The seldom-seen devastation of climate change – A NASA climatologist explains why global warming is more than starving polar bears, and skeptics are simplistic.
What’s a small change in nature that leads to a larger problem?
Pine-bark beetles. They are a pest for lodge-pole pine trees in Colorado up through British Columbia to Alaska. They are very sensitive to cold. If it doesn’t fall below minus 20 Celsius [minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit] for a week or two during the winter, they reproduce rapidly. As the winters have gotten warmer, the range of the beetles has expanded enormously, much faster than their predators. If you visit Colorado, behind the Front Range, you’ll see whole hillsides devastated by these pine-bark beetles. In British Columbia and Alaska, it’s huge thousand-mile tracts of forest. These changes have been leading to forest fires, because now you’ve got more fuel, which increases carbon emissions.
Its difficult to argue against using polar bears or orca whales as the poster children for climate concerns. Most people, regardless of political leanings, like animals. Unfourtuantely there will be plenty of opportunity for those nature documentarians that do such great projects for PBS and the BBC to produce films on some of the more subtle, yet devastating consequences of global warming.
Amur tigers on ‘genetic brink’
The world’s largest cat, the Amur tiger, is down to an effective wild population of fewer than 35 individuals, new research has found.
Although up to 500 of the big cats actually survive in the wild, the effective population is a measure of their genetic diversity.
That in turn is a good predictor of the Amur tiger’s chances of survival.
The results come from the most complete genetic survey yet of wild Amur tigers, the rarest subspecies of tiger.
Some other facts from the article – A mere hundred years ago there were nine subspecies of tiger. Three subspecies have become extinct (the Javan tiger, Bali tiger and Caspian tiger). There are probably less then 3000 total tigers left of any species. With such a low effective population the Amur tiger is on the brink.
Yet another very good reason to ban exotic pets altogether, The killing of a 2-year-old by a Burmese python revives the discussion on how to best regulate exotic animals
When exotic animals attack, they reignite the debate about how best to regulate them — particularly in Florida, where anacondas, pythons and even iguanas have recently come under scrutiny by local and state governments.
In the past year, there have been iguanas eating gardeners’ precious hibiscus. Nile monitor lizards attacking ducks at golf courses. Burmese pythons exploding after swallowing dry, husky — and living — alligators.
While the parents, owners of the snake, bear responsibility, this incident would not have happened if they did not have an exotic animal whose nature is to asphyxiate its prey. Someone quoted in the column tried to plea the case that further regulation or licensing fees would deprive poor people from having pets. Poor Americans can get along just fine with keeping with traditional pets like dogs, cats, goldfish and hamsters. As much as I love dogs some breeds are not appreciate for families with small children.
