Global Warming Spreading Pests Far and Wide According To Study

An anonymous reader writes "New research has concluded that global warming is helping pests and diseases that attack crops to spread around the world. 'Researchers from the universities of Exeter and Oxford have found crop pests are moving at an average of two miles (3km) a year. The team said they were heading towards the north and south poles, and were establishing in areas that were once too cold for them to live in. The research is published in the journal Nature Climate Change.'"

Comments

Re:Still want it?

[sosume]

Based on my location I have at least 5,000 years of pest-free life ahead. I'm also guessing that the rate in which it moves north and southward will decelerate over time, so bring it on!

the selfish and short-sighted people who want global warming to continue

The debate is centered around the question whether a rise in temperature is caused by men, and if the current trend is upwards. As there has been no change in temperature in the last 10 decade. But thanks for the compliment.

The actual evidence

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However, the organisms can only take hold in new areas if the conditions are suitable, and the researchers believe that warming temperatures have enabled the creature to survive at higher latitudes.

I see. So the researchers believe something. How inspiring.

Dr Bebber said: "The most convincing hypothesis is that global warming has caused this shift.

Dr. Bebber finds the AGW hypothesis (his words) the most convincing explanation. Why don't I find his speculations more convincing? There can only be one reason. Nothing else makes sense. The oil companies must be paying me thousands of dollars to post this. No honest person could doubt such clear evidence as this.

Also what makes 1960 such a special year for combustion? Was it the start of the industrial revolution? It is certainly possible that human beings are solely responsible for the CO2 increase in our atmosphere during the past century and that this increase has been substantial enough to increase the average surface temperatures on the entire planet, but this study does not prove it. It doesn't even establish the ground work for doing so. At the very least I'd like to see evidence that such a spread is unprecedented and that it did not take place before the industrial revolution. After that it would be nice to see proof that temperature changes are the only possible explanation for certain species of insects spreading.

The researchers said that better information about where the pests and pathogens were and where they were moving was needed to fully assess the scale of the problem.

Sounds to me like they need some more money for further insect population studies and that if they don't get it we are all going to die and soon. Why direct surface temperature measurements are not sufficient to demonstrate increased surface temperatures is not explained. Did we uninvent thermometers and now require insects to tell us the temperature?