Slashdot Mirror
'Hyperalarming' Study Shows Massive Insect Loss (washingtonpost.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Washington Post: Insects around the world are in a crisis, according to a small but growing number of long-term studies showing dramatic declines in invertebrate populations. A new report suggests that the problem is more widespread than scientists realized. Huge numbers of bugs have been lost in a pristine national forest in Puerto Rico (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source), the study found, and the forest's insect-eating animals have gone missing, too. The latest report, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that this startling loss of insect abundance extends to the Americas. The study's authors implicate climate change in the loss of tropical invertebrates.
Bradford Lister, a biologist at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, has been studying rain forest insects in Puerto Rico since the 1970s. "We went down in '76, '77 expressly to measure the resources: the insects and the insectivores in the rain forest, the birds, the frogs, the lizards," Lister said. He came back nearly 40 years later, with his colleague Andrés García, an ecologist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. What the scientists did not see on their return troubled them. "Boy, it was immediately obvious when we went into that forest," Lister said. Fewer birds flitted overhead. The butterflies, once abundant, had all but vanished. García and Lister once again measured the forest's insects and other invertebrates, a group called arthropods that includes spiders and centipedes. The researchers trapped arthropods on the ground in plates covered in a sticky glue, and raised several more plates about three feet into the canopy. The researchers also swept nets over the brush hundreds of times, collecting the critters that crawled through the vegetation. Each technique revealed the biomass (the dry weight of all the captured invertebrates) had significantly decreased from 1976 to the present day. The sweep sample biomass decreased to a fourth or an eighth of what it had been. Between January 1977 and January 2013, the catch rate in the sticky ground traps fell 60-fold. The study also found a 30-percent drop in anole lizards, which eat arthropods. Some anole species have disappeared entirely from the interior forest. Another research team captured insect-eating frogs and birds in 1990 and 2005, and found a 50 percent decrease in the number of captures. The authors attribute this decline to the changing climate.
Bradford Lister, a biologist at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, has been studying rain forest insects in Puerto Rico since the 1970s. "We went down in '76, '77 expressly to measure the resources: the insects and the insectivores in the rain forest, the birds, the frogs, the lizards," Lister said. He came back nearly 40 years later, with his colleague Andrés García, an ecologist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. What the scientists did not see on their return troubled them. "Boy, it was immediately obvious when we went into that forest," Lister said. Fewer birds flitted overhead. The butterflies, once abundant, had all but vanished. García and Lister once again measured the forest's insects and other invertebrates, a group called arthropods that includes spiders and centipedes. The researchers trapped arthropods on the ground in plates covered in a sticky glue, and raised several more plates about three feet into the canopy. The researchers also swept nets over the brush hundreds of times, collecting the critters that crawled through the vegetation. Each technique revealed the biomass (the dry weight of all the captured invertebrates) had significantly decreased from 1976 to the present day. The sweep sample biomass decreased to a fourth or an eighth of what it had been. Between January 1977 and January 2013, the catch rate in the sticky ground traps fell 60-fold. The study also found a 30-percent drop in anole lizards, which eat arthropods. Some anole species have disappeared entirely from the interior forest. Another research team captured insect-eating frogs and birds in 1990 and 2005, and found a 50 percent decrease in the number of captures. The authors attribute this decline to the changing climate.
The standard complaints about drugs, antibiotics, and surfactants will certainly be suspect, but I wonder whether migration patterns might be affected by roads. It certainly must at least be putting some evolutionary pressure on the beasties what with the slabs of hot, dangerous pavement blocking things off every which way.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
Ever since 1976, scientists have been running exhaustive studies to track the loss of insects that involve trapping and killing millions of bugs. Scientists now believe running constant sampling on that scale may have affected the bug populations.
According to this wiki page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I... there's around 40% coverage of impervious surface (Roads/buildings/concrete areas, etc). These types of areas typically humans want eradicated of insect life... It stands to be a logical consequence that 30% of the insects which traditionally live in non-impervious areas would disappear.
It seems to me that the study is alarmist and reporting results we should already know if we thought about it, like we start with "10,000 more cars are sold in this area" and then a study says "40,000 more tires were sold in this area!"
is out. What then are we going to eat when we run out of food?
Oh, I know. Soylent Green.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
A directed attack that was claimed would actually destroy the ecosystem up through birds
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Which just wound up seeing to it poor people got malaria
Now global warming has killed off insects by making conditions more favorable to them ? Is there no limit to its power.
You are lying.
From the study:
climate warming is the major driver of reductions in arthropod abundance, indirectly precipitating a bottom-up trophic cascade and consequent collapse of the forest food web
I don't respond to AC's.
Thankfully you only said it once. No one want's Beetlejuice popping up now days; all he does is run around saying "I'm BATMAN!"
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
Try local pollution and continuous habitat loss. When you destroy habitat (especially continuous habitat) you lose. Much more of a threat than climate change.
Insects can be entirely dependent on single plant species, or the timing of eggs hatching with new growth, etc... If the plant has started growing a month earlier, then the newly hatched bugs can't eat and die off.
Sure, on evolutionary time-scales enough bugs may survive to repopulate, or another species will show up that can take advantage of the new flora.
In either case, those things take time and may not be able to recover within human time scales
Seems much more likely that some industrial pollution from farms or industry is involved, maybe check nearby rivers / water flows. The amounts they are describing would seem to require a pretty large shift in climate which has not happened yet.
So what's different this time? I mean, the Medieval Warm Period, the Roman Warm Period, the Minoan Warm Period - all were hotter and longer than the current burst. I guess modern insects and mammals are just too wimpy...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Their not blaming every stupid thing on climate change asshole, their blaming changes to the environment on climate change! Get it? The environment is dominated by the climate, so climate change effects just about everything in the environment. Duh!
do you have any data to support this claim?
Insects are annoying. They are also extremely adaptable. They will adapt, or other insects will fill the void left by those that don't.
The world changes, fucking duh. Ecosystems change. Climate changes. Even when we're not involved.
Great news. Really great news.
Signed: Malaria doctors. Other doctors dealing with insect-transmitted illnesses which are prevalent in tropics.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
No, but insects that operate in hotter conditions are more numerous than those that can operate in colder ones.
This is well demonstrated in spread of malaria-bearing insects northwards as global warming progresses.
I'm super glad I don't have kids. Our rapidly changing ecosystem is going to make planet Earth really, really nasty for humans in the next century.
We're already starting to see mass migration due to climate change. That's going to get worse because currently habitable areas are going to become uninhabitable, and because of exponential population growth.
If we have some food systems collapse, as these insect studies seem to indicate is already happening, well... that's pretty scary.
Humans have grown technology much faster than than they have the ability to think about the repercussions of using it. This isn't good at all.
I don't respond to AC's.
They've told us that meat production is unsustainable and in the future we will have to eat insects.
Maybe that prediction won't come true after all.
J
That's evolution, right there, in front of your eyes! Those critters are getting smarter!
I've been spraying pesticides by the gallon. It's finally starting to show value for all of my work!
oh!! it was expected
Should I be complaining about systemd using vi or emacs? Tabs or spaces?
mosquitoes are still around, in droves.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Here in St. Petersburg, Russia, mosquitoes have all but disappeared in the city. There are fewer of them in the forests, too.
And leave him there, so he understands the impact of aridity on sustaining existing populations that he also depends on. It will be a thirsty if brief revelation, but I think he'll finally understand how powerful it can be.
I have been camping most of my life. Tell you what buckwheat I'll be glad to take on your desert you can try and survive in the everglades we'll see which one manages better.
It will also be fun to see how you feel about insect populations after a day or two there.
There has been a massive increase of diversion of the water from that rainforest.
https://www.fs.fed.us/global/i...
Lets not confuse the issue though ... it's all climate change.
Climate change affects everything, but in close proximity to humans it's generally better to look for other causes ... because we are far better at fucking things up.
The paper says :
"Given its long-term protected status (59), significant human perturbations have been virtually nonexistent within the Luquillo forest since the 1930s, and thus are an unlikely source of invertebrate declines. "
Which is either stupidity or a lie.
"Water diverted from the forest ranges from 7 to 17 percent of average flow throughout the year, with up to 54 percent of flow diverted from individual watersheds (table 5). A much higher percentage of average flow is diverted when intakes outside of the forest are considered (table 6)."
https://www.fs.fed.us/global/i...
Indeed.
"Given its long-term protected status (59), significant human perturbations have been virtually nonexistent within the Luquillo forest since the 1930s, and thus are an unlikely source of invertebrate declines. "
"Water diverted from the forest ranges from 7 to 17 percent of average flow throughout the year, with up to 54 percent of flow diverted from individual watersheds (table 5). A much higher percentage of average flow is diverted when intakes outside of the forest are considered (table 6)."
These assertions are not mutually compatible.
What is different is that now the jet steam isn't pushing the weather like it used to do the hot periods today last 3-5 days longer. An interesting study showed that the closer to climatology you are for a career or knowledge the more likely you are to accept climate change. It also showed that individuals will become increasingly more skeptical depending on how little they know. Thus, judging by your comment you seem to know absolutely nothing about climate science. What I still don't get is even though conservatives are more traditional with their preferences they don't mind that in the case of the environment it doesn't matter if it is different from what they grew in. I suppose cheering for their team is more important. I was going to hunt down a link to the article but I don't feel like it.
I grew up in western Canada and have a vivid memory of the sheer mass of bugs that would get splooshed on the windshield, hood and radiator of dad's car when we went on summer holidays either east to Saskatchewan or west to BC on the no. 1 highway. Hell, I still sometimes have nightmares about the one summer when the grasshoppers flew into the car and were just blindly smashing their guts against the rear window as we drove through some godawful rural Alberta/Sask secondary highway to who knows where...
Now, moving me & my wife's stuff to the BC west coast over 6-8 trips by truck, not once have I needed to scrape the bug apocalypse off of my vehicle's hood. This alone tells me there is a definite collapse of invertebrate populations going on, as we speak, worldwide.
And I never thought of all things, *bees* would be something we'd have to worry about. Yet now we fret each summer about bee populations. This is not normal.
Looks you never been to the tropics
Looks like*
They discounted all other potential sources without justification or references. Diverting up to 54% of the water of watersheds inside the rainforest is significant enough by fucking common sense that it requires justification to discount.
Of course fucking common sense as well as normal common sense is in short supply, especially among modern scientists ... the ones in 2007 were a little more honest.
What I refuted was their assertion there were no other significant perturbations.
The insects are clearly in cahoots with the scientific community and are hiding out of site in a bid to trick the politicians into action.
Rate of change is different. Insects can move, just not fast enough when the change is hundreds of times faster than anything natural outside of an asteroid strike.
And even there, the great dying took centuries, and that was an asteroid plus the entire Siberian flats turning into a magma pond.
Here, we're still seeing change maybe twice that rate
That's pretty unusual.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Have you ever heard of hypo or hyperthyroidism? Hypo or Hyperthermia? They are common prefixes that mean specific things in the scientific community. If you didn't have such a lower user number I'd accuse you of being a Russian shill with the way that you're trying to use ignorance as an argument. Insects thrive in the climate that they are adapted to. Go put a small shorthair dog outside in the winter and see if it freezes or not. Because huskies do well in the cold, ALL dogs must right? Seriously. What's wrong with you?
You're forgetting several things.
1. When it was hotter, there was twice as much oxygen and no higher lifeforms.
2. The rate of change is greater than that from the asteroid strike that took out the dinosaurs. Rate of change, not magnitude, is what matters, as climate scientists keep pointing out.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
No. This is in Puerto Rico, a place devastated by a hurricane last year. Of course the invertebrae population is in decline. The ones who hitched a ride off the island did so. The rest fell to their environment getting ripped up. To link this to climate change would first require peoving that that particular hurricane was a DIRECT result of climate change. Otherwise you just have plausible theory.
Some scientist needs to see if the lowering of biomass correlates to the increase in c02 in the atmosphere.
Temperature change in this case may not be the key. It could be the change in the atmosphere.
Another consultant who stuck it out.
"We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx..."
Not really. Those doctors will be frankly terrified by the news. Maybe you'll understand why, maybe not. If you don't, and are interested, ask. If you aren't interested, I can't help.
However, expect people including people you know and care about to die of malaria and other tropical diseases in higher latitudes in very large numbers over the coming decades.
And that's not good news.
I
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
No, they didn't.
The judge ruled there was no case to answer, which is not the same as losing.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
How about stopping polution because of real-world benefits instead of a doomsday phrophecy as likely as armageddon or ragnarok. Im all for efficiencies and closed loop ecosystems, purely from the logic of it. Im turned off by people standing in town square preaching âoethe end is nighâ. I immediately shutdown discorse when someone leads with rediculous hyperbole.
Different insects prefer different climates.
Plenty of insects in Britain need the cold, which is why they're extinct in the south.
You're also assuming only one variable changes in isolation. Higher temperatures mean fewer plants suitable as a good source due to both higher temps and the consequent reduced rain.
Less rain means fewer puddles for eggs.
Rapid change, and this is the killer, means less time to migrate to a suitable new location.
I
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
The rate of change was slower, so more time to migrate and adapt.
Rainfall patterns due to more forest and thus lower albedo meant less impact on the environment.
More forest and more open grassland meant a larger reserve of insects, so greater genetic diversity, so greater capacity to endure.
More wildflower species in existence meant alternative food sources.
Don't look at one variable, if you want to understand anything
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Most insects can only survive in a very narrow band of temperatures. Anything above or below will kill them.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I've mentioned this before to family and friends.
When I was a kid (NOT THAT LONG AGO), I distinctly remember the HUNDREDS of lightning-bugs glowing. The night would pulse with flickering dots. We would run around and catch them and put them into jars and keep them overnight as lanterns.
Now, like, 10-15 years later, I have not seen more than a few dozen. It's just occasional blips. It doesn't matter where I go. It doesn't matter if I go home to my family's house where it was originally. I barely see them at all. If I tried to put them in a jar, I'd probably struggle to get more than twenty.
I think it is insecticides and herbicides. A recent study found roundup to be responsible largely for Honeybee Colony Collapse. You also have the huge amounts of insecticide people add to their lawns to control things like cinchbugs and snails, the vast amounts applied around peoples homes to control household pests, etc, the herbicides added to fields also affect insects and move up the food chain. All of this stuff washes with the rain into rivers and bodies of water and circulates through the environment.
The judge ruled there was no case to answer, which is not the same as losing
Being ordered to pay Trumps legal fees means she lost.
Agreed. While possible that a centigrade shift in temperature played a role it seems unlikely.. More likely would be agriculture in the area and the accompanying use of heavy amounts of pesticides and herbicides. We keep a lot of bee hives where I live and I know we try to talk to the surrounding farms around us to ask them not to spray over the fields when plants are in bloom. One careless farmer within a few miles can kill half our bees. Seems pretty lazy to attribute to climate change when there are so many other likely factors. It's also the least desirable contributor to the problem because if it is the primary reason... there's nothing those poorer countries can do. I would want to be very sure before attributing it to climate change because it seems to me almost an apologist position.
No, of course not, but it is absolutely true of the insects they were studying - and on top of that, the temperature changes we are talking about are still minor compared to mere seasonal variation - even in places that don't really have winter, there are still seasonal variations.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So what's different this time? I mean, the Medieval Warm Period, the Roman Warm Period, the Minoan Warm Period - all were hotter and longer than the current burst.
Well, the evidence suggests that you're probably wrong about the Medieval Warm Period, the Roman Warm Period and the Minoan Warm Period being hotter and longer than the current warming.
I guess modern insects and mammals are just too wimpy...
Or, I guess you could ignore the evidence and invent your own explanations...
Fanatically anti-fanatical
It has been reported before, I think also here on slashdot. It would be interesting to estimate if the missing insects (their body is made of carbon and other elements) had a significant role as a carbon sink. A back-on-the-envelope calculation gives me roughly 1% or less of the world CO2 production, but I am not very expert in this field.
Diverting up to 54% of the water of watersheds inside the rainforest is significant enough by fucking common sense that it requires justification to discount.
That's not what your quote says. It says 7%-17% percent overall, with up to 54% of individual watersheds. You have provided no evidence to substantiate that they were studying in an area that had any significant reduction in the watershed, and no evidence to substantiate that a reduction of that magnitude would have the effect of reducing the insect population by between 75% and 87.5%.
Also from what I read of the report you linked, the water diversion happens between the rain forest and the ocean. That's after it left the area they were studying, which leads me to wonder if it even matters at all. Really, you seem to desperately grasping at straws. Personally, I think the scientists, who had previously studied the insect population in the rain forest, would have noticed if it was now dried out to the point that the majority of insects can no longer survive.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
what idiots, jumping on the "it's all climate change" bandwagon.
destroying forests for farmland with pesticides and herbicides is the cause.
I, for one, welcome our new lack of insect overlords
For all that is good and holy just SHUT UP. You're just guessing bullshit and trying to use your opinion to disprove scientific study!
A "small" variation can cause a cascade of effects to ripple through a complex system. Some years, because of a slightly less harsh winter, you have earlier hatching of bees, bigger colonies, and yellowjackets are a bigger pain in the ass. If you have rain at the right points during the season it can suppress honey bees and you'll have less yields of both crops and honey.
If you have a continual shift year after year even small changes add-up and flow through the system. It's the butterfly effect writ large. Go read about colony collapse disorder in bees and how complicated and confusing it is.
Read about how DDT passed through the environment.
Read about how heavy metals filter through the food change in increasing quantities until they finally settle in different species of fish - which we are told NOT to eat because we've fucked it all up so bad.
Seriously. Do really conflate your messed up opinion with science? Do you put forward conspiracy theories and hate on vaccines because of the evil Autism?
I said "up to 54%". As or the intakes being outside the rainforest, I quoted the relevant part already ... but I guess I can just do it again.
"Water diverted from the forest ranges from 7 to 17 percent of average flow throughout the year, with up to 54 percent of flow diverted from individual watersheds (table 5). A much higher percentage of average flow is diverted when intakes outside of the forest are considered (table 6)."
Why there are intakes in the forest at all I have no idea, but it is what it is ... which is to say a significant perturbation, something the current researchers maintained did not exist. Maybe those scientists were as perceptive as you, or maybe there is a need to manufacture a consensus.
So they say, but it makes no sense - insects thrive in warmer climates.
Do you have a citation for that conclusion? And no, "common sense" is not scientific evidence.
Projection.
Where's the study of the actual effects, in a controlled lab environment, of a 2C temperature increase on the creatures they're saying are so negatively impacted? There are none? Really? I'm shocked. (No, I'm not actually shocked).
What they're basically saying is my dog will die if I raise the temperature in my house from 20C to 22C. Or if I take him outside in the summer, I guess by their logic he'll spontaneously combust and start a forest fire.
There is so little science or scientific method being applied to "climate science." You get some people who claim to be scientists who will go observe something then jump STRAIGHT to a conclusion of "climate warming." And they wonder why they have such a credibility problem.
You should make a trip to the arctic if you want to see a lot of mosquitoes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Go to soylentnews if you want to see jmorris's posts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
I'm going to guess that you're thinking "oh he probably doesn't know that global warming is pushing the belt of biological viability of malaria-carrying insects north, and I'm going to pretend to be a wise-ass about it".
Now go read what we're actually talking about, and comprehend why you're wrong in both yours assumption about me, and your assumption about the increase in malaria deaths due to things discussed here. The only thing that is making malaria issues worse is the progression of the strains immune to drugs due to people not taking full doses as necessary in East and South Asia.
Mosquito eradication is one of the primary limiters of spread of both those types of malaria, and the types that are treatable.
Make up your minds already.
I've already been told I had to worry about global warming resulting in the disease-carrying insect population growing exponentially and putting us all at tremendously increased risk.
Now it's a "massive insect loss"?
When you keep contradicting yourself, people eventually stop paying attention. *That's* the first problem the global warmists have to solve - agree amongst themselves. You can't call it "settled science" when you make diametrically opposed predictions.
My last one was this September. It was actually nice this year, as summer was dry. Not many of them in Lapland.
Previous summer though, more mosquitoes in Lapland than people on the planet.
Yeah, I am suspicious of pesticide use as well. Some of them stick around for a while, so the effects can be cumulative.
I don't know that it is climate change, but what explains Germany's 76% decline in flying insects in pristine nature preserve habitat? That shit has me worried.
"In 2014, an international team of biologists estimated that, in the past 35 years, the abundance of invertebrates such as beetles and bees had decreased by 45 percent. In places where long-term insect data are available, mainly in Europe, insect numbers are plummeting. A study last year showed a 76 percent decrease in flying insects in the past few decades in German nature preserves."
Boy are you're butthurt from having had to go off your comfort zone of dogma in that discussion and into actual science, and having your ass handed to you in the process.
I guess I'll write that as a good deed of the day.
"The study's authors implicate climate change in the loss of tropical invertebrates. "
How is this NOT a good thing?
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Climate Scientists are like Creationists, they don't believe in evolution.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Twice as much oxygen is probably a good thing for some humans. Certainly for those with sickle cell anemia.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Bad for him; President Trump yesterday signed a bill to clean up the garbage gyres.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
That's ok, the greater oxygen content of the atmosphere combined with the malaria pressure will just increase the sickle cell anemia subspecies to compensate.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
No need to worry CLIMATE CHANGE can do everything!
Lost your car keys? CLIMATE CHANGE!
Icy roads on the way to work CLIMATE CHANGE!
Hurricane in Florida Cli...oh sorry that was SUPER TRUMP!
You're still butthurt because you don't understand science I see. Don't worry about it.
Also, you're my first hater that actually stuck around on slashdot. Thanks!
I can think of multiple other sources of pollution that would as likely if not more so to cause this than temperature change. Plastics pollution would be the most obvious choice and in terms of invertebrates and reproduction rates actually somewhat supported by studies.
But in terms of insect lifecycles (and even humans), the changes aren't anywhere close to "rapid". Also, higher temperatures generally mean increased plant growth; I'm sure you can find some FUD study claiming the opposite nowadays, but simply look at the biodiversity of the warm climates on Earth compared to the cold climates (which comprise a much larger area). Sure there are deserts which are hot, but those are more due to their geography and why they do not generate clouds. Increased energy in the atmosphere will lead to MORE rain.
If you actually believe that evolution makes species better, then you better explain what "better" means. I'm pretty sure survival of the fittest just means being able to survive the given environment, not being some subjective "better" species.
Beetlejuice.
There, that's three now.
Where is he ?!?
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
You're forgetting several things.
1. When it was hotter, there was twice as much oxygen and no higher lifeforms.
2. The rate of change is greater than that from the asteroid strike that took out the dinosaurs. Rate of change, not magnitude, is what matters, as climate scientists keep pointing out.
Both of these statements are myths. Even the MWP was hotter, and the change was just as fast.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
I will laugh myself unconscious when some vile insignificant bug like nitrogen fixing bacteria suddenly go extinct and you starve to death. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing. If you become the most important species left standing then there is nothing else left to feed yourself with. Also expect to have to exterminate all those people living somewhere that changed to uninhabitable first because they will want your lunch too if you still have one. It is also far more cost effective to stop the biosphere from dying out than it is to be try and be a winner on a world with a failed biosphere.
Unless you are the 1% of course because they think their money will save them. You do know that most of what passes for political discourse these days is the paid for opinions of the 1%?
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
Mutations are random. So, no, that's bad from an evolutionary standpoint.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Cheap shots are like bad whiskey - they only look good on the outside.
Climate scientists technically do not believe in evolution because science is not a belief system. They do, however, accept evolution - on the scale of hundreds of thousands to millions of years. The speed everyone else accepts it as being for all higher lifeforms.
Climate change due to humans is taking place hundreds, maybe thousands, of times too fast for that. That matters.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
It's relevant because oxygen levels affect insects, what they can survive, where they can survive, how large they become.
That warming was brief. Brief spells do not a climate make. There was no significant warming, from a climate standpoint, from that strike.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
During the Carboniferous, oxygen was 40%. Last I heard, 40% is twice 20%.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Ummm, no, it doesn't. The case was not thrown out with prejudice.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Actually, they are. A century is three to four generations in humans. That's nothing. Humans have barely changed in the last 1.8 million years.
Insects have barely changed in 250 million years.
You can't expect both to handle a 4'C rise and an O2 fall in the next 50 years.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
If (Character.Status = "Knows_About_NPC")
{
Deny();
Deflect();
Accuse();
}
Unfortunately Turkey's efforts in controlling malaria are rather fragile in its South-East, which puts entire South European region at risk. Luckily as you note, the risk is not significant as long as preventative measures are in place.
But it most certainly does not eliminate the risk, and vectors will likely come through the regional instability causing failure of malaria controls combined with improvement of habitat suitability for malaria as global warming progresses.
The plural of anecdote is not data.
Trying to get a mob to take someone out to the desert to dehydrate isn't an argument either.
That's kind of like saying humans haven't changed in 65 million years because that's when the first primate popped up.
All that means is that species that are slow to adapt die and species that are quick to adapt survive.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I didn't say that we would survive....Though we have one advantage: technological evolution can happen extremely quickly.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Yes. And so those species better able to survive the new environment, better able to adapt, will survive. Those that can't, didn't deserve to.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
But that won't happen, because some OTHER bug will just take its place.
Nobody said we were going to be the last species standing. The rule is adapt or die. If we can't adapt, then we die.
I suggest we stop trying to freeze our favorite climate and start adapting.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Mutations are random, but we already know of one hypermutative species, the tardigrade.
Those that are able to adapt, will survive. Those that don't, will go extinct. The question is, will we adapt, or will we waste a bunch of resources trying to fight the change?
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Evolution can happen in a single generation, and does all the time.
TECHNICAL evolution, which our species and a few others are capable of, can happen even faster.
Adapt or die is the rule, but I see nothing in this situation that is going to prevent those species able to adapt from doing so.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
They can attribute all they want regarding a changing climate. I no longer believe anything I hear or read about climate change.
/. can stop posting these stories.
As far as I'm concerned,
Circle the wagons and fire inward. Entropy increases without bounds.
Ummm, no, it doesn't. The case was not thrown out with prejudice.
okay. Go with that. She lost round 1.
Washington post says
Judge throws out Stormy Daniels’s defamation lawsuit against Trump
A federal judge on Monday dismissed a lawsuit from adult-film actress Stormy Daniels that claimed President Trump defamed her when he suggested she had lied about being threatened to keep quiet about their alleged relationship.
U.S. District Judge S. James Otero in Los Angeles ruled that Trump’s speech was protected by the First Amendment as the kind of “rhetorical hyperbole” normally associated with politics and public discourse in the United States.” He ordered Daniels, whose given name is Stephanie Clifford, to pay Trump’s legal fees.
Trump attorney Charles Harder cheered Otero’s decision.
“No amount of spin or commentary by Stormy Daniels or her lawyer, Mr. Avenatti, can truthfully characterize today’s ruling in any way other than total victory for President Trump and total defeat for Stormy Daniels,” Harder said in an emailed statement.
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
I understand how EVOLUTION works, to build ecosystems. If one fails, another will take its place. There is nothing magical about it.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Then explain the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade, which is so hyper evolutionary that it picks up new genes from what it eats.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Oh yes, it cannot possibly be cold in Antarctica if it's hot in the Kalahari,is that it? The world is a complex place, and the same change can have different effects in different places. Is it so hard to grasp that making hot places unbearably so, and temperate places more jungle like might not have such effects?
Were that I say, pancakes?