Global Warming Causing Plants and Animals to Move

I was immediately struck by the disparity between the title and the text:

Title:
Global Warming Found to Displace Species
Article Text:

To me there's a big difference between writing that "many scientists attribute" such-and-such to X and writing that X has been "found" to cause such-and-such.

The title suggests the statement is an accepted fact, while the text belies that claim.

My brother recently attended a conference of meteorologists in Portland, Ore. One said that in 50 years, the climate there will be like that in LA right now. Could put the tanning salons right out of business...

In the 70's we were being told that the planet was heading into another ice age with all the certainty some now attach to claims of global warming.

So, trespassers will, your advice is to do nothing, that scientists all over the world are wrong, the evidence is false, and everything will be fine? Why am I not reassured by this?

As to your first comment, trespassers, my guess would be that an editor-type individual added or changed the title without a careful reading of the text.

I assume you are not reassured by this because it is a ridiculous set of statements that you fabricated precisely to be ridiculous.

I don't recall offering any advice at all. Nor did I comment on whether any scientists are right or wrong, the validity of any evidence, or the outlook for the future. Each of these you created out of whole cloth.

I do recall pointing out a glaring disparity between the title and the text of the article. You are free to do with that whatever you wish, but please don't attribute statements to me that I did not make. If you'd like to discuss what I did write, just let me know. Thanks.

Trepassers, if your issue is simply that the headline differs from the text, fine. You're right. It happens all the time, because different people write the headlines and the articles.

If you weren't implying that there's nothing to the stated concern about global warming, then I apologize for misconstruing your objection.

Climatic change is an ongoing, natural process. Humans may or may not have an influence, or may have either more or less influence than some contend. Evidence is not only inconclusive, but widely contradictory. A few millenia ago, much which is currently Muddle Eastern and North African Desert was veldt, savannah, and swamp. A major cause of "The Fall of Rome" was a climatic "Hiccup" of a couple centuries duration which negatively impacted agricultural growing cycles. A thriving civilization vanished in The American Southwest as did the rains which had supported it. The old saying "Everybody talks about the weather but nobody can do anything about it" may still be true. Not that I advocate abandoning progress and initiative toward ecologic responsibilty; it has simply not been proven to my, and many other's, satisfaction that humans are the reason we appear to be in a period of climatic change. As much science, and some of the same scientists, were behind the imminent glaciers of the 1970s as today freak out about global warming. The questions "Is it real", "Have we caused it", and "Can we change it" have different, and often contradictory, answers.



timber

Timber - BINGO.

The degree to which humans affect climatic change is debatable but do you really consider it probable that we have no effect whatsoever on the climate?

CDK, I just don't know ... and despite claims on both sides, no one else does either. The matter is in need of much more study before valid conclusions may be drawn. I don't have a link, but I recall having read, in either Discover or National Geo, that Mt. Pinatubo put more tonnage of particulate matter and noxious gasses into the atmosphere over a few weeks than humans have been able to do in some 8000 years.


timber

I do not consider it probable that we do or that we don't. I consider it an unanswered question with much data supporting each conclusion. Unlike a lot of people, I have an open mind on the subject. :wink:

Seems to me that if there's evidence that using fossil fuels may cause global warming, and if the U.S. relies too much for its fuel on other countries, it might be worth looking at more fuel-efficient vehicles. Instead, Detroit builds--and the gov't supports, through tax breaks--bigger vehicles that use more gas.

Should we devote more time to studying why this may not be in our national interest? Not to mention our responsibility--dare I say it--as citizens of the world?

One big reason we (the US) are so dependent on fossil fuels is that we have been prevented from developing the level of nuclear power many nations in Europe have developed, and we have been blocked from doing so by the very same environmentalists who now whine that we use (guess what?) too much fossil fuel.

If we generated 90% of our electricity from nuclear plants it would make far more of a difference in our dependence on fossil fuels--with all of the associated environmental and political consequences--than any marginal change in automobile fuel economy.