer Institute [cancer.gov] shows this downward trend, and it continues. I'm sure if you went back to 1930 or something, cancer rates per capita were far, far lower though; however, you cannot get accurate numbers because many people would have not been treated or improperly diagnosed. It's pretty easy to fudge the numbers and statistics to indeed lie.
As I'm sure you know though, the problem with 'the evidence' is it is difficult to concretely prove... either way. There are just too many variables to take in account with living organisms to do meaningful, empirical tests that prove something without a shadow of a doubt. Sadly, not many people will listen until such links can be made unequivocally.
In short, I wouldn't use cancer as your 'undeniable evidence', but your point/intentions are good and I personally agree with you, although probably to a lesser degree.
Parent
Re:Correlation does not imply causation... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, but there is evidence that since humans came to the scene, and especially since the industrial age, the species are going extinct at a rate from 100s to 1000s of times greater than before.
Parent
Re:Correlation does not imply causation... (Score:5, Funny)
We talk time and again about survival of the fittest in science class, yet we can't seem to acknowledge that species must adapt or die. Animal species that are hardy will thrive.
Also, you know what the problem with this is? The ones that are going to survive aren't going to be cute cuddly little puppy dogs. They're going to be cockroaches that can see heat and that shoot molecular acid on you while you're sleeping. They're going to be bird-eating spiders. Octopi that walk on land and reshape/recolor themselves to look like a tree or boulder... until they pounce and eat you.
You know, basically we'll all be living in Australia.
Parent
Re:Correlation does not imply causation... (Score:4, Funny)
Also, you know what the problem with this is? The ones that are going to survive aren't going to be cute cuddly little puppy dogs. They're going to be cockroaches that can see heat and that shoot molecular acid on you while you're sleeping. They're going to be bird-eating spiders. Octopi that walk on land and reshape/recolor themselves to look like a tree or boulder... until they pounce and eat you.
Yes, but there might also be a downside.
Parent
The fundamental problem with this (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with this type of reasoning is that we have evolved to a stage where we can "beat" any other species. Human-level intelligence has transformed evolutionary competition into a straight out massacre. We also have the ability to change the environment in ways which are effectively catacylsmic from the point of view of evolution - if you radically alter the environment over the course of a few decades or even centuries, then there is nowhere near enough time for a typical vertebrate to adapt via natural selection to a hostile environment.
If we are indeed affecting the climate, as seems likely, then I find it plausible to think that we could quite easily end up wiping out most species on earth, save for a few super-hardy ones. Unfortunately we will probably survive ourselves, which hardly seems fair. If you want to compete until the end, I hope you like the sound of a future filled with cockroaches, feral cats, rabbits, rats and flies because those are the types of animals which will thrive in a man made environmental apocalypse.
I would like to think that if we are intelligent enough to realise that we have the power to exterminate the other varieties of life on earth, then we are also intelligent enough to realise why we shouldn't (including both cold rational reasons and aesthetic/moral reasons).
Do you really believe that it is ok on any level if, say, every last tiger dies as a result of human impact on the environment? What if we go out and shoot them all? Because we could, and it sounds like you're saying that would be good and proper, or at least 'evolutionarily correct' in some way.
Parent
Re:Correlation does not imply causation... (Score:5, Insightful)
For the life of me, I don't see what the controversy is all about... you can listen to FOX News or the scientific leaders of the planet who almost to a person (that means for the most part any scientist not working a for a major fossil fuel producer), that the world is in the throws of monumental change. In fact, the question is no longer if, but how much, and by when will it be something capable of dirrupting human existence.
The changes map almost precisely to the amount of greenhouse gas there is in the atmosphere. The system is complex, and once you pass the tipping point change will amplify. Global albido has changed. The chemistry of the oceans has changed. The chemistry of the atmosphere has changed. There are more cloud, more water vapor (itself a greenhouse gas), and less ice on the planet. There are more floods, stronger hurricanes and tornadoes, more droughts, and the weather is becoming more irratic. All of these changes are hostile to higher life forms. Ultimately these changes will prove most hostile to a sustainable humanity.
We have not yet transcended our biological base. When we loose the ability to irrigate fields, feed livestock, then feed ourselves, billions of us will go away. We are at the top of the food pyramid, we are an apex species, and it is always the apex species which go away first in a mass die-off. Of course our big brains may help us cope with the change, it might even save us from extinction, but I can tell you now, it won't be a world as nice, or as benevolent as the one we have today. That and all the species that we rely on for everything from pollination, to pleasing our eyes and ears are going to be gone. It would be as easier to live on mars than to live on the planet we are in the process of making, and we won't have the means to live on mars any time soon.
This isn't about loosing one species. We are already now disappearing thousands of species a year. Most of these are invertebrates. But once we get to higher life forms we need to be concerned about where homo sapien falls on that list of threatened species. There are maybe 1,500 cheetahs in the wild left on the planet. A few hundred tigers. Several dozen snow leopards. Once you turn 10,000 acres of rainforest into dessert sand, everything that lived there from the microbes in the soil up are gone forever. We are biotic. We cannot escape the destiny of life disappearing if we allow virtually all higher life to disapper from the planet, we will amost certainly be one of the species to vanish.
Being we are an engineering race, we may still have time to fix our mess. However the time is slipping fast and we haven't shown much proclivity for wisdom or awareness on a global scale. We need to address the issues that face us now. In very much the same way America has turned itself into a financial vaccum, we are on the verge of turning the world into a vacuum for life. Leaders asleep at the wheel, a populace so intranced by the day to day process of making a living, and fulfilling ever growing wants, that one hardly notices that we are using up the world, and are on the verge of making the world unfit for consumption by humans or any other higher life form.
The information is freely available. The science at this point in the game is virtually incontrovertible. The politicians and the pundits can debate all they want. The conservative and liberal can fight. The religious can pray endlessly. None of that will alter a single leaf falling. We have now a vanishingly small window of opportunity. The wise man would act now.
Parent
Re:Don't challenge the sacred chants (Score:4, Insightful)
Since you apparently don't understand the difference, I'll spell it out for you:
You put your hand on the hot plate. It burns.
Experimental variable: location of hand
Extraneous variables: none
Valid conclusion (if it's reproducible): Moving your hand to the hot plate caused it to burn.
Amphibians are dying out.
Experimental variable: "Global warming"
Extraneous variables: f***ing everything
Valid conclusion: none
Now, this isn't a perfect argument: you can do things like argue that all the extraneous variables are obviously not really important given what we know about ecology or whatever -- but it certainly demands a more reasoned response than ignorant mocking.
Parent
Global warming and not disease huh? (Score:4, Informative)
From the article you linked. (Score:5, Insightful)
But even the containment of Chytrid might not be enough to save amphibians, which face a barrage of other threats including pollution, the introduction of alien species, habitat destruction, over-collection, and climate change.
Gosh, I guess we shouldn't worry at all then! I mean, if Chytrid is screwing them over, it's not like we should bother with climate change. I mean, why put out a cancer patient on fire? The cancer's going to kill 'em anyway.
Parent
Its not global warming, its a new fungus. (Score:4, Informative)
EXTINCTION CRISIS FOR AMPHIBIANS [sfgate.com]
this time its not our fault... but maybe we can help them (or... is it not nice to fool with Mother Nature?)
It's both! (Score:5, Insightful)
In addition to what the previous person responding to your post mentioned, it's worth noting that some researchers think the most likely origin of the spread of this fungus to a wide range of habitats is due to widespread use of a research frog species from Africa, though there is some evidence that puts some doubt on that. [cornell.edu]
Another prominent theory is mentioned in the article you linked:
In Costa Rica's Cloud Forest Preserve of the Tropical Science Center, biologist J. Alan Pounds and his colleagues recently reported the total disappearance of the Monteverde harlequin frog, along with one golden toad species -- caused, he said in the journal Nature, by their increased susceptibility to chytrid disease as rising global temperatures have weakened their ability to resist the toxin.
In other words, chytrid is likely to either be an invasive species introduced around the world by human actions or a species that amphibians were previously able to resist before rising temperatures weakened them. Or both. Either way, saying "this time its [sic] not our fault" is disingenuous at best.
Parent
Mod Parent up! He is right... (Score:5, Informative)
The cause of worldwide amphibian population declines is the Chytrid Fungus. However many do think that global warming is making the situation happen faster and to a more serious degree. Here is some quick links if you want to read more on the subject ...
From Nat Geo:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080401-frog-fungus.html [nationalgeographic.com]
The NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/04/science/04frog.html [nytimes.com]
The CDC:
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol10no12/03-0804.htm [cdc.gov]
Parent
Impressive! (Score:4, Interesting)
Is there anything global warming can't do?
the Fierce Creatures effect (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm a pretty green-leaning person and the last thing I want to do is deprive people who have devoted the best years of their life studying herpetology from getting grant money to make a living, but I think amphibian decline research is bordering dangerously on public relations BS pseudo-science.
Amphibian populations are notoriously hard to measure accurately. Populations rise and fall wildly. When you go out to do your first sample, if you're not careful there's often a heavy bias to picking the area with the highest population, so when you do your followup study and that pond has returned to a normal population, it looks like you've detected population decline. That's not to say amphibians aren't wildly vulnerable to all the usual things humans do to an environment: drain it, pave it, spray it. But rather than get half the environmentally-sensitive population panicking randomly about crisis, I'd rather see 1% or 0.1% of the population deeply educated in field biology as serious hobby, keeping long-term consistent records of observations and measurements.
( by the way, the best way to completely destroy a long term population study of a pond is to dredge it and add fish to make it "look more natural" )
Bufo sp. (Score:5, Interesting)
I recall as a kid how my grandmother's yard was littered with American toads. She was certainly in the right place for wildlife. Right next to a state park. Two acre pond in the back yard. Woods all around. The lawn seemed to dance as I pushed the mower back and forth. If I saw anything less than a few dozen toads while mowing the front lawn, something was wrong.
My grandmother is gone and my parents have since moved into that house. Now it's a treat for my kids if I can find a toad or two there.
My own home has much the same problem. I'm on a wooded lot, backed up against a city greenway with a stream in the back yard. There is plenty of habitat for the toads, plenty of food. Every now and then we'll see one. The neighbors who have been here 30 years say that during the summer the houses would have treefrogs all over them. I have yet to see a single treefrog. And taking my kids back in the greenway to look for salamanders, we have yet to find a single one while flipping over rocks and rotten logs.
I still have my doubts about man's part in changing the climate. But something is wrong. The amphibians are like the canary in the coal mine. And it doesn't take an expert to see that they are disappearing fast.
Re:mmmm... mammals... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
True, we all went along fine before that... o_O
Re:Pollution/Habitat loss, not global warming! (Score:5, Informative)
Been reading too many oil company lackeys' "studies", eh? Guess everyone in the field is a gullible fool compared to you, random anonymous Internet poster.
Sun Not a Global Warming Culprit, Study Says [nationalgeographic.com]
Solar Variability Unlikely To Have Caused Recent Warming [cc.oulu.fi]
Don't Blame Sun for Global Warming, Study Says [nationalgeographic.com]
Solar Activity Not Causing Warming [agu.org]
Parent
Re:Pollution/Habitat loss, not global warming! (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Pollution/Habitat loss, not global warming! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's incredible what kind of nonsense gets modded insightful. A scam by whom? By the national academies of science of all developed countries: http://royalsociety.org/displaypagedoc.asp?id=20742 [royalsociety.org] Why would they take part in a scam? What would just about all major scientific organizations and a vast majority of individual scientists involved in climate research have to gain by putting their reputations on the line in order to "take advantage of Gaia-worship and gullible fools"? What would they have to gain from it?
Parent
Re:Pollution/Habitat loss, not global warming! (Score:4, Funny)
Why would they take part in a scam?
Same reason they take part in the evolution scam. It's part of their left-wing athiest agenda. Basically, they hate God, and love nothing more than to hurt Jesus. Those sick fucks.
Parent
Re:Pollution/Habitat loss, not global warming! (Score:4, Informative)
In the meanwhile, Wikipedia on frogs croaking [wikipedia.org]. Note that TFA is similar, despite what TFS suggests: mostly discussion about pollutants and diseases, with a nod to the obvious factor of climate change as one possible cause of habitat destruction.
Parent
Re:*squish* Just like grape. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:*squish* Just like grape. (Score:5, Insightful)
The rule for species survival is simple: adapt or die.
Yep - simple rule, and it applies to us as well. And compared to other species, our adaptation is simple and very easy. Yet we don't seem to be able to accept the necessity, let alone commence the process. Does our own apparent inability to adapt mean that our extinction should be treated with the aplomb with which you dismiss the amphibians, the coral reefs, the oceanic plankton?
There are historical events of much greater scale and effect than this global climate change will be.
Probably not. This extinction event is shaping up to be unprecedented. I'm wondering actually how you arguments will fit with the conversations we will have with our kids about all those animals in kids books that we killed off. I suppose we could burn all our copies of Finding Nemo.
A species that can't adapt to a minor change in environment was probably doomed to extinction anyways regardless of Man's contribution to global climate change.
I guess in the same way, it doesn't matter if I run over an old man in the street, because I couldn't be bothered steering. He would have died anyway, right?
Parent
Re:*squish* Just like grape. (Score:5, Interesting)
This isn't about feeling sorry for the animals. Every field of science, from biochemistry to aerodynamics has benefited and can continue to benefit from studying animal and plant life. Amphibians are a particularly interesting family that has contributed a lot to science.
Parent
Re:*squish* Just like grape. (Score:5, Informative)
Since there are already many comments already posted I doubt this will get read and I suspect the OP is a troll, but this is really an unpalatable level of ignorance.
Amphibians aren't a "species," they're an entire class of interesting, ecologically important animals. Their continued existence is in our best interest for a number of reasons;
First, amphibians tend to be important bell weather species in their habitats. Since they take in water in the first part of their life cycles, they are important barometers of the amount of pollution in an environment.
Second they are ecologically important. As predators we depend on them to keep the number of insects down. In a world without amphibians I suspect insect borne human disease will become more rampant. They also are important food sources for larger animals.
Third, it is not a issue of "adaptation." Most scientists seem to agree the biggest threat facing amphibians is pollution (again because part of their life cycle is spent completely in water and even after that their skin is porous). While factors like global warming, UV radiation, etc. are no doubt important, the trend seems to be pollution being a major factor.
A note to my third point - you are almost as bad as Creationist "scientists." You say amphibians should "evolve," but you fundamentally don't understand how evolution works. It takes time for a species to do so and moreover, it has to respond to environmental conditions (changes in the environment, in predators or prey), not to pollution.
Fourth, amphibians are hugely important in human science. The chemicals they produce, the aspects of embryonic life they can teach us, and the clues they might give us to the move that fish made onto land is of large scientific importance. Not to mention the fact that a number of problems now affecting amphibians is sure to (if it hasn't already - it would seem harder to gauge with completely aquatic life than it would with amphibians) be a problem for fish and other scientifically and commercially important wildlife.
Parent
Re:*squish* Just like grape. (Score:5, Insightful)
The rule for species survival is simple: adapt or die. There are historical events of much greater scale and effect than this global climate change will be.
The idiocy of this statement is beyond belief. Oh yes, it is very natural that species die out, just like it is natural for people to die when they get a nuclear missile in the head. That doesn't exonerate us from being the main if not the only cause for the current mass extinction. Amphibians have been around far longer than both mammals and reptiles - they have lived through several mass extinctions already, so they are clearly able to adapt. Which means that when they can't in the present situation, there may be cause for concern.
And your idea that historical events can be more significant than climate change and the collapse of the ecosystem reveals a staggering lack of insight. Do you think that humanity isn't part of nature, somehow? That we can breathe without air and eat without food? Ecosystems are intimately connected, and when crucial parts disappear, they collapse. And then we lose out too.
The sad truth is that we humans throughout our existence have have had a major, negative impact on nature. Just compare the diversity of species in areas where no humans live, with what we find in cultivated fields. Or look at what happend in the fall-out zone around Chernobyl: People evacuated, and suddenly the bio-diversity shoots up dramatically; there's even wild boars there now - and that is in an area with high levels of radioactive pollution.
To sum it up: we are fishing the seas dry, we are shaving the rainforests away, we pollute and waste resources like there is no tomorrow - and I suppose there isn't likely to be one either, the way we go about things - and one day we won't be able to do it any more; I wonder how muc comfort people like you will find in your words about "adapt or die". Right now there is enough food to feed everybody, but that depends on being able to maintain the current levels of fishing, and the current intensity of agriculture - which in turn depends on massive amountds of synthetic fertiliser, insecticides, growth regulators, herbicides etc. Which in turn depends on our access to cheap energy.
We can choose one of the following: we can continue as usual, steadily increasing our numbers and our use of resources. When they run out, we will probably be living in a world where there are little other than our unsustainable, energy intensive agriculture; few fish in the seas, few animals on land, no natural forests etc. But lots of people, who are now facing starvation. Or we can change our ways, preserve nature, stop wasting resources on stupid crap, reverse population growth etc; and maybe we won't end up in quite as grim a situation.
Parent
If it were that simple (Score:4, Insightful)
If only it were that simple.
1. Evolution takes time.
If you don't have damn good DNA repair mechanisms, different cells in your body change randomly to do different things than what's needed, and you die. (E.g., of cancer.) So there's an upper cap on how often mutations can happen, which puts an upper cap on how fast you can evolve. Heck, even small-ish evolutions in tens of thousands of years are called accelerated evolution.
We're talking about "since 1970" here, which isn't even a blip at evolution scales. _No_ species ever evolved in 38 years.
2. Evolution really works like in the joke about the guys camping, and one of the guys putting on his sports shoes when they see a pissed off tiger: you don't have to outrun the tiger, you have to outrun the other guy. You don't have to be the fastest gazelle, you just have to outrun the slowest when the lions drop by.
What I'm indirectly getting at is that it worked in situations where there was a slow changing equilibrium between hunter and prey, or between species and environment. On the whole, the species still has to be survivable in the short run. It doesn't work for "bang, you're dead!" situations. And normally they do get that short term survivability. Even a species whose become relatively unfit, gets breaks as its lowering numbers also causes the predator population to drop, and buys the prey some more time. Or viceversa, a relatively unfit predator gets a break as the prey over-multiplies and eventually it gets enough of a meal even from sick prey or corpses.
The natural selection will then keep culling from the lower end, and over millions of years, the species gets better.
No species can evolve into something better if you keep hunting it into extinction within decades, or dump poison into its water, or cut down its habitat and replace it with a parking lot. Or if you keep hunting it past the point where predator-prey equilibrium would have allowed it to rebound, that's it, really. Game over.
3. While I sorta see your point about climate change,
A) it doesn't apply for situations when we pollute a place overnight, or when we cause an eutrophication and the algae bloom suffocates everything else
B) you also have to remember that climate change is a bit over-sold these days. It's the #1 best selling sin, and _everything_ gets blamed on it first. I'm not saying it doesn't exist, but that it does get blamed for more than it actually caused.
In this case, we don't _know_ whether these frogs died because of climate change or, say, because of pollution. As more and more third world and developing countries industrialize, they pollute more and more. And again, let's not forget that while the carbon cult is obsessed with CO2 only, early unregulated industry puts out a lot more immediately poisonous stuff. Both in the air _and_ in the water, which, as mentioned, is the amphibians' problem: they depend on both.
Seriously, half the world still doesn't have any filters on their factories, or any other environment protection, or still uses lead in its pipes and gasoline. You start worrying about the quality of air when you already have other more stringent QOL components covered. When you're dirt poor, you care more about getting food, clean water, medicine, and a job. As long as even those are hit and miss, or in a lot of places more miss than hit, you don't give a fuck about that factory dumping toxic stuff into the air or water. Lead in the air (e.g., from leaded gasoline) might affect you later, while lack of food will kill you right now.
As little as a new factory starting production, can poison the water of several species over night. Sure, someone out there will scream about all the CO2 from it, as if that were all that could possibly ever matter, and in the long run maybe it even is, but it will be the other chemicals that kill in the short run. Or if that factory produces fertilizers, again, you _could_ worry about the CO2 it produces, but that's an eutrophication event waiting to happen,
Parent
Re:Pffft... (Score:5, Interesting)
Expansion is what is causing the contraction of numbers in Yellowstone. Yellowstone itself is a super volcano and its magma has been pushing the surface up for a very long time, heating the ground, air and water around it. They have literally found fish cooked in the water around the park in recent years and not geyser water. Trees have died after having their roots cooked. The heat from the rising magma there far exceeds anything global warming could do in that vicinity. If it ever erupts again there will likely be widespread destruction from the eruption followed by some global cooling.
Yellowstone would not be a good example to use when blaming global warming for dried up pools there, though perhaps not totally unrelated. TFA used it for an example of a location with dead salamanders etc in dried out pools without mentioning the more likely cause being the super volcano heating everything above it, very poor form indeed.
Parent
Re:Pffft... (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Pffft... (Score:4, Insightful)
The overwhelming scientific consensus it that the warming is proceeding much faster than in the past and that this caused at least in part by human activity.
The earth has experienced many periods of warming and cooling even within historic times, let alone during geologic time. Many of these warming and cooling periods were actually fairly rapid; the earth's climate could be called a metastable system that often experiences fairly rapid change between a number of more stable states. It's just simply untrue that the speed of recent climate change is unprecedented.
That said, what I think you meant to say is that warming is proceeding much faster than in the recent past - and with that minor edit, that's quite true. The prevailing scientific opinion is that human activity is at least partly to blame, possibly helping to accelerate and amplify a natural cyclical change into a warmer state.
But on the other hand, global warming has not yet had a major effect on most temperate and tropical habitats (as opposed to arctic and alpine habitats). For most amphibian loss, it's necessary to look at other causes - which, FWIW, is all that the parent article was saying.
Parent
Re:That doesn't make any sense (Score:5, Insightful)
What's the point of evolving amphibious capability if not for greater environmental tolerance?
Who said evolution has to make sense?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
99.999% of all the species that have ever existed are extinct!!!
IT IS NATURAL FOR PLANTS AND ANIMALS TO GO EXTINCT!
Re:Bullshit! (Score:5, Insightful)
It is perfectly natural for plants and animals to go extinct.
But there ought to be cause for concern when so many are about to go extinct at once. Whether or not it's a natural disaster or a human-caused disaster can be debated until the cows come home, but the planet is changing right now, causing irreparable damage.
Parent
Re:Bullshit on Bullshit! (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, I wouldn't take advice on the law or public policy from two jokers who make a living from misdirection and yelling profanity at reasoned arguments.
Furthermore, I wouldn't cite as evidence of how horrible the ESA is a video that builds part of its argument around the notion that there is no mass extinction event going on right now in an article about a mass extinction event going on right now.
Good Lord, give me back the past 30 minutes of my life. What an irritating mishmash of profanity, name-calling, and irrational conservative talking points. Lindy's story was kind of sad, but the impact of the story was blunted severely by all the smug, sneering, venomous, and immature posturing that overlay it.
Parent
Re:Bullshit! (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Bullshit! (Score:5, Insightful)
Simple: people here dismiss anything that makes them feel uncomfortable: the idea that there may be an omnipotent, omniscient God makes them uncomfortable, so they dismiss anything that relies on that idea (creationism, afterlife, absolute morality, etc.); likewise, the idea that a materialistic, consumerist lifestyle may be destroying the planet makes them feel uncomfortable, so they dismiss anything that relies on that idea (global warming caused by pollution, USA being the world's worst polluter, importance of biodiversity, etc).
Parent
Re:Bullshit! (Score:4, Interesting)
Considering we've had temperature shifts in the recent geological past without losing the majority of species, I suspect that habitat loss and not global warming is the main drive behind the amount of endangered species and the drop in populations.
Its not rocket science. Reduce the range of a species and the population through human interaction, and any change to the environment -- dry seasons, cold winter, flooding, epidemics, pollution, etc, and there's a better chance of wiping out the remaining survivors.
Parent
Re:The real question... (Score:5, Insightful)
Heres an idea.. give me a reason why a specific species is worth protecting, and then if you convince me, I'll even fucking help you to save it.
You should qualify that one. Here is a species for you: Homo sapiens. Gotcha. (Wink)
How about this one: wheat. Gotcha again.
Diversity? Thats crap. There are so many species on this planet that we can't even count them.
Here is a question for you: What is the bare minimum number of species you might be comfortable with?
Here is another question for you: If you whittle down the biodiversity of this planet to only a few "essential" species--what will be the consequences? Please cite your sources when you answer. The biased speculation of a non-scientist doesn't count.
Parent
Ok, I'll bite (Score:5, Informative)
We have such special machines named pyromether and thermometer. The lattrer one we use at surface, to measure local temperature and guess what, most of them are averaging to highter temperatures every year. But the real juice we get from the first one, we put them on satelites and measure the temperature averaged on a big area, and guess what, the global average temperature is going up too.
We can't be completely sure. But we can be some 80% to 99% sure that the bigest part of it is man-made. We know, from looking at other planets, from physics and chemistry, and from observing correlations (note that the two fist imply causation) that dumping CO2 at the atmosphere causes global warming. We are also able to make calculations, see how much CO2 we put at the atmosphere, and comare it with how much CO2 goes there naturaly. It is not hard to go from there to a conclusion, since our output is almost an order of magnitude highter.
See, no circular logic. Now, you won't listen anyway, so continue beliving what you want, should I advice you to put all your economies at realstate too? It can only go up.
Parent
Re:Ok, I'll bite (Score:5, Insightful)
Temperature measurements just in California are worthless anyway -- too small of an area. Do you know how many measurements they're averaging those with? How big of a temperature shift you'd expect from a misplaced thermometer? Whether the standard deviation of the global temperature average those measurements were included in shifted significantly?
No, I'll tell you what you did. You came to a conclusion, and then looked for evidence to support it. Then you had the gall to question scientists, who at least use much better reasoning.
Parent
Re:The real question... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the real question is.... ...why the fuck should we care?
Diversity? Thats crap. There are so many species on this planet that we can't even count them. The loss of even hundreds of thousands of species is statistically insignificant.
Heres an idea.. give me a reason why a specific species is worth protecting, and then if you convince me, I'll even fucking help you to save it.
Biodiversity is very important. Aside from the fact that losing an entire species forever is an extremely sad thing to happen there are practical implications. For example many of the medicines we use today were discovered by people going into the Amazon, brining back everything they could find, and seeing which of the weird things they found could fight different illnesses on a petri dish. Lose the diversity and you lose all those undiscovered opportunities. In a more general sense loss of diversity within a species leads to increased susceptibility to stressors, this may impact upon economically important species (known as well as unknown) as well as rare frogs.
Also, you don't know what statistically significant means so don't use that term. While the loss of hundreds of thousands of species is important is itself, but is more significant as a marker of the loss of environment leading to the losses of all those undiscovered species and damage to an ecosystem that we rely on but don't really understand.
Parent
Re:The real question... (Score:5, Insightful)
Global Warming is real. The only questions are:
How much of it is really caused by us?
And
How much of it actually harmful?
So far, what I see in the media isn't really convincing. I still believe that what we see today can and did happen in earth's history and is therefore rather natural.
Cutting back on our production of harmful and questionable stuff and especially cutting back on what of it we release into nature is surely a good thing. Common sense dictates that just dumping anything in too big quantities anywhere can't be good. But we must be careful not to confuse useful behavior with what this blatant reactionism demands of us. Reactionism and outcry are ALWAYS easily abused tools to sell stuff. Be it a political agenda or newspapers.
Parent
Re:The real question... (Score:5, Informative)
In other words, Ihmhi is correct in saying that the fuel can be reprocessed and reused until there is only a small amount of unusable waste. The waste presents a radioactivity hazard so storing it underground might be the best solution, but dealing with the waste of a FBR is trivial as compared with the waste of a LWR.
Parent