Global warming has been known to fuel some interesting discussions. The latest of which centers not on how to solve it, but rather, on how to phrase it, since apparently, "global warming" has become rather demode. So, what shall we do about our deteriorating atmosphere, then?
Another type of climate change is underway, this time, the good political kind - UN nations are so overjoyed with the White House attitude shift they are willing to dispense with a US climate law in the next international climate negotiations.
Looking at the UK this week, it appears that Britain's government departments are failing to meet their own carbon targets. How embarrassing... Meanwhile, that doesn't distract Britain from extending its helping 'green' hand to China, in a move to share carbon capture and storage technology in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (and meet Kyoto targets, of course)
A new study reveals that climate change is affecting Arctic seals in an unexpected way - boosting their blood levels of mercury. The reason seems to be that shrinking sea ice provides seals with an abundance of cod -their favorite but mercury rich snack.
And another thing to worry about - common plant toxins harmful to human health and ecosystems have been discovered in forest fire smoke, especially the slow burning type.
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To quote the seal article: "If you have more ice you have higher concentrations and if you have less ice you have higher concentrations." ...
Ummm! So how does one build any sort of correlations from that?
Correlation is bad science. It is also lazy science. Far too much is just being tacked on to climate change without much critical thought. Climate change has just become the lazy catch-all: "We couldn't think of anything else, therefore it must be climate change." kind of reasoning.
The reality is that natural sciences are incredibly primitive and we humans actually know very little about natural processes. However, scientists are still human and ego-driven. They hate to admit that they don't know the answer. Unless you're prepared to say "I don't know" you're cutting yourself off from discovering the real reason.
Sure, climate change might be a contributor but there are likely other factors in play too. Just pegging it on climate change is not just lazy but also ignores all the other factors - some of which we can do a lot more about.
For example, take bees. We hear that climate change is killing off bees. That's far too easy. The more credible answer is that bees are being pressured on many fronts: increased pesticide use, destruction of natural food sources are obvious. Less obvious, but probably most importantly, bee management is disrupting natural bee life cycles in order to maximize hive production. The bee keepers do everything they can to prevent swarming (when about half the hive leave en mass to form a new hive). Bee keepers don't want swarming because it dents the hive's production. They prevent swarming by destroying swarm cells and by re-queening.
Swarming is a natural process that restocks natural hives - to replace hives lost to disease etc - and helps to provide genetic mixing - the fundamental mechanism whereby any organism adapts to its environment. Prevent swarming and you will kill off bee populations in the long term.
A hive's genetic makeup is very dependent on the queen. Instead of using naturally bred queens which have evolved to local conditions, bee keepers will typically buy in queens from queen breeders. These queens are bred for their honey production and not for their survivability, suitability to local conditions or their ability to pollinate.
In the past only commercial bee keepers would manage their hives so intrusively. Hobby bee keepers, of which there were many, would typically not. This kept a lot of diversity out there. Now hobby bee keeping has dropped off and those requeening is now accessible to just about anyone with a credit card and a postal address. As a result there are very few natural queens out there.
Of course blaming global warming is easier for the bee keepers too because they don't have to take responsibility for their actions.
Written in May