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https://blog.nwf.org/2018/03/m...

I've been allowing milkweeds to grow on my property since I bought it. I mow around them...

Yea, man caused this mess, but not the way you think.

Building homes to increase our wealth(though on the cheap, because well...), ignoring the natural state of the land, and trying to force the world to bend to our preferences?

That's exactly how I think. Of course, you leave out how many of the former forests of California were cut down, with the ancient trees going elsewhere in the world to make fine furniture and other materials.

Of course, we can at least recognize that we're not practicing slash-and-burn agriculture in America. Elsewhere in the world, well, that's another story.

It probably won't make your local news though.

>> There's no evidence that humans are causing global warming or that the warming is due to anything other than poorly sited instruments. Grow up.

How about you get a clue instead of just brainlessy insulting people as AC because you're too gutless to post as yourself and stand by your own words.

http://climate.nasa.gov/eviden...
https://www.skepticalscience.c...
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_w...
https://www.nwf.org/Wildlife/T...
https://www.epa.gov/climate-ch...

Global climate change is happening now with current negative results https://www.nwf.org/Wildlife/T...

That's a cool link, but it's just some words on someone's website.
We had an actual scientific study posted here on Slashdot a few weeks ago that showed that there are no weather changes that can be attributed to AGW.

Global climate change is happening now with current negative results https://www.nwf.org/Wildlife/Threats-to-Wildlife/Global-Warming/Global-Warming-is-Happening-Now.aspx. Moreover, how would you feel if previous generations had taken your attitude about lead in gasoline or about the ozone layer because it wouldn't happen to be a problem for a few years?

Global Warming is the reason brutal dictators exist, and religious extremists try to conquer the world

Real-life scare mongers are ahead of you here. And here.

The warming may be just as non-existent as the "damn cradle", but its effect on public health is already being discussed by people deemed — by themselves and others — to be our betters...

Never heard of a giant alligator snapping turtle

From Wikipedia and National Wildlife Federation.

Suffice to say if your hand gets anywhere near its mouth you WILL lose at least one finger. Putting your arm into murky water where these creatures are known to exist in the hope a catfish will latch on isn't the brightest thing to do.

Conservative version of science: one scientist speaks for everyone.
but then that also explains how they listen to the ones paid by oil companies who say everything is fine.

from http://blog.nwf.org/author/sta... :
"She focuses on connecting the dots between extreme weather, climate change, impacts on communities and habitats, and available policy and management solutions."

So its her area of expertise,
but she is hardly the only one investigating it,
and different scientists will have different professional opinions,
even as they agree on the basis for their work.

welcome to real science junior.

http://www.nwf.org/Wildlife/Th...
""Global warming is bringing more frequent and severe heat waves, and the result will be serious for vulnerable populations," said Dr. Amanda Staudt, National Wildlife Federation climate scientist."

So, is Dr Amanda misguided or not - please note she says about _current_ events, not only about possible future developments? Or is it that all pro-global warming weather incidents are ok, but all things which do not fit it in trivial sense are 'hard to model'?

What you say makes perfect sense and I fully agree with that. Issue is that it is same thing I sometimes observe with any extermist groups. You have some braindead fanatics and some smart people, both under same banner. Fanatics is telling and doing things which are clearly wrong. People opposed to that are attacking them - and then smart people jump in and say proper things, explaining that these fringe fanatics are not representing their opinions, they are clearly misguided and you should not pay attention to them. But somehow, you never see these smart people smacking fanatics on their home ground. They only appear to defend the case against opponents, not to put their own extremists into line.

Are you willing to stand up against Dr Amanda on pro-GW site and explain to her that she is jumping at sensational conclusions and that few random heat waves are in no way indication of bad effects of global warming? Risk getting called denialist just because of pointing it out? Or it is just an form of Taqiyya, where on one side these are general trends and non-obvious relations, while on different forums everybody is slapping each other backs when one weather station reported record high temperature in March?

Maybe this corn used for ethanol can be used for food again?

Better yet, maybe land can be set aside or used for other things than corn again.

We are the only species we know for sure can (and has) changed our behavior specifically because of conscious consideration for the large-scale and long-term effects of what we were doing before.

assuming this is true, so what? conscious choice, unconscious choice, it's all still a product of nature. nature created our conscious choice -- in fact we recently discovered a way in which nature itself makes physical choices with our genes (it's speculated that it's responsible for our intelligence) http://news.discovery.com/human/ancient-human-brain-neanderthal-120506.html. it's a tool we use, the same way primates use tools to groom themselves. there is really no such thing as artificial. we use the word to distinguish what humans do apart from what the rest of nature does (like "artificial hearts"), but the line that separates the two is also drawn by humans (in the end, a heart is merely a centralized device that pumps blood, organic or not), so after removing the bias there is nothing left but the natural. it is, really, "just what happens."

a lizard regrows its tail, you say it's natural. man replaces his limbs with prosthetics or walking aids like crutches and canes and you say it's artificial. bullshit. it's just as natural for an asteroid to hit our moon as it is for us to leave a vehicle on it. it's all natural. this is what humans do, by nature. any choice we make, or action we take, conscious or not, is by our nature.

i'll tell you what's unnatural: that which is impossible. it's impossible for us, in our current physiology, to just get up off the ground and fly without help of inventions. we can't do it, and we can't choose to do it. to do it would be unnatural. this is why people pay money to see david blaine levitate only to find out he's standing on the toes of one foot with his back to you. it's not unnatural to levitate using an Osprey jet, or even one of these: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-3Ql7G7qRc. all laws of physics are still being observed.

also, the portion i quoted from you is just plain false. here's one example that is easy to find if you're looking for it. http://www.nwf.org/News-and-Magazines/National-Wildlife/Birds/Archives/2010/Animal-behavior-and-warming.aspx

if another earth-like planet is evolving humans on it (i.e. all things being equal), then having seen it done before, it would be quite reasonable to expect them to develop cities, and to pollute and overpopulate them before (if ever) finding a permanent way to cohabitate without doing damage. as it is, damaging our environment is just what we do.

Hey, I'm all for the observation that humans are a part of the natural world -- except for when it's used to dismiss human agency.

boo hoo, but this is just plain wrong. i realize this may be an ego-bruising viewpoint compared to what they teach in church, but you sound an awful lot like a girl i knew who tried to argue with me (almost to the point of screaming) that humans weren't animals but some higher form of life outside the taxonomy of living things. she was wrong, and so are you. we're homo sapiens sapiens, we do what we do because it's our nature to do so, and it's not subject to our biased opinions of ourselves. simply imagine a non-human viewpoint and it becomes obvious. if nature didn't evolve human agency (or any other animal's agency), then what do you think causes it? whatever it is, i'm sure it's good for a laugh.

We (Humans as a whole) have already messed up enough of the way bees work. This is another example of us sticking our fingers into something that we don't fully comprehend.. This is a bad idea. Feeding bees keeps them from flowers.

For another theory, it's been said that the pesticides/fertilizers we've been feeding to our fields and flower gardens are the reason our honey bees are weakened in the first place. And it's been theorized (not proven, again - we don't know enough about bees to prove much of anything about how they work) that the same pesticides/fertilizers/herbicides and other human meddling is the root cause for our current bee concerns. What, we're going to fix it by meddling more? Does anybody remember where killer bees came from? I don't think so.
For those of you who are concerned about your current lack of bees in your garden, one possible band-aid you can use is to build or purchase a "mud bee" or "mason bee" house. Build your own Mason Bee House, or you can google them to buy one. Mason Bees are generally nonagressive, and they can serve as an alternative for lack of honey bees.

Anybody who has an ounce of sense should see what PeTA realy is and stands for.
If you want to be a voice for animals, there's the ASPCA.
If you like wild animals, there's the NWF.
Other than that, the rest are false charities.
And yes, the Humane Society is a front for PeTA, just a bunch of wackos without common sense.

Mercury Rising:
"SMOKY SKIES: The coal-burning Gavin Power Plant in Cheshire, Ohio, is one of the US's top producers of mercury, according to the EPA. In the US, power plants account for 60 percent of all mercury released into the air by industry."

Or do you mean an organization like the Department of Energy which has been controlled by an administration which is absurdly friendly to the energy industry? (See: Mercury Emission Control R&D).

Dude. Nobody, and I mean nobody, is in doubt about the mercury released into the atmosphere from human activity, and which then falls into the oceans. Even according to the Bush administration, about a third of this is apparently from burning coal. Oh, and look! The data in the DOE chart is from 1994 and 1995! The data from the Christian Science Monitor is ten years newer. Huh. Imagine that. As mercury emissions are reduced form other industries, the proportion of emissions from coal fire plants has gone up. Bummer. Undermines the DOE case against actually doing anything about the problem of emissions from coal fire plants in the US, which just doubled in importance, right then, by taking the time to understand the attempted deception in the graph.

There are a few reasons that any mercury is released at all from coal burning:

1. Coal has mercury in it,
2. we haven't widely deployed the best available technology for scrubbing the mercury out of the emissions, and
3. we haven't the technical ability to scrub it all out, even with the best available technology, and
4. even the best available technology is apparently widely variable in effectiveness, ranging from not effective at all (scrubbing zero percent of the mercury from the emissions), to somewhat effective (a third to half of emissions captured).

Although global mercury emissions have fallen in recent decades, they are still absurdly high. Human activity is causing a rising level of mercury found in top level predator fish, the kinds people like to eat, like tuna.

Mercury is a neurotoxin, and a general toxin, and it accumulates in organisms (Bioaccumulation of mercury). In tiny quantities, it's bad for you. It's particularly bad for those unborn children that the "Christian Right" proponents of "Family Values" love to go on and on about. They don't seem to care much if those children are born healthy, only that they get born. But I digress.

Were this not the case, we would not have research programs designed to figure out how to reduce these emissions, under this pro-industry, head-in-the-sand Republican administration. Unfortunately, the "propaganda" is on the other side of the issue. Even though the DOE can't deny this problem, due to the overwhelming nature of the evidence, they can still obfuscate it. Notice how the first paragraph of this article differs pretty dramatically in gestalt view of the problem, as compared to a paragraph from deeper in the body of the content:
Mercury Emission Control R&D

"Trace amounts of mercury can exist in coal and other fossil fuels. When these fuels burn, mercury vapor can be released to the atmosphere where it may drift for a year or more, spreading with air currents over vast regions of the globe. In 1995, an estimated 5,500 tons of mercury was emitted globally from both natural and human sources. Coal-fired power plants in the United States contributed less than 1 percent of the total."

http://www.nwf.org/nationalwildlife/article.cfm?issueID=117&articleID=1515
"There are more tigers in the United States--as many as 10,000--than in the wilds of Asia. Held in public zoos and private hands, these captive cats are so genetically degraded through rampant cross-breeding that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has designated them a virtually new, ninth subspecies: the "generic captive tiger."
I find it very hard to sympathise with any human being killed by a Tiger outside of it's natural territory. They will be extinct in our lifetime.

FTA, these swallows sleep for "9 seconds on average".
If one stops flying completely for 9 seconds, the approximate distance it would fall is s = ut + 1/2at**2 ... 0+1/2*32*9*9 feet ... 1296 feet.
But the barn swallow typically migrates within within 100 feet of the ground .
So how do they avoid crashing?

The whole assumption that cats do not disembowel is not entirely founded in fact. Larger cats such as the tiger do disembowel their prey on occassion.

If you read Jim Corbett's account of tiger attacks in India during the early 1900's, there are references to how some people came to hospitals after surviving a tiger attack holding the stomach shut with their hands to prevent their intestines from spilling over onto the floor.

On a side note - it amazes me how some people walked > 10 miles after sustaining such injuries.

A link to some information on Jim Corbett and his work in India:
http://www.nwf.org/productions/indiatiger/corbett. html/

It'll be tough not to put a Slashdot EeziPost® version of the parent here. Damn Slashvertisements, I hate them and stuff.

<offtopic>Does the username refer to a magazine I once read in my little-kid days? Good times, good times...</offtopic>

Still, even in Monterey Bay, MBARI has seen all kinds of new siphonophores (look halfway down) and so on -- really amazing animals that may be the biggest group of predators on earth, but that we know next to nothing about.

A low-speed, quiet, long-term observation platform would be made to order for, to use that example, siphonophores: they're slow-moving, they hunt by drifting along extending toxic tentacles, but they're often disturbed by the existing robot subs. Or set this thing to watching a whale carcass as it floats around: scientists have a lot of ideas about the roles dead whales may play, but no way of really observing them long-term.

The lack of speed isn't going to let you follow something like squid around; teuthids have a much better water jet system that'll let them outrun and outmaneuver almost anything we've got. But this'd give us a nice, quiet observation platform for most of the stuff that lives midwater and drifts -- which seems to be a huge share of the life on earth, and almost unexplored by science.

Taken from here. "The most dramatic evidence for octopus intelligence came in 1992. A pair of researchers in Naples, Italy, Graziano Fiorito and Pietro Scotto, used conventional means--food as a carrot, mild electric shock as the stick--to train a group of captive common octopuses to grab a red ball instead of a white one. The scientists then let untrained animals watch from adjoining tanks as their experienced confreres reached for red balls over and over. Thereafter, Fiorito and Scotto reported, most of the watchers, when offered a choice, pounced on red balls. In fact, they learned to do so more quickly than had the original group. The octopuses, according to the researchers, were doing something invertebrate had never been known to do before: learning by watching."

here's a good article on them:

http://www.nwf.org/internationalwildlife/2000/seae agso.html

• Conservation International
• Defenders of Wildlife
• Earthjustice
• National Audubon Society
• National Wildlife Federation
• Natural Resources Defense Council
• The Nature Conservancy
• The Ocean Conservancy
• The Trust for Public Land
• World Resources Institute
• World Wildlife Fund