If scientists want us to take the purported global warming threat seriously, they have to stop with the panic mongering. Here’s the latest example: Scientists have issued a study warning that global warming will cause mass lizard extinction. From the story:
Scientists warn in a research paper published on Thursday that if the planet continues to heat up at current rates, 20 percent of all lizard species could go extinct by 2080. “The numbers are actually pretty scary,” said lead researcher Barry Sinervo from the University of California Santa Cruz. “We’ve got to try to limit climate change impacts right now or we are sending a whole bunch of species into oblivion.” A mass extinction of lizards, which eat insects and are eaten by birds, could have devastating effects up and down the food chain, but the extent is difficult to predict.
Wait a minute: The “current rate” of warming is negligible–even Professor Jones acknowledged that there has been “no statistically significant warming for the last 15 years.”
Why study lizards? The scientists were alarmed that populations appear to have dropped in some areas–and that got them to worrying about mass extinction. So, they decided to do some surveys and drop models of lizards in the searing Mexican desert to study the impact:
Sinervo made models of lizards with thermal monitors and left them in the searing sun of southern Mexico to measure how the reptiles would react to temperatures at different altitudes.
The world is not going to turn into the searing Mexican desert! Moreover, the earth has been far warmer in its history than is projected in even Al Gore’s fervid imagination–and somehow life thrived–most particularly reptiles.
The earth is incredibly dynamic. Species rise and fall, populations move to new locales, and others move in to fill the vacant niche. Habitats are in a state of constant change. Whatever warming we cause will have burdens and benefits–and life will adjust.
But they will keep it up–issuing dire study after dire study after dire study based on computer models, and lizard models–heck, why not models based on repeats of Death Valley Days?–all in a (hopefully) vain effort to scare us into destroying our economies and ceding power to an unelected international scientocracy intent on controlling how we live.
This is what they don’t seem to get: Panic mongering is a classic example of the law of diminishing returns. The more they beat the panic drum, the less the people will believe them. Indeed, by now, the only people who care about these stories are the MSM, which can’t get enough of them, and the already hysterical. The rest of us have already tuned out.
May 13th, 2010 | 8:35 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Wesley J. Smith. Wesley J. Smith said: Global Warming Hysteria: The Lizards Are All Going to Die! » Secondhand Smoke | A First Things Blog http://shar.es/m4Wug [...]
May 13th, 2010 | 9:04 pm
I predict there will be several commenters “modeling” hysterical reactions to this article!
This is a surer prediction than that global warming will result in the demise of some percentage of lizard species by some date.
When the computer modelers talk about continued warming “at today’s rate” it illustrates how tied to their models they are and how little they relate to the reality around them.
Of course, the cry is always to “act now” because tomorrow is too late. A sure sign of hysteria. I think the real reason to “act now” is because they rightly fear that tomorrow there will be more scientific information that shows how unnecessary and even harmful it would be to “act now.” In other words, “act now, before it’s too late” to persuade you!
May 14th, 2010 | 8:57 am
Wes: “Species rise and fall”
Yep, and which category would we like to be in? Risers or fallers?
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
May 14th, 2010 at 10:38 am
padraig: Only exceptional humans get to choose. I worry that the utopians want to push us into failing.
May 14th, 2010 | 10:25 am
Smith,
Did you actually read Sinvero’s paper in Science?
I’ll bet you didn’t. You never seem to; yet you comment on science all the time – without analyzing it or even understanding it.
Folks,
Since Smith presumably didn’t read Sinervo’s (et al) paper and I did, and since Smith lies all the time about scientific findings, I will shed some light on this.
This paper looked at Mexican lizard populations because recently many lizards have been going extinct there. Lizards, BTW, should be very tolerable to climate change. However, as springtime has been, apparently, coming earlier* due to climate change, lizard breeding has been disrupted – leading to population drops. Then, other members of the research team did some statistical modeling using various CO2 and warming estimates/models linked to climate change and they basically predicted many lizards would go extinct in about 70 years and they have likely crossed a point of no return.
70 years?
For those who want a serious discussion of this area of science, it will hinge on analyzing the models and how well we think the predictions are – these models also necessitate population dynamics analysis, thus coupling several models.
If I recall, Sceloporus has already gone extinct in Mexico.
Scientists did not give a warning as Smith claims. They just released a paper, with a hypothesis and prediction, based upon the research and experiments/analysis they performed.
This is how science works. If Smith can’t grasp this, he may be better suited to go hang out with Yogis in India who seek immortality by-claiming- not eating or drinking and sit around writing ridiculous spiritual nonsense they make up in addition to their other lies.
*think about spring coming earlier, one consequence of climate change (different from global warming) is that, should warming be mitigated, you can still have seasonal change. Should “buffering” mechanisms (increased precipitation and cloud cover, for exampe) in climate mitigate warming forcing factors (CO2 release from man’s fossil fuel combustion), you may get shorter winters, with no NET warming (summer is cooler from more rain and cloud cover). Hence, climate change occurs with no warming. Very complicated stuff.
Sure, it’s easier to just lie about science and medicine than to actually do it.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/328/5980/894
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
May 14th, 2010 at 10:32 am
And once again, David, you miss the point entirely. It isn’t about the lizards.
May 14th, 2010 | 1:13 pm
Yes, only a blog like this knows anything.
May 14th, 2010 | 2:34 pm
Climate change… it’s like authoring a study that definitively proves the Lions will have between zero and 16 wins next year.
May 14th, 2010 | 6:35 pm
I can’t even imagine how intensely stupid one has to be to believe that man is not dangerously polluting the biosphere. you really have to be [deleted epithet]
JMJ
May 15th, 2010 | 6:28 am
[...] Smoke – Wesley J. Smith: Global Warming Hysteria: The Lizards Are All Going to Die! : Here it is – evidence for “an unelected international scientific scientocracy” [...]
May 16th, 2010 | 10:17 pm
Still trotting out the “no significant warming in the past 15 yrs” nonsense?
May 16th, 2010 | 10:27 pm
Wes typed: “Whatever warming we cause will have burdens and benefits–and life will adjust.”
Let them eat cake!
How will exceptional Bolivians adjust to no fresh water because industrialized nations won’t slow their greenhouse gas emissions? Migrate or die?
How will exceptional Ugandans adjust to increased drought because industrialized nations won’t slow their greenhouse gas emissions? Migrate or die?
How will exceptional Americans adjust to heat waves because industrialized nations won’t slow their greenhouse gas emissions? Adjust our thermostats?
June 13th, 2010 | 8:10 am
Discovering Shell-Shocks and PTSD 14-18 AEF Study (T-001)…
I found your entry interesting thus I’ve added a Trackback to it on my weblog :)…
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