Climate Change

[glaisa]

Climate change is one of the biggest challenges facing the world today. Until recently, discussions have focused on emissions from the industrial and energy sectors. However, awareness of the role of deforestation and land degradation in the climate change equation is increasing. Forested lands and grasslands are rapidly disappearing around the world for a variety of causes, including agricultural clearing, catastrophic fires, poor land management and destructive logging practices.

 

[SayMyName]

Climate change has taken place since the beginning of the world. It will continue to change, whether we influence it slightly or not. As George Carlin once said, "...in the end, regardless what we do, the earth will simply shake us off like a bad case of fleas."

 

[waltky]

Climate change speeds up extinctions...

Climate change models flawed, extinction rate likely higher than predicted
January 6, 2012 - Current predictions overlook two important factors: the differences in how quickly species relocate and competition among species.

As climate change progresses, the planet may lose more plant and animal species than predicted, a new modeling study suggests. This is because current predictions overlook two important factors: the differences in how quickly species relocate and competition among species, according to the researchers, led by Mark Urban, an ecologist at the University of Connecticut. Already evidence suggests that species have begun to migrate out of ranges made inhospitable by climate change and into newly hospitable territory. "We have really sophisticated meteorological models for predicting climate change," Urban said in a statement. "But in real life, animals move around, they compete, they parasitize each other and they eat each other. The majority of our predictions don't include these important interactions."

These are important because some species may not be able to move fast enough to survive, or they may have to compete with new species or species better able to adapt to the shifts during and after the move. To test how competition and variation in dispersal ability would affect species' success at shifting to new habitats when faced with climate change, Urban and his colleagues created a mathematical model. The researchers found that diversity decreased when they took these factors into account, and that new communities of organisms, which do not exist today, emerged. Not surprisingly, the results favored organisms that could tolerate a wider range of habitats and were well equipped to move when necessary. Meanwhile, species with small ranges, specific needs and difficulty dispersing lost out.

Overall, competition slowed everyone down in the pursuit of habitat; however, the strongest dispersers were able to overcome this and displace others, the researchers found. "It's not about how fast you can move, but how fast you move relative to your competitors," Urban said. "The species that face the greatest extinction risks might not be limited to those that disperse less than climate change absolutely requires, but also those that disperse poorly relative to their warm-adapted competitors," they write in a study published in the Jan. 4 online edition of the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Source

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

Climate change has taken place since the beginning of the world.

WHOA! STOP THE PRESSES!!!!

Jeez, you've figure out something that thousands of professional scientists who have studied for years didn't even consider! Climate change has happened before! NO ONE KNEW THAT! QUICK - you must PUBLISH your groundbreaking discovery!!!! There's NO WAY anyone thought of that before!

 

[Mr. H.]

Climate change speeds up extinctions...

Climate change models flawed, extinction rate likely higher than predicted
January 6, 2012 - Current predictions overlook two important factors: the differences in how quickly species relocate and competition among species.

These are important because some species may not be able to move fast enough to survive...

Looks like snails and turtles will be the first to go.

 

[westwall]

They found more then 18,000 new species over the last 3 years. Way more. Anyone who ascribes extinctions to "climate change" is a fool. Or hopes to make money by passing legislation to enrich them.

 

[waltky]

westwall wrote: They found more then 18,000 new species over the last 3 years.

Yea, dey found a new lill' froggie...

World's smallest frog discovered
11 January 2012 - The tiny frog sits easily on a US dime, whose diameter is 18mm

A frog species that appears to be the world's smallest has been discovered in Papua New Guinea by a US-based team. At 7mm (0.27 inches) long, Paedophryne amauensis may be the world's smallest vertebrate - the group that includes mammals, fish, birds and amphibians. The researchers also found a slightly larger relative, Paedophryne swiftorum. Presenting the new species in PLoS One journal, they suggest the frogs' tiny scale is linked to their habitat, in leaf litter on the forest floor. Finding the frogs was not an easy assignment.

They are well camouflaged among leaves on the forest floor, and have evolved calls resembling those of insects, making them hard to spot. "The New Guinea forests are incredibly loud at night; and we were trying to record frog calls in the forest, and we were curious as to what these other sounds were," said research leader Chris Austin from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, US. "So we triangulated to where these calls were coming from, and looked through the leaf litter. "It was night, these things are incredibly small; so what we did after several frustrating attempts was to grab a whole handful of leaf litter and throw it inside a clear plastic bag. "When we did so, we saw these incredibly tiny frogs hopping around," he told BBC News.

Littering the leaves

The Paedophryne genus was identified only recently, and consists of a number of tiny species found at various points in the eastern forests of Papua New Guinea. "They're occupying the relatively thick leaf litter of tropical forest in low-lying parts of the island, eating incredibly small insects that typically are much smaller than insects that frogs eat," said Professor Austin. "And they're probably prey for a large number of relatively small invertebrates that don't usually prey on frogs." Predators may well include scorpions. Intriguingly, other places in the world that also feature dense, moist leaf litter tend to possess such small frog species, indicating that amphibians are well placed to occupy this ecological niche. Before the Paedophrynes were found, the title of "world's smallest frog" was bestowed on the Brazilian gold frog (Brachycephalus didactylus) and its slightly larger Cuban relative, the Monte Iberia Eleuth (Eleutherodactylus iberia). They both measure less than 1cm long.

The smallest vertebrates have until now been fish. Adult Paedocypris progenetica, which dwells in Indonesian swamps and streams, measure 7.9-10.3 mm long. Male anglerfish of the species Photocorynus spiniceps are just over 6mm long. But they spend their lives fused to the much larger (50mm long) females, so whether they should count in this contest would be disputed. Paedophryne amaunensis adults average 7.7mm, which is why its discoverers believe it how holds the crown. The remote expanses of Papua New Guinea rank alongside those of Madagascar as places where hitherto undiscovered amphibian species are expected to turn up, as they are largely undeveloped and not well explored.

More & pics BBC News - World's smallest frog discovered

 

[Douger]

I've witnessed climate change.
I built a wood stove.

 

[Ringel05]

I've personally witnessed climate change..... every time I adjust my thermostat..... not to mention all the different countries and states I've been in...........

 

[Mr. H.]

I've witnessed climate change.
I built a wood stove.

A stove made of wood.
Hmm...

 

[JStone]

Climate change speeds up extinctions...

Climate change models flawed, extinction rate likely higher than predicted
January 6, 2012 - Current predictions overlook two important factors: the differences in how quickly species relocate and competition among species.

These are important because some species may not be able to move fast enough to survive...

Looks like snails and turtles will be the first to go.

Take your anti-psychotic medication and you'll feel much better.

 

[Mad Scientist]

Climate change is one of the biggest challenges facing the world today. Until recently, discussions have focused on emissions from the industrial and energy sectors. However, awareness of the role of deforestation and land degradation in the climate change equation is increasing. Forested lands and grasslands are rapidly disappearing around the world for a variety of causes, including agricultural clearing, catastrophic fires, poor land management and destructive logging practices.

I've witnessed climate change.
I built a wood stove.

Wood stove...That's brilliant.

Will you please provide some information on how to made one? Thanks ahead.

One thread, two bots.

 

[westwall]

Climate change is one of the biggest challenges facing the world today. Until recently, discussions have focused on emissions from the industrial and energy sectors. However, awareness of the role of deforestation and land degradation in the climate change equation is increasing. Forested lands and grasslands are rapidly disappearing around the world for a variety of causes, including agricultural clearing, catastrophic fires, poor land management and destructive logging practices.

Wood stove...That's brilliant.

Will you please provide some information on how to made one? Thanks ahead.

One thread, two bots.

Maybe more than two!

 

[waltky]

Energy Secretary Chu: Climate change evidence mounting...

Chu: Climate change evidence mounting
4/11/12 - Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Wednesday that scientific evidence of climate change is getting more and more powerful, comments that come as global warming legislation remains moribund in Congress and Environmental Protection regulations are facing ongoing GOP assaults.

“Over the last couple of years, the dispassionate, hard science evidence has been mounting, increasing,” said Chu, speaking at an energy forum hosted by The New York Times. Chu noted that “we don’t understand everything” and that in past years scientists have actually underestimated the pace of some changes, including sea level rise. “It is rising even faster than we thought. The number of violent rainstorms have increased faster than we thought,” he said at the event in New York, adding that though there are “bumps and wiggles” that are not understood, trends are clear in the long term. “The debate is how much will it change. There are feedbacks both positive and negative that we are trying to understand,” said Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist.

The vast majority of scientists say global warming is occurring and human activities are a key factor. A small minority call data on warming trends and the human contribution inconclusive or inaccurate. That skepticism has become a mainstream position among Republicans, who also argue that regulations to curb climate change are unnecessary and would be economically harmful. But climate aside, Chu said there’s a powerful economic case for the United States supporting the development of renewable energy sources and industries, noting that “the world is going in this direction.” “Don’t you want to be selling rather than buying? You don’t even have to think about [climate] to say there are new technologies coming. It is our lead to lose. We are still the greatest innovative country in the world and here is a worldwide market that is going to grow and grow and grow,” he said.

Chu’s comments come at a sensitive time for the Energy Department, which is under heavy GOP attack over the 2011 bankruptcy of Solyndra, the California solar panel company that had received a $535 million loan guarantee in 2009. The administration plans to proceed with more loan guarantees, but other green-energy programs and EPA rules face hurdles. For instance, tax credits for renewable power projects are slated to lapse at year’s end and their renewal is a question mark. And a stimulus-law program that provided Treasury Department grants in lieu of tax credits for such projects — a response to the collapse of the tax financing market during the financial downturn — has expired despite administration efforts to extend it.

Chu said he was hopeful the failure of Solyndra — which Republicans have used as the basis for wider criticisms of Energy Department loan programs — won’t sap support for efforts to spur green-energy innovation. “I hope the United States does not lose its appetite for moving forward,” Chu said in the interview with Times columnist Tom Friedman. He noted that the loan guarantee program was designed with some risk in mind, and that Congress appropriated billions of dollars to cover potential losses. “I think some people forgot that that was the design of the program,” he said, adding that setbacks are unfortunate but that many of the loans and loan guarantees are performing well.

MORE

 

[westwall]

Energy Secretary Chu: Climate change evidence mounting...

Chu: Climate change evidence mounting
4/11/12 - Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Wednesday that scientific evidence of climate change is getting more and more powerful, comments that come as global warming legislation remains moribund in Congress and Environmental Protection regulations are facing ongoing GOP assaults.

“Over the last couple of years, the dispassionate, hard science evidence has been mounting, increasing,” said Chu, speaking at an energy forum hosted by The New York Times. Chu noted that “we don’t understand everything” and that in past years scientists have actually underestimated the pace of some changes, including sea level rise. “It is rising even faster than we thought. The number of violent rainstorms have increased faster than we thought,” he said at the event in New York, adding that though there are “bumps and wiggles” that are not understood, trends are clear in the long term. “The debate is how much will it change. There are feedbacks both positive and negative that we are trying to understand,” said Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist.

The vast majority of scientists say global warming is occurring and human activities are a key factor. A small minority call data on warming trends and the human contribution inconclusive or inaccurate. That skepticism has become a mainstream position among Republicans, who also argue that regulations to curb climate change are unnecessary and would be economically harmful. But climate aside, Chu said there’s a powerful economic case for the United States supporting the development of renewable energy sources and industries, noting that “the world is going in this direction.” “Don’t you want to be selling rather than buying? You don’t even have to think about [climate] to say there are new technologies coming. It is our lead to lose. We are still the greatest innovative country in the world and here is a worldwide market that is going to grow and grow and grow,” he said.

Chu’s comments come at a sensitive time for the Energy Department, which is under heavy GOP attack over the 2011 bankruptcy of Solyndra, the California solar panel company that had received a $535 million loan guarantee in 2009. The administration plans to proceed with more loan guarantees, but other green-energy programs and EPA rules face hurdles. For instance, tax credits for renewable power projects are slated to lapse at year’s end and their renewal is a question mark. And a stimulus-law program that provided Treasury Department grants in lieu of tax credits for such projects — a response to the collapse of the tax financing market during the financial downturn — has expired despite administration efforts to extend it.

Chu said he was hopeful the failure of Solyndra — which Republicans have used as the basis for wider criticisms of Energy Department loan programs — won’t sap support for efforts to spur green-energy innovation. “I hope the United States does not lose its appetite for moving forward,” Chu said in the interview with Times columnist Tom Friedman. He noted that the loan guarantee program was designed with some risk in mind, and that Congress appropriated billions of dollars to cover potential losses. “I think some people forgot that that was the design of the program,” he said, adding that setbacks are unfortunate but that many of the loans and loan guarantees are performing well.

MORE

Yes, ALL evidence is showing it is not a problem. And THAT is a problem for the governments who wish to steal yet more money and power from the people under the guise of climate change control.