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:frist pist

[PPH]

First pest?

Pests

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, them hippie environmentalist pests are especially bad since global warming started.

Re:Pests

[lightknight]

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

*facepalms* Allow me to translate: "We really like the idea that global warming is responsible for this shift; bear in mind that this is a hypothesis, not a theory, so it has not been tested or validated in even a casual sense."

Show me group think!

Re:Pests

[Genda]

That's not exactly correct, but it's really poor science to talk about an entire body of work involving thousands of separate research projects and researchers, in overly broad and general ways. Some work certainly has more rigor (and is therefore more authoritative) than others, and this news blurb talks about such a diverse population of pests (virii, viroids, bacteria, fungi, insects, nematodes... ad-infinitum) impacting everything from forest health to the growing occurrence of tropical fungal disease in humans occurring in temperate regions, that the trends spoken of here are a powerful indictment on issues of global climate change.. the average movement for pests (most thrive in warm climates) is about 3 km per years north and south (migration towards the poles.)

So at one level you're right, this could be gremlins herding trillion of lifeforms from dozens of different classes away from the equator, however watching these creatures move in lockstep with local changes in climate (and even micro climate), and watching what amounts to tropical conditions carry these lifeforms to places they've never been before, suggests that your observation, while humorous lacks a certain intellectual vision.

Re:Pests

[Optali]

I don't know why you are surprised that people call GW "only a hypothesis" being that many of them call evolution "only a theory".

Still want it?

[GameboyRMH]

I wonder if the selfish and short-sighted people who want global warming to continue because they live in areas that would benefit are still so enthusiastic...but I guess pests are as at least as easy to ignore as wars, refugees and food shortages.

Re:Still want it?

[roc97007]

Personally, I'm switching careers from IT to pest control.

Re:Still want it?

[professionalfurryele]

Mmmmm those cherries are so good, I see why you picked them:
http://www.climate4you.com/GlobalTemperatures.htm#Global temperature trends
Care to admit why you picked 10 years and not 15 or 20?

If you grab a sample of 2 women and 2 men you may well find the women are taller, and you wont be able to say based on that sample if men or women are taller on average. But given 20 or 30 women and 20 or 30 men the answer becomes obvious.

Re:Still want it?

[MightyMartian]

In scientific circles, there is very little debate. This isn't a scientific debate, it's a PR debate instigated by fossil fuel companies. As to your last sentence, either you're wilfully lying, or you're an ignoramus.

Re:Still want it?

[MightyMartian]

It's hard to see such people as myth when monster international corporations and uber-rich guys like the Koch Brothers are very much behind a massive campaign to discredit AGW researchers. I can't say whether they want the climate to continue to warm. They could be more mundanely evil in not giving a sweet fuck what happens 50 or 100 years from now, so long as their net worth continues up in the short and medium term.

Re:Still want it?

[wbr1]

Personally, I'm switching careers from IT to pest control.

It is an easy career change. You deal with bugs in both professions.

Re:Still want it?

[0111 1110]

The majority of Americans and probably even American scientists believe in a supernatural all powerful entity for which there is no evidence at all. Just because a majority of people believe in something does not make it true.

Evidence is what convinces me. Not opinion polls. Opinion polls are most definitely not a part of the scientific method. Once a large enough majority believes in a thing it becomes difficult for many people to disbelieve it. Just show me the raw data and I will draw my own conclusions. I don't need to be told what to think. Scientists are just as capable of being irrational as anyone else. Just because a scientist believes in a thing doesn't make it true.

Re:Still want it?

[Anonymous Coward]

The more shrill the global warming crowd gets, the less people believe them. The more "scientists" engage in gloom and doom hyperbole in front of the press, the less public support they're going to get. Technology and human development is often at odds with the environment, but the real danger to humanity is politics, and "scientists" aren't free of it. BTW, there is quite a lot of debate in scientific circles. The ones who deny that aren't scientists. They're ideologues.

Re:Still want it?

[MightyMartian]

There is one single extra-Gospel source that Jesus existed, and that is Josephus. Once you strip away the 2nd and 3rd century "additions", what you get is basically "there was a Nazarene named Jesus who was a holy man and had a following, and who was put to death by the Romans."

Re:Still want it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, the Koch brother have their money, not that I would imply they are opposed to making more. They are actually spending money to forward their agenda, unlike other somewhat less uber-rich guys like Al Gore who make piles of money directly hyping their agenda.

So he're my position. There are guys on both sides of the debate who are far more knowledgeable than I, admittedly far more on one side than the other. So, I have to look at credibility. One side definitely has the numbers and the support of the scientific establishment, but the establishment has been wrong before (more than once). The establishment seems to spend a lot of energy on ad hominem attacks to discredit the opposition, which is a hit on credibility.

Most importantly, the loudest advocates of AGW fail to propose anything that might actually work. Most of their proposals advocate massive international cooperation to institute some schemes that will be economically harmful on a large scale. When has that ever happened? Any country participating will have a huge incentive to cheat, as they will get the same benefit as everyone else without paying the price. If AGW proponents want to be taken seriously by me, they need to start loudly advocating things like nuclear power, building dams for more hydro-electric, and maybe even geo-engineering.

Until I observe realistic solutions being advocated I have to conclude that AGW really doesn't even bother the people who believe in it, so why should it bother me?

Re:Still want it?

[MightyMartian]

There is a lot of debate about aspects of AGW, not about AGW itself. Misrepresenting debate as some sort of lack of consensus on the general aspects of any given theory is being deceitful. That's like saying "There is a lot of debate on whether Proto-Indo-European sprang from the Kurgan culture or from Anatolia, therefore French, Hindi and Old Church Slavonic are not related languages."

Re:Still want it?

[mcgrew]

The majority of Americans and probably even American scientists believe in a supernatural all powerful entity for which there is no evidence at all.

2.3 of the world's population and over half of all scientists.

Evidence is what convinces me.

There is no evidence I was in possession of marijuana -- It's gone. There is no evidence Jimmy Hoffa is dead, but I'm pretty sure he is. There is no evidence for extraterrestrial life, but I think there probably is.

Absence of proof is not proof of absence.

Re:Still want it?

[jovius]

Let's try this. Imagine if aliens started to pour carbon dioxide, methane and other gases to Earth's atmosphere. As you know from the elementary school Earth's greenhouse effect keeps the temps at a nice level. Greenhouse effect that has been known well over 100 years is actualized because of the called greenhouse gases, which trap heat to the lower layers of the atmosphere. So ask yourself this: what will happen when the amount of those gases is increased?

Would you be welcoming the aliens who pour gases to the atmosphere? One effect of that would for example be that hugely larger areas of crops are threatened because of pests. Your very source of food is in danger.

Wouldn't you be pretty sure who is responsible for the anomalously amplified greenhouse effect? I'd guess the media would be in full blast declaring a war against them. It's interesting why it isn't happening at the moment.

Re:Still want it?

[harvey the nerd]

You're right but there are a lot of Algroe fanbois and lackeys who think they know a little science because they can parrot the line.

Re:Still want it?

[Nimey]

Why, if you're investigating a scientific theory, would you both considering what Al Gore or the Koch Brothers had to say?

Because it's not about science for the denialists, it's about tribalism and primate dominance.

Re:Still want it?

[cusco]

Are you suggesting that the fossil fuel companies are headed by aliens? That would explain an awful lot . . .

Re: Still want it?

[otterpop81]

"And then a zealous believer named Paul turned the story into an organized religion based on guilt."

Paul taught that the Gospel brings _freedom_ from guilt. He even called himself the chief of sinners.

Have a read of Romans chapter 8 for a better idea of what the Gospel really means.

Re:Still want it?

[lightknight]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_potato_beetle

"The beetle was discovered in 1824 by Thomas Say from specimens collected in the Rocky Mountains on buffalo-bur, Solanum rostratum. The origin of the beetle is somewhat unclear, but it seems that Colorado and Mexico are a part of its native distribution in southwestern North America.[2] In about 1840, the species adopted the cultivated potato into its host range and it rapidly became a most destructive pest of potato crops. The large scale use of insecticides in agricultural crops effectively controlled the pest until it became resistant to DDT in the 1950s. Other pesticides have since been used but the insect has, over time, developed resistance to them all.[3]"

So, when you stop patting yourself on the back for confirming your bias, you can spare a moment, and read up on one of the pests mentioned in that article. The Colorado Potato Beetle is immune to DDT (an achievement in of itself), as well as a number of other pesticides, which were holding it at bay. In other words, this thing used to destroy potato crops, and only by blanketing crops with pesticides did we slow it down some. It evolved...our pesticides have not; what more, I imagine many of the farmers in the affected areas have decided to ride the 'organic' cash cow, and not use any pesticide on their crops...thus ensuring that this pest won't even be slightly dinged by whatever extra proteins it has to manufacture to get around the poisons we normally spread on those crops; instead, it will grow fast...much faster.

Global Warming had jack shit to do with this pest's rise...only the laziness of mankind let it reclaim ground. And I imagine that the other pests are, perhaps, due to similar, or other, explainable reasons. But I guess a little fact checking takes too much time these days...

Re:Still want it?

[MightyMartian]

So because international cooperation is really hard, climatologists aren't worried? That's just about the most tortured logic I've ever seen.

Re:Still want it?

[Aonghus142000]

My smell-o-meter detected a rat very early on in the AGW debate. For me (and those of my generation,) my youth was filled with horror stories of the coming ice age and how pollution was bringing it about. The proposals to counter this effect were exactly the same as the ones now being pushed to counter global warming; i.e. don't burn fossil fuels, reduce energy consumption, increase our dependence on renewables, etc.

Then, sometime in to 90's talk of global warming began, always with the effects 30-50 years out, but unstoppable unless we did something Right Now!. Well, we're 20 years into this, and the only major weather effect I have observed is last winter, which had a level of snowfall I hadn't seen since 1972 (Right when the "Coming Ice Age!" scare began.)

I think I'll hold onto my skepticism for now.

Re:Still want it?

[Genda]

The shrill, is the sound of people noticing you're on fire... and too smug to look down, drop and roll... that doesn't make the one's shout ignorant. If you had the faintest clue about biology, thermodynamics, biochemistry or ecology, you might be just a wee bit more concerned, there are some pretty dark futures that are absolutely within the realm of possibility if you follow climate change to it's conclusion. These futures don't include homo sapiens, in fact many don't even include vertebrates.

The debate among scientific circles is virtually nonexistent. Hundreds of thousands of scientists from many dozens of diverse scientific fields have created a consistent picture of our world from which it is nearly impossible to escape global climate change and environmental disruption. This is especially important in the face of human population pressures. The only debate is limited to special points interest, and scientists on the payroll of fossil fuel producers or members of ideological groups who refuse to believe their own eyes. In this case, I tend to go with the VAST majority, and throw out the ideologues at both ends.

Re:Still want it?

[riverat1]

About the only thing that large numbers of countries have been able to cooperate on are thing that are of fairly immediate and mutual benefit.

We did manage to do something about the ozone layer eating chlorofluorocarbons.

Re:Still want it?

[riverat1]

That's a popular meme but it doesn't hold much water. Most of the CFC refrigerants were patented in the 1930's so the patents ran out in the 1950's. There was a DuPont patent on a manufacturing process for Freon that ran out in 1979 but the patent for the current refrigerant of choice, R-410 is held by Honeywell (Allied Signal got the patent in 1991) so it doesn't help DuPont.

Why not, if other things can flourish also?

[SuperKendall]

This theory (that pests are moving farther north because it's no longer as cold) ALSO supports the idea that other things, like plants and animals can also be raised farther north because it is warmer.

If you think that's offset by some parts becoming too warm to support some crops and animals, then you must ALSO weigh that with the aspect that some pests will find it too warm and so there is some benefit. But since jungles grow everything in abundance it's pretty hard to argue that warming is not a net gain overall in terms of food production.

Basically, the fact that habitable zones increasing in size brings an expansion of everything that lives in those zones should not really be news to anyone, and you shouldn't be foolish enough to play up a very tiny negative aspect of it in a desperate grab to make other people fear the way you want them to.

Re:Why not, if other things can flourish also?

[pixelpusher220]

You're assuming the warming stops at 'habitable'...

Re:Why not, if other things can flourish also?

[MightyMartian]

The problem here is that it seems rather likely that the habitable zones won't grow in size. Rather they will shift in latitude. There will be very real geopolitical ramifications to the North American and Eurasian growth zones jumping northward. Imagine the North American Grain Belt heading a few degrees north. All of a sudden, large areas currently under cultivation in the United States cease to arable, or at least cheaply arable. At the same time, Canada gains large amounts of arable land much farther north. In a few generations, you could see US food security compromised, with large amounts of the grain it needs suddenly in another sovereign country. The US will almost certainly be able to come to some accord with Canada, but other parts of the world may not be so lucky. A brief survey of historic and prehistoric migrations heavily suggests that people don't just sit on their asses and quietly die out when they can no longer get enough food and water.

Re:Why not, if other things can flourish also?

[innocent_white_lamb]

large areas currently under cultivation in the United States cease to arable, or at least cheaply arable. At the same time, Canada gains large amounts of arable land much farther north.
 
There are factors other than mere temperature that go into whether land can be used for growing crops. Much of the soil north of where Canadian farmers currently grow their crops is either very poor or next-to-nonexistent. The Canadian Shield consists largely of volcanic rock. You can't grow a crop in that even if the temperature appears to allow it.

Re:Why not, if other things can flourish also?

[Arker]

You're assuming the warming stops at 'habitable'...

Hot-house earth isnt completely uninhabitable. The violent storms and extreme heat in the tropical zones would make them indoors-only and dangerous to travel in, but the polar regions and for instance high mountain areas further south would be quite habitable.

Re:Why not, if other things can flourish also?

[Burz]

Its a worse problem than that. The soil in poleward locations may not be suitable, tending to turn into desert instead (at least in the geologic near term). Land area is also less abundant near the poles, especially when you consider that Antarctica will remain ice-covered deep into the arable land crisis. Most plants and animals that help keep a temperate zone healthy probably won't be able to migrate quickly enough to the unprecedented rate of warming we have unleashead.

Then there is the tiny little question of how human bodies themselves can cope, being only adapted to live in interglacial and glacial periods--We've never adapted to the global hothouse type of climate. We couldn't even manage to do agriculture for 150,000 years in the past because the global climate made frequent 1C shifts. Our brains are especially susceptable to frequent heat extremes, curbing their energy use (and thinking ability) when heat-stressed... or otherwise causing us to croak. Our immune systems are not adapted to warm environments (however pleasant) that are steeped in dampness during 6-month long periods of darkness.

This is not the temperate zones moving poleward. Its the temperate zones disappearing and a part of the arctic likely turning into something different that hasn't existed for over 40 million years.

Re:Why not, if other things can flourish also?

[MightyMartian]

The Canadian Shield is an extension of the Appalachians. The region I'm talking about is the north of the prairie provinces and the Northwest Territories, which are an extension of the Great Plains. There's a helluva lot of territory between the Rockies and the Canadian shield.

Re:Why not, if other things can flourish also?

[MightyMartian]

And what if Canada and Russia don't want a bunch of foreigners living on their territory?

Pine beetle

[blankinthefill]

This is actually believed to be one of the main culprits of the explosion of pine beetle infestations in Colorado, as the beetle is now able to survive at higher altitudes than it was previously able to due to increased warming, which has allowed it to infest species of trees which have no natural defense against the pine beetle. This in turn has driven a huge increase in the amount of standing and fallen deadwood in mountainous forests, and is believed to be one of the reasons behind the dramatic increase in the severity of wildfires in those areas.

Re:Pine beetle

[blankinthefill]

That's why I said ONE of the reasons. The forestry techniques of the last century certainly increased the amount of deadwood and undergrowth. Anyone familiar with the forest situation in Colorado will tell you that the pine beetle is ALSO a huge contributor to the large increase of deadwood in mountainous forests there. The worrisome thing about the pine deadwood, though, is that it's very often standing deadwood, which, unlike living trees, torches easily along it's whole length. This can very easily carry a fire into the crowns of trees, killing them where they may have otherwise survived. No one is denying that what the article from a few days ago said is true. But the increase in deadwood because of the pine beetle hugely exacerbates that situation. With JUST the forestry techniques, or JUST the pine beetle, we would be seeing the increase in destructiveness that we saw 30 or 40 years ago. With both, we end up with the destructiveness we see today. (Note, YES, I know there are also other factors, such as overbuilding, poor building practices, and the proliferation of unintentional fire breaks. However, those are minor issues when you consider that, without the deadwood and undergrowth situation as it is today, those fires would likely not be the problem they are today.)

Re:Pine beetle

[sribe]

So no warming in the last 18 years is causing pine beetles to go to warmer areas that are not warmer?

In this case, it's not average temps that matter. It's the lack of any sustained period of very low temps. The lowest lows are nowhere near historic norms in the past decade. Now why this is, I'm not going to debate here.

Re:Pine beetle

[riverat1]

One thing that has exacerbated that is the length of the warm season has grown enough in some places that the pine beetles are now able to have two generations in a year which has the effect of increasing their numbers far beyond what was seen in the past.

Re:All roads leed to Rome/more goverment power

[MightyMartian]

I'm curious. Do you think the universe gives one sweet fuck about your political ideology. We can debate the scientific merits of these claims, but to attack them because they somehow collide with your political ideology is so fucking stupid I can only assume your either a moron or mentally ill.

I'm just not happy with the name

[smittyoneeach]

"Anthropogenic Global Warming" really had some heft.
But that sadly died, and "Climate Change" was left.
That's now dead, and what must rise from its dust is
Something like "Global Non-Constant Atmospheric Justice".

I see it coming

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I'm switching careers from IT to pest control.

Future news:

"The pest control industry is lobbying Congress for an increase in H1-Bs for pest control engineers. Stating ' there isn't enough qualified Americans coming out of school.'"

On Slashdot we'll see: ' I've been interviewing pest control engineers for years now, and I can tell yo that getting qualified people is really difficult. We get people with years of experience who can't describe how the poisons work on the pest nervous system and they can't even give a balanced equation on the compound's creation!"

"Same here! Why one guy couldn't use the sprayer properly."

And there will be ads for:
'Pest Control Engineer. MUST have 5 years of experience with the Pest Sprayer 2020 v 1.43.233, 5 years experience with the Pest sounder 3.42.11, 5 years of programming experience of the pest control API for Windows, BS/MSPE, Able to program the pest control Robot'

And there will be the "We are a Silicon Valley start-up with a new and ground breaking company that is a social media pest control company with iPad apps. There's a huge shortage of qualified people here in SF!" on Slashdot.

Re:I see it coming

[roc97007]

...and then there will be the offshore pest control operators. "You are having receiving the package? Very good. Now kindly open the package and taking out the metal canister. Very good. Now kindly place the metal canister on the floor of your cubical. Very good. Now if you would please pull out the pin being on the top of the canister. Very good. Oh, you should probably run now. Please close the ticket at your earliest convenience, and being sure to fill out our survey. Hello?

Re:All roads leed to Rome/more goverment power

[MightyMartian]

Yes, like pretty much every climatologist on the planet. Certainly seems a more sensible group to turn to than some fucking halfwith AC on /.

Re:All roads leed to Rome/more goverment power

[tbannist]

That's a particularly ignorant argument seeing as the original post was clearly an ad hominem. He wasn't debating the merits of anything, he was dismissing something because he disagrees with the politics he assumes that the people who did research have. You should already know this. It seems that you are also allowing your politics to cloud your thinking.

Re:All roads leed to Rome/more goverment power

[MightyMartian]

Fallacy of the False Equivalence

It figures on top of everything else, you can't even make a cogent argument.

Reality doesn't require your understanding

[bussdriver]

You don't have to comprehend something to make it true. Reality and the Earth will continue without human "intelligence."

Re:Reality doesn't require your understanding

[Rockoon]

Reality and the Earth will continue without human "intelligence."

Got any evidence for that?

The problem with assumptions...

Re:All roads leed to Rome/more goverment power

[MightyMartian]

Um, because they want to study climate? Oddly enough, people enter scientific fields to do science.

Re:Generalized Hypothesis in a Generalized World

[Genda]

So first thing, there are no laws created by environmentalists... those would be legislators. The stupid you're impugning lives with folks who use environmental concerns exactly the same way the folks on the other side of the legislative fence use concerns about energy. Backroom deals with monied corporate interests getting stupid laws passed in their own interest that in fact exacerbate the issues in the real world, but make someone a lot of money. Real environmentalists appreciate that human beings are a inseparable part of the environment, and that ideas that force suffering or deprivation on vast populations would undermine ecological sanity on a global scale.

Technology is already beginning to provide huge opportunities to create environmentally sound alternatives to our current lifestyles, while at the same time giving us access to a world that is truly human compatible, even socially empowering. Agendas and dogmas are indications of people with ideologies to inflict on others, and these people seldom the source of workable solutions.

Re:Just desserts - deserts.

[BradleyUffner]

Most deserts around the world are situated in the subtropical zones where the dry air from the Hadley cells descends, around 30 degrees north and south. Global warming appears to be expanding the Hadley cells somewhat which will move the desertified zones a little further toward the poles without necessarily shifting the other edges of those zones further from the equator thus expanding the desert area. For example there is evidence that southern Europe is getting drier but the southern edge of the Sahara Desert shows no signs of shifting northward.

These articles seem to disagree:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/07/090731-green-sahara.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8150415.stm
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2811
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2005/sep/16/highereducation.climatechange
http://www.co2science.org/subject/d/summaries/desertification.php

Re:You can't (usually) have it both ways.

[dave420]

Sure - if you don't want to think about it. Or, maybe, the climate change is affecting different species differently. Polar bears are losing their hunting ground due to warmer seas, and corals are dying because of the ocean acidification, just as pests in temperate climates are spreading with their spreading temperate areas. No need for God or assuming climate change doesn't exist - just basic reading comprehension and a willingness to learn.