Fear of global warming is driving some people absolutely bonkers. Case in point: I was watching the news tonight from Perth and saw some professor opining that millions of feral (non indigenous) Australian animals should be killed in the name of fighting global warming. After chuckling that such a recommendation wouldn’t exactly endear him to the animal rights folk, I thought–this is nuts! So, I looked it up. Yup. It’s a serious proposal. From the story:
According to a study commissioned by the Nature Conservancy and the Pew Environment Group, 9.7 billion tonnes of carbon is stored in the nation’s central forests, grass and woodlands. However, through better land management, such as culling wild animals, reducing wildfires, limiting tree clearing and allowing vegetation to regrow, another 1.3 billion tonnes of carbon could be stored by 2050 – the equivalent of taking 7.5 million cars off the road every year for the next 40.
Pew spokesman Barry Traill said a program of culling feral camels was already underway, but needed to be extended. “When feral animals belch they release methane, a particularly noxious greenhouse gas, and every single camel or water buffalo releases the equivalent of around one tonne of carbon dioxide each year,” News.com.au quoted him as telling reporters in Canberra.“When you’ve got hundreds of thousands, in some cases millions, of these feral animals, it’s a very large amount of pollution each year.”
This will never happen–the outcry would be enormous. Nor should it. But it shows how global warming hysteria has so distorted some of the big brains’ thinking that they propose ever more extreme–and cruel–policies in the name of saving the planet. I repeat: This is nuts.
July 14th, 2010 | 10:04 am
[...] First Things (blog) [...]
July 14th, 2010 | 10:34 am
“…reducing wildfires…”
Reducing wildfires? The aborigines have practice fire-stick farming for millennia to the point where many Australian plants actually need fire to reproduce. And without this natural clearing wood fuel builds up increasing the risk of fire such as the Black Saturday Victorian fire.
Thanks to eco-activism there is so much more unburned fuel that it’s a danger to humans. Aborigines came to this land and did what they could to survive and the land adapted. Now white man has come with his agriculture but the flora is still adapted to regular fire. What are you going to do? You can have your green fantasy but this is reality.
Still, it would be good to go out and shoot all those stray animals. I wonder what camel tastes like?
July 14th, 2010 | 11:33 am
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Vince Humphreys. Vince Humphreys said: SHS: Global Warming Hysteria: Kill Millions of Australian Feral Animals to Save the Planet! http://bit.ly/9IReKv #tcot [...]
July 14th, 2010 | 12:17 pm
Not sure I understand your position. Shouldn’t Australia have the right to control pests? If the camels are destroying valuable vegetation and contributing to global warming why shouldn’t their population be reduced? In fact, since the camels represent a non-native species one could make the case for their complete elimination from Australia. It would be similar to 10s of millions of feral cattle roaming US grasslands. We wouldn’t allow it. Even now in my home state, we have shoot-to-kill-at-anytime rules for feral swine.
July 14th, 2010 | 12:23 pm
What makes you think it will never happen? And why shouldn’t it?
Australians have, on numerous occasions, attempted to control or eliminate feral animals (e.g. using myxomatosis to control rabbits, shooting feral water buffaloes, the ongoing campaign against cane toads, etc). Why do you think that is nuts?
Whatever you might think of global warming as a motivation, there are other excellent reasons to control feral mammals, reduce wild-fires and limit tree clearing in Australia’s largely xeric environment.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
July 14th, 2010 at 6:43 pm
Nickp: Proper culling is fine. This is nuts.
July 14th, 2010 | 12:39 pm
Also note the 3rd hand attribution to the spokesman’s quote on belching camels. The Gaea Times reporting that “News.com.au quoted him as telling reporters in Canberra”.
According to the EPA domesticated ruminants (including 1.2 billion cattle) generate about 28% of methane released into the atmosphere by human activities.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
July 14th, 2010 at 6:41 pm
It is ludicrous what global warming hysterics want to do. Culling for the immediate environment and to prevent animals from starving, as happens in Africa with elephants, horses in the west, and deer, is proper environmental management. Mass slaughter over global warming hysteria is unwarranted and based on soft science at best. It won’t happen because the popular outcry would be deafening.
July 14th, 2010 | 1:13 pm
This is crazy! Instead of looking to the source of the problem for solutions, which are man made, they seek to kill wildlife which occurs naturally on the planet. Granted, these animals may not be native to that area of the world but that doesn’t mean they should be killed! They said it themselves, “the equivalent of taking 7.5 million cars off the road.” Why not just make the effort to actually take these cars off the road instead of killing a species of animal that no more caused this build up of carbon dioxide than the earth itself? The reason that carbon dioxide levels are so high is due to human involvement and that is where experts should be looking to stop it, not an animal population.
July 14th, 2010 | 3:34 pm
I know that this is going to make sound old-fashioned or something like that but isn’t internet great? Here you are in Australia, on your trip, and you are able to keep in touch with your readers just by posting your articles! Old-fashioned or not, I think it’s really nice.
July 14th, 2010 | 8:33 pm
You do know where this is going, don’t you Wesley? Soon humans existence will be seen in the same light. The only way to save the earth from global warming is to have government mandated euthanasia of most of Australia’s human population.
July 15th, 2010 | 3:02 am
I do indeed agree with you, here Wesley, this is nuts. One thing that I have noticed about you, on animal issues, and other issues, is some moderation. I disagree with you when you assert that some animals should be killed, for the benefit of humans, but at least you don’t advocate killing ALL of them.
July 15th, 2010 | 3:04 am
Bret mate you are spot on, that’s what may soon happen.
July 15th, 2010 | 7:30 am
Wesley,
In the context of Australia, “proper culling” of many non-indigenous species would constitute completely eliminating them. Culling elephants in Africa and deer in the U.S. involves control of native species whose populations are out of whack for various reasons (loss of predators, loss of habitat, etc). Horses in the western US are an interesting case: technically non-indigenous but they actually evolved in the U.S. and went extinct around the time humans first arrived. There’s an argument to be made that they have a role in maintaining native ecosystems. Feral camels and water buffaloes in Australia do not, as far as I know, provide any benefits that might mitigate the tremendous damage that they do.
Given the third hand nature of this report, as indicated by Jeffery above, I’m willing to bet that the Australian government was already culling camels and water buffaloes for various reasons, and someone said “hey, this might also help global warming.”
July 15th, 2010 | 6:04 pm
Well gee, folks! We humans blow our own obnoxious digestive gases into the atmosphere. Are the “all-knowing” and “wise” oligarchs of the bureaucratic nanny-state going to “cull” some of us too . . . so that all the little horned toads, mosquitos, snakes and rabbits will have more natural habitat to frolic freely, as “Gaia” intended them to, in lower-carbon air? And how EXACTLY do I make myself “useful” to the nanny-state so that I will not be one of those “culled”? Must I break my wind into an environmentally-approved glass bottle — made from “organic” hypo-allergenic and sterilized sand — that is only manufactured by unionized immigrant labor working in a solar-powered “green” building?
Hey, just asking. I would not want to offend the “green” police.
July 16th, 2010 | 6:52 am
Wow! I had no idea that there were camels in Australia. Herds of camels roaming the Australian wilderness — awesome! How did they get there?
July 16th, 2010 | 9:46 am
It is nuts.
Except for cane toads.
“Cane Toads: An Unnatural History” (1988).
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0130529/
Youtube excerpt:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mvV8OT-mmE
July 17th, 2010 | 9:42 am
Wes,
Are you about ready to retire your “Global Warming Hysteria:” tag? Given the recent reports exonerating the climate scientists, and the fact that the Earth is warming at a frightening rate, perhaps it’s time for you to take a more rational approach. As Beck, Limbaugh, Inhofe, Hannity, FOX, Gateway Pundit, conservatives, Watts and you are proven wrong daily, the wisest approach may be to do what most of your colleagues have done recently and just stop talking about global warming.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
July 17th, 2010 at 7:29 pm
No. Global warming hysteria refers to the wild proposals and economy destroying “remedies,” and wild predictions of DOOM! made to promote the wild proposals and economic destroying “remedies,” not to the debate over the existence and extent of AGW.
July 17th, 2010 | 10:35 pm
And what are the “wild proposals” and “economy destroying remedies” you repeatedly reference but never explain.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
July 18th, 2010 at 6:00 am
Good grief, Jeffrey. Research the site.
July 18th, 2010 | 5:13 am
Wesley,
Global warming “hysteria” exists (though it is hardly as widespread as you make it out to be) but at the other end of the spectrum lies something equally dangerous: complacency.
AGW is, to the best of our knowledge, a reality. The question is how do we react, what steps do we take, what lifestyle and economic changes are required to mitigate the risks involved?
Reflexively dismissing every other proposal or prediction as evidence of “hysteria” is hardly a useful posture to adopt and leads to the development of systematic cognitive biases. This article is a case in point: the primary thrust of the Pew Environment Group report was not the mass slaughter of belching animals but rather improving carbon storage in the Outback through better land management.
From another news article:
These feral animals are already being culled – and for reasons which have nothing to do with global warming fears, hysterical or otherwise (Some news reports describe the numbers of camels and water buffalo as, in some areas, approaching “plague proportions”). The report basically says, as Nickp pointed out earlier, “this reduces carbon emissions and should be part of our larger climate change strategy”. Doesn’t seem too radical to me.
July 18th, 2010 | 6:36 pm
Good grief, Wes, no thanks. Working Group III of the IPCC report estimates that to keep atmospheric CO2 at less than double our current levels will reduce GDP growth rate less than 0.12% per year. While not trivial this impact on annual GDP hardly supports your claim of “economy destroying remedies”. Do you have more authoritative information to support your claims?
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
July 18th, 2010 at 7:17 pm
If you care, do a search function. But you don’t.
July 20th, 2010 | 11:20 am
Wes,
I took your advice and searched “economy destroying” and found two posts where you typed it (been there, done that) and one referencing a WSJ editorial (again with no evidence). I guess my question is, “On what evidence do you base your repeated claim that global warming remediation will “destroy economies”?” It’s a very serious claim. If you don’t have evidence, why not say so, and state it as your opinion? I have given you ample evidence that your claim is false.
Also, I recall you clowning online during last winter’s blizzard in DC, posting pictures of the Inhofe clan frollicking in the snow: Gore’s New Home. Comedy gold… pure comedy gold. Is global warming so funny this summer?
NOAA: June, April to June, and Year-to-Date Global Temperatures are Warmest on Record
July 15, 2010
We can slow global warming and eventually turn it around for a real but, as it turns out, slight economic cost. The cost of doing nothing, as conservatives propose, is likely very high. You repeatedly say your reason for supporting the status quo is economic yet you can’t or won’t support your position with even the tiniest bit of evidence. “Do a search!”
In my opinion, you argue bioethics admirably (even when I disagree), but your position on global warming is not based on argument or reason. Is your position based on an anti-scientific method belief, or a belief that humans are incapable of harming the planet, or a human superiority position, or a belief that a god will save us?
July 27th, 2010 | 4:57 am
Given that livestock production is an almighty culprit in greenhouse gas emissions, why not kill off all livestock? Oops – silly me – you do, pretty much.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
July 27th, 2010 at 9:30 am
Silly you? That’s one of the goals of the hysterics, to stop or mostly eliminate meat eating.
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