In a nutshell — this poor little rat lived on a outcrop in the ocean near Papua New Guinea that was 300m long. It’s now gone, and some people blame “climate change”. A thousand tide gauges show the oceans are rising at 1mm a year. We also know the world was much hotter 7,000 years ago, and sea levels rose 125m in the 7,000 years before that. Somehow the rat survived that massive natural shift. Now though, its precarious existence was destroyed by your air conditioners, cars and because you ate too much meat. Modern witchcraft.
Revealed: first mammal species wiped out by human-induced climate change
Human-caused climate change appears to have driven the Great Barrier Reef’s only endemic mammal species into the history books, with the Bramble Cay melomys, a small rodent that lives on a tiny island in the eastern Torres Strait, being completely wiped-out from its only known location.
It is also the first recorded extinction of a mammal anywhere in the world thought to be primarily due to human-caused climate change.
So despite the non-stop fear campaigns about polar bears, possums, wallabys, bats, hares, pikas, this is it — the sole actual example of an extinction of a mammal living in the most high risk situation there is that is “thought” to be due to man-made climate change? So zero other extinctions. More likely zero extinctions “due to man-made weather” full stop.
The rodent, also called the mosaic-tailed rat, was only known to live on Bramble Cay a small coral cay, just 340m long and 150m wide off the north coast of Queensland, Australia, which sits at most 3m above sea level.
And here’s the graph of sea levels recorded in the best tide gauges at Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands according to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. Here is the mammal-killer sea-level rise. Spot the effect of increasing CO2?
…
When this graph begins in 1994, CO2 levels were at 356ppm. Now they are 50ppm higher. How much difference did 50 ppm make?
Graph from Pacific Sea Level Monitoring Project, Monthly Data Report – April 2016
Note that the rate per year recorded in the same document is 4 – 5mm a year. The start date of 1994 has a big effect — Mt Pinatubo probably reduced sea-levels around the world, (see also this page) and some of the rise in the graph above is more about recovery from that natural low.
Table 1. Updated overall rates of sea level movement based on SEAFRAME data from
installation through April 2016.
PNG Rate per year since 1994 is 4.9mm -0.2
Solomon Is. Rate per year since 1994 is 4.3mm -0.3
Laugh for the day from ABC;
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-15/what-is-an-ice-age-explainer/7185002
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“There’s no chance of us going into an ice age now because the greenhouse gases we’ve put into the atmosphere during the industrial era have warmed the earth.”
Hooray we are saved! They are not keen to talk about the approaching cool mini dip.
The drift into a full blown ice age tipping point takes awhile, the world goes through desertification for 400 years before things become really serious.
180
el gordo don’t forget we have the LIA predicted mid/late next decade. We will be getting “desertification” then, in their droves, of course I am referring to “ex-warmists” deserting their “warmist belief system” because of the “obvious cooling climate” and that will be “cool comfort” for us “skeptics” having endured the “AGW Nonsense” for decades.
110
Well, Stephen Schnider (sp?) flip-flopped over “the coming ice age” (’70s) and Catastrophic Global Warming (2000). So there is a precident.
50
video: Schneider vs. Schneider
1978 Global Cooling Alarmism vs. 2008 Global Warming Alarmism
40
In this video David Dilley describes dangerous global cooling expected during the period 2019-2050 in accord with established natural climate cycles.
https://youtu.be/w4hbKF5-qUE
20
“They are not keen to talk about the approaching cool mini dip.”
Indeed.
A less active sun means less solar UV. Less energy absorbed and stored below the ocean themocline. There may be an 11 year delay for surface temperatures, but the Russians have got it right. While we may hope for a Dalton, we should prepare for a Maunder.
On that point, if “Climate scientists” were real scientists, they would be frantically trying to extrapolate empirical evidence of the LIA in the southern hemisphere, where we have few written records. We know what happens in the north, we don’t have a good answer on the South.
Australia, with its wide climate variability can easily laugh off a LIA. But regards agriculture we need to know what to move, where to move it and when to move it. Currently the climastrologist’s answers are “all your money”, “into subsidy farmer’s pockets” and “as soon as possible”. I fail to see this as a credible response to weakening solar activity.
160
‘While we may hope for a Dalton, we should prepare for a Maunder.’
According to Geoff Sharp the next Maunder type LIA won’t happen for a thousand years, so in the meantime I’ll be intellectually satisfied to see a string of cool wet summers and colder winters in Europe over the coming decade.
The mindless Klimatariat and associated warmist cretins will be forced to accept that the game is up, earthlings experienced similar conditions with the demise of the MWP and so obviously AGW doesn’t cause gorebull worming.
60
“According to Geoff Sharp the next Maunder type LIA won’t happen for a thousand years”.
Yes that is probably right – we will probably be amidst the next full scale Ice Age – “the Holocene Interglacial will be no more” – “it has gone to meet its maker” – “all statements to the effect that the Holocene Interglacial is a going concern are now inoperative” – “it is an X-Interglacial”.
20
‘We know what happens in the north, we don’t have a good answer on the South.’
http://jennifermarohasy.com/2007/07/the-little-ice-age-in-australia/
30
The ABC article states more or less correctly that minor changes in the earth’s tilt and orbit (ie. Milankovitch) cause the onset and spread of glacial periods, but it gives no hint of what causes these tilt/orbital changes.
That’s because, it then says, that increased atmospheric CO2 concentrations put there by Homo sapiens will prevent the next glacial period.
So a minute increase in earthly atmospheric CO2 concentration will prevent the gravitational impact of Jupiter and other celestial bodies from altering earth’s tilt/orbit ?
This sort of deliberately stupid, ignorant anti-science is why Cassandra suggests that the Renaissance is being reversed.
140
I noticed the sentence “An ice age is triggered when summer temperatures in the northern hemisphere fail to rise above freezing for years.”
If Summer temperatures are failing to rise above freezing then the ice age is already apparent rather than it being ‘triggered’.
Sounds like cause and effect are being confused (as it is for CO2 and temps)
20
I knew it. I knew it. I just knew it.
It was Aqbal letting his grain crops give off methane on the banks of the Euphrates River 10,000 years ago.
No wonder it’s so bloody hot today.
60
Forget this cooling alarmism, ABC only as recently as Landline on |June 6, complete with graphic footage, told us, “Rising temperatures spark ‘race to Tasmania’ for winemakers escaping heat”.
So, there you have it. The warming panic is still with us and you can forget the absurd notion of a coming freeze as pure scare mongering.
20
You quote Professor Snow Barlow. I attended the same university as the good professor – indeed I also attended his wedding on said Armidale campus all those years ago. Lovely bloke and a handy footballer in his day.
It has always been a mystery to me how easy it is/was to become a professor.
I am sure that the temperature data referred to by Barlow were accurately recorded by the many farmers involved. As always it is the interpretation which is the tricky part.
But what of the many other variables? Questions trip over themselves in their haste to be heard and answered. Just to mention a few:-
1. The Vines. Were they the same vines that existed in those 45 vineyards for up to 100 years? Even if the roots are the same I would expect that new and improved cultivars and perhaps even new varieties were grafted on to existing vines in some or all of the vineyards. Some vines would have been taken out and replaced. The replacement stock would have been superior in grape quality and other viticultural characteristics else they would not have been ‘modernised’. May be date ripening was earlier ????
2. Vine Management. Vine Management techniques have changed over time. Canopy management through pruning is now much more scientific. One aim of canopy management is to open up the vines to the sun to enhance both quantity and quality of crop production. Unless the 45 vineyards persisted doggedly with outmoded canopy management for up to 100 years then it is likely that ripening dates would have moved forward.
3. Viticulture: Universities, Technical Colleges and High Schools have developed a wide range of viticultural courses over the past 100 years. Soil moisture management, including by irrigation, is now much more scientific than it was 100 years ago. Of more significance is the attention to fertiliser application which is now much more scientific than it was 100 years ago. Unless the 45 vineyards under study had ignored moisture and soil nutrient management during the relevant time periods then this experiment is truly an uncontrolled one.
4. Carbon Dioxide: There is little doubt that the atmospheric concentration of CO2 has been increasing globally and in Australia for the past 100 years. CSIRO research together with that conducted by many other researchers worldwide confirms that atmospheric CO2 has a fertilising effect. The 45 vineyards under study will have experienced this atmospheric fertilisation effect. I have not checked the viticultural literature to find whether such an effect might be expected to advance or delay ripening date. My gut feeling is tat it would advance it.
So, with all possible respect to my old friend EWR (Snow) Barlow, I say that the remarks attributed to him are quite unscientific.
50
And why haven’t the so-called conservation and environmental groups expended some of their $billions on a survival habitat for this little creature instead of wasting it on promoting untruths and media misdirection?
Of course that would require them to do something positive or constructive.
The fact that all they do is whinge after the event demonstrates yet again it’s not about the science, it’s about the politics.
421
Oooh. A red thumb already.
I must be over the target.
260
I ♥ my red thumbs 🙂
202
Well in that case, Andy, I thought I’d give you some love.
30
Thank you.. I just add them together. 🙂
21
Red Thumb already? That’s good.
The red thumbs are the people who most need to read your comments.
50
First they need to pull their thumbs out of their arses
40
In reality, the disappearance of this rodent has more to do with genetic deterioration through prolonged and enforced inbreeding.
Terrorist prone groups among certain sections of humanity suffer from the same type of genetic deterioration.
190
True, but in those groups, it tends to present as decreased cognative ability.
70
Indeed. If you Google “iq 81 pdf templer” you will find a paper that proves that point…
10
My money would be on the seagulls and sea eagles swooping on the young rodents causing their eventual demise (ever seen what happens to those young turtles?)
Taste even better than swamp-rat (according to Shrek).
30
Perhaps the little dear just grew fins and swam off into sea!
GeoffW
10
Trilobites and now rat.
What next?
50
that’s simple – that decided to let it die..
http://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/sprat/public/publicspecies.pl?taxon_id=64477
– “this species is also a case study in how the role of natural and largely unpreventable processes, and the high cost of undertaking any recovery actions in such an isolated location, are important considerations when weighing up how and where conservation actions are directed”
so, it was decided by the environmental agency responsible to let this species die out. .
Exactly the same way as nearly happened with N USA’s Black Footed Ferret – the species was in decline for decades – in the mid 70’s the WWF started a fund to ‘save’ them.. I donated my hard earned school kid dollars and read with increasing disgust as the researchers ‘monitored’ the populations ongoing decline until in 1979 they were declared extinct – why had they not intervened?? This is when I began to doubt the experts.. They took millions and spent it watching and photographing them, but did not a thing to protect them. Luckily the US Fish and Wildlife Services found some and against the strict complaints of interference, they seized them and began a captive breeding program and reintroduction. Now there are a little over 1000 wild-born ones scampering about molesting everything in sight
as I also wrote elsewhere: this claim is rubbish on so many levels – NOAA http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends.html NOAA states the Weipa Australia sea level rise is 3.48mm +/- 1.54mm / year. That translates as between 2 and 5cm in the ten years not 20cm. Cays, or keys are not islands but shifting, ephemeral sand deposits and come and go with tides, cyclones and weather events. There has been a tsunami and a couple of bad cyclones through there and wouldn’t be a surprise to see the cay gone altogether but I see it’s still there. The species of rat sadly has not been recorded since 2007 – sightings since then are unconfirmed.. and sadly none in the latest 2 surveys. The upside is, this was a subspecies, most likely isolated from PNG and like the ‘Balinese tiger’ is named a subspecies for it’s location more than it’s genotype. You can think of this the same way as the ‘Rottnest Island Bogan’ species extinction events occurring every winter. the species flourishes on the mainland though..
100
SS Re #2
Might interfere with things like this
http://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2016/06/this-is-where-your-moneys-going-when-you-give-it-to-world-vision-in-laos.html
50
Our money hasn’t gone to WV for many a long year. We were disgusted by the palace they built for themselves in Springvale Road in Melbourne. Neither have we contributed to the ‘charities’ with highly overpaid executives and big advertising and who rabbit on about climate change. Several charities wiped themselves off our list permanently after they used full page ads in the Daily Telegraph in UK to spout about climate change.
One really good charity that has been drawn to our attention locally is the Mercy Ships one. The local link is with the Africa Mercy which is based in Madagascar. The work they do transforms very many lives…they are amazing.
30
Quick someone, build some turbines. In the name of ‘saving the reef’. ABC just said so.
160
Oh no, global warming has caused the extinct Red-faced Liocichla to return from the dead! It’s now found in Nepal.
40
Rats!
110
Copy of my posting at WUWT, slightly reworded:
If Google Earth has it right (big if) then Bramble Cay is 230km from Cape York and 57km from the PNG mainland.
I don’t think the rats got there by swimming. Maybe on flood debris? Boat? The Cay is right in front of the Fly River estuary, so their habitat could conceivably have been affected by the Ok Tedi disaster. Correction – ongoing disaster. It appears the mine is still discharging pollutants after all this time. Hey – let’s blame it on Ross Garnaut. He was on the BHP Board around that time.
130
Absolutely correct Martin
Ross Garnaut – the man who wrote Kevin Rudds “The Garnaut Climate Change Review”
A great way to turn the eyes off massive Ok Tedi Pollution to a harmless CO2 molecule!
A chameleon of the worst kind!
90
Garnaut was Chairman of Lihir Gold until 2010. Another disaster.
Some record, being associated with two of the worst pollution events that have occurred in this hemisphere.
Back in 1987, I was working at PNG University of Technology. We were asked to do an assessment of the Ok Tedi environmental impact assessment. A bit late as it turned out – the wall of the tailings dam had already collapsed once. One part of my contribution went something like – “An earth retaining wall is not going to last long in a country where there are minor tremours on a daily, sometimes hourly basis, and major tremours every few weeks … “
110
I used to fish Bramble cay in the 80’s and 90’s….. The melomys most likely get there by floating on debris flushed from the Fly river. You always get large logs, whole trees and masses of Nipa palm roots and trunks floating past the cay… and I mean lots, and big rafts of the stuff.
I never actually saw any of the little guys and only went ashore once. Bramble cay is a great Spanish Mackerel fishery but a terrible anchorage, didn’t fish Bramble much, preferred to fish Stephens Island and other Torres strait reefs and cays.
I[m guessing it wouldn’t take too long for an animal with such a short lifespan as this to inbreed and develop unique characteristics…. Apparently it only takes 50 generations for foxes to start to display domestication changes with changes to their appearance and behavior,(Google “Russian domesticated fox”). An inbred population of melomys isn’t really a “new species” as far as I’m concerned.
140
Send Comrade Tim up there to dig up some bones to see how long they have been there.
40
Send an honest scientist (geologist) up there to dig up some of the top soil in the remaining vegetation. I would like to see how long the cay has existed. It must have formed relatively recently. MWD perhaps?
10
Looks like it has been done.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2006GL028875/full
Just read the abstract but it looks like the cays are around 3000 years old. Hardly enough time for the rats to have evolved into a different species.
10
ooops! meant MWP (when Sadam was a glint in his ancestors’ eyes)
10
It is great to hear from some one who has actually been to Brmble Cay.
20
Key words ‘only KOWN location’ Note the disclaimer rising the POSSIBILITY of a population in PNG.
As you say a genetically unsustainable population of castaways.
20
BHP Bilton seems to have bad luck with dams – Oki Tedi, Bento Rodriquez.
00
Looking at the BoM graphs the strong El Niños of 1997-98 and 2015-16 certainly had an effect on the western tropical Pacific sea levels, I understand there is a corresponding sea level rise in the eastern tropical Pacific.
80
Depending on what ENSO and the PDO are doing, sea level rises and falls up to six inches (16 cms) alternatively in the Eastern and Western Pacific.
40
Sea levels rise and fall by far more than that each day where I live.
60
That is why you are going to die … eventually.
40
You mean they can’t find one from a helicopter !!!
130
London to a brick that this little critter was wiped out by disease, most likely transported to the island by the scientists researching it.
110
Right on Ted M.
As was the case of the very mysterious chytrid fungus, originating in Africa which African frogs were immune to but frogs on other continents were highly susceptible to.
This led to the extinction of the Central American Golden Toad which initially was blamed on guess what, Climate change from the Ozone hole effects.
It turned out that this deadly to amphibians such as frogs “chytrid fungus” was being carried on the amphibian researchers boots and shoes into new areas and continents around the world by the very scientists investigating the amphibian deaths from this deadly disease.
You won’t see that explanation now anymore as it seems to have been suppressed as it reflected very badly indeed on the amphibian field researchers and their bio-security culture.
The explanation given now is a frog species which was a carrier of the disease but was not severely affected by it was being used in laboratories but it was the escapees from those laboratories that spread the disease amongst the local populations of amphibians.
Somehow the current explanation just seems a bit to far removed from what happens in real life for me to fully believe it.
The first and original explanation for all those frog and amphibian deaths and one at least extinction made a lot of sense but revealed a very big lack of scientific responsibility and a complete lack of a culture of a stringent bio-security on the part of the field amphibian researchers.
120
Send some of that climate change my way – I have a rat that needs extinctifying too. Luckily, usually about this time of the year the brown tree snakes come around and check if there’s anything that needs their attention.
What’s so good about rats?
100
” I have a rat that needs extinctifying too”
What do you call it.. Bill or Malcolm?
141
Ben!
Al Gore once sold a rats sphincter to a blind man as a wedding ring, true story.
71
Barnaby or Cory I think its called
15
Nothing good about rats! The farm cat is having a well deserved snooze after leaving a dead rat near the house. Good boy Fatso Catso!
30
When I left the country to come down to Newy, I left a big old farm cat (de-sexed) with a farmer who had a rat problem in one of his outer paddock sheds.
Ran into the farmer a couple of years later and asked how the cat was.. he said.. “Dunno where the cat is, but there ain’t no rats in the barn any more”
50
Excellent cat! Ours is de-sexed too. He catches mice, rats and rabbits.
10
This following quote is taken from the link “first mammal species wiped out by human-induced climate change” that Jo provided to link to the Guardian [ falsehoods again] article in question; Revealed: first mammal species wiped out by human-induced climate change
The quote which is a regular feature quote of the climate cult alarmists and the green sleaze from the article is;
Now what’s wrong with that statement you might think.
That highlighted statement ; one sixth of the world’s species face extinction is a plain straight out lie and there is no other way to describe it regardless of who originated the statement.
The number of species on this planet is completely unknown so how can the Guardian and / or so called scientists so openly and blatantly claim and lie that one sixth of the species face extinction with such an utterly unprovable and evidence free in its entirety claim in the arrogant belief that they will be believed because of their common to climate scientist’s trait of “we are scientists and how dare you doubt us” attitudes .
And they lie so blatantly without a skerrick of any evidence at any level to support their claims.
Recently the numbers of species on this planet has been suggested at around a trillion species when all the bacterial species are included but this again is just nothing more than a pure guesstimate from biologists, mark “from biologists”, NOT from some shoe sized intellect climate scientists whose entire trougher existence is based on trying to keep the public frightened so as to keep the trough full of the tax payers hard earned.
130
That’s easy ROM, they have a model for that. Models make the world go around.
60
In the article
Exclusive: scientists find no trace of the Bramble Cay melomys, a small rodent that was the only mammal endemic to Great Barrier Reef.
Is Bramble Cay even in the Great Barrier Reef?
It’s on the sludge pit of the Sepik River East of Daru!
90
Old journalistic saw: Never spoil a good extinction story with the facts.
So, when fresh supplies of Melomys are washed down by floods in the Sepik, expect total silence from the ABC and the usual suspects.
110
Ummmm Daru – Sepik???
30
The Sepik? To date I thought it was the Fly.
See J.H. @ #5.2. And note while there that you don’t always need computer models to develop science.
Then tell them to look for their rat on the mainland.
30
the Sepik reaches the ocean on the “northern” side of PNG. There are loads of rivers dumping vast volumes of stuff into the gulf, but the Fly would probably be the closest/largest.
I only remember this because I worked with a policeman who was previously based near the Fly River where it makes up the border with West Papua. The local police force did not take kindly to Indonesians who crossed the border into PNG. Evidently it was a one way trip for quite a few. The same man was only armed with a pistol and a shotgun when I was on the Purari river with him, and he was very disappointed because “…shotguns are good for hunting birds, but assault rifles are better for people…”, he told me with rather a wistful tone.
[Commenters don’t run with this topic OK? — Jo ]
00
“the only mammal endemic to Great Barrier Reef”
What is the evidence that this rat was a distinct species? Speciation takes a long time – it would have had to survive a lot of hurricanes, a lot of high tides, and have no means of external replacement.
100
The well known skeptic and prolific writer and commentator, Matt Ridley, The Rational Optimist had this to say about extinctions in a june 2015 post.
INVASIVE SPECIES ARE THE GREATEST CAUSE OF EXTINCTION
Quoted;
100
A quick search with ‘List of animals threatened by climate change’reveals so many alarming headlines — here’s a few…
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/11/18/3592914/endangered-species-list-climate/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/11-species-threatened-by-climate-change/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/species_and_climate_change.pdf
IUCN — International Union for the Conservation of Nature
Yes another bunch of troughers promulgating alarm and nonsense. As far as I can see, they apparently believe that humans can control nature. A more deranged idea is hard to fathom!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Meanwhile http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/threatenedspecies/HumanClimateChangeKTPListing.htm
has been busy looking at models and the virtual facts they reveal about speies loss.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And so the money machine rolls on under the foolish belief that humans can both profoundly control and damage nature. I have news for you — humans are part of nature and like any species at or near the top of the pyramid of life, we know little to nothing of our (or any others) ultimate destiny. The changes at the base of the pyramid will have more profound changes than we can affect. So sorry but nature will survive despite our best efforts impose stasis on nature.
90
A few turbines and we’ll take the birds off the list right quick and nobody will say boo about it.
110
99.99% of all species which ever existed are extinct. As a species Homo Sapien has only been in existence for 100,000 years and there are seven billion of us. Agriculture was only discovered 10,000 years ago and then the wheel, sharp burnt stick and onto the very recent iron age. However it seems we are responsible for the rest of the 4.5Billion years.
Next we will be responsible for mega volcanoes, asteroid strikes, volcanic winter and more mass extinction events. All because we are burning some rotted plant matter and changing the amount of CO2 from 0.03% to 0.04%. You would have to be joking. Can’t species come and go without our involvement?
That is the very nature of evolution. So I guess the next move after stopping Climate Change is to stop evolution. Or tax it.
170
By the way, we are not changing the amount of CO2. That is just the unspoken and scientifically childish hypothesis of alarmists that CO2 in the air is an immutable constant not subject to say changes in ocean temperature where 98% of all CO2 resides. In their world, nothing is in equilibrium and Henry’s law does not exist.
Frankly from measuring C14, this is disproven, but even if it were true, so what really? There is obviously no heating anyway, let alone runaway, catastrophic tipping point global warming with Sydney under 100 metres of water. Even the rare and now extinct mosaic tailed rat would think this silly. You have to wonder what species found them delicious? Or did they catch some tropical disease introduced by researchers or did someone forget their cat?
111
Interesting and irrelevant.
If an alien arrives on Earth tomorrow and spreads disease and toxins into the environment and kills half of all species and then says to the remaining humans…
“Don’t worry, when I kill off all you humans it does not matter that much since 99.99% of all species which ever existed are extinct.”
22
Or an asteroid. It is relevant.
We humans are part of rapid evolution and it is not finished yet! Think of all the changes in the last 100,000 years. What happened to Neanderthals? We have just settled the fact that we have a lot of Neanderthal genes. So they are not gone, just as a distinct species but then a species by definition should not be able to interbreed.
However the people who scare easily want everything to stay the same, some very obscure rat in a very obscure place to the sea level to the temperature to the weather. At what point will they admit that there is no reason to assume today is optimum? Change is normal. Even Climate Change. It is not anyone’s fault and there is no evidence that Global Warming, which is not happening, is producing Climate Change or even what form that takes?
31
Also humans and dinosaurs never coexisted, unless you count crocodiles, turkeys and sharks. We humans were able to evolve from some very odd marsupials who were little more than scavengers. We had no nuclear power stations. Thanks to a random event, a meteor strike, 150 million years of dinosaur evolution came to an abrupt end. It could happen any day. However this climate business is about 0.1C in variation in an artificial and perhaps meaningless temperature. Suggesting that even 0.5C over ten years in the 1980s has resulted in major or significant or even real species extinction is just ridiculous.
51
Do you actually say anything right?
14
I read your theory on models.
21
The devil is always in the details.
Apparently wild dogs eat them, and are brought to the island periodically. From the report.
“Direct mortality of Bramble Cay melomys individuals due to predation by domestic dogs brought
ashore from fishing vessels (A. Moller-Nielsen pers. comm.) and hunting by visiting indigenous
people from Papua New Guinea (A. Ketchell pers. comm.) would have contributed to pressures on
this isolated rodent population”.
You think?
It may not be extinct. It might occur on other places, including the PNG mainland.
“the possibility that the species occurs elsewhere on islands in the Torres Strait deserves serious
consideration”.
“Together, these observations and associated evidence suggest a New Guinean origin of the Bramble
Cay melomys is not only plausible but perhaps the more likely of the two hypotheses.”
Did they look properly on PNG.? Apparently not.
“However, a possibility exists that the Bramble Cay melomys occurs in the Fly River delta area of
southern New Guinea and so, until this area is adequately surveyed, it may be premature to formally
declare the species extinct.”
This kind of sloppy journalism wouldn’t past muster in any other field except within environmentalism, for reasons that are obscure to me.
181
Maybe they became bored and left? Swam away. Jumped on the next boat. Became lazy and unfit from too many Mai Tais and too much time in the tropical sun? Maybe they were all males? How someone can pin the vanishing of a unique and tiny and clearly marginal population of rats on a tiny island on Climate Change is beyond explanation. Maybe Climate Change is why the Australian cricket team just lost by 4 wickets in the one day game against the West Indies in St. Kitts. Could not handle the extra 0.5C? Perhaps the first Australian international cricket game loss caused by Climate Change?
51
Now you’ve done it! They’ll run with that idea. Expect headlines:
“Australia loses Ashes due to Human Induced Climate Change”.
41
Copy of a recent report on this critter:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/90071372/bramble-cay-melomys-survey-report.pdf
https://db.tt/50yDWGWJ
If you are surprised at the number of times “climate change” is dragged up in the report, have a look at page 34. They acknowledge the assistance of – wait for it – Tim Flannery !!!
101
Seems that with the rat out the way, the eggs of the birds will be safer.
91
So a report on a cute endangered rat uncovers one of the common ugly ones, interesting.
They should have gotten an expert on dead rats not dead horses…..
60
This really confirms we’re simply not doing enough to kill the rats.
70
I LOVE this bit in the linked article from the Guardian – especially the little bit at the end that I’ve bolded.
“The authors said the IUCN lists one other mammal that was driven to extinction, partly by extreme weather – the Little Swan Island hutia – but introduced cats on the island were considered the main driver of extinction.”
How can they even SURMISE the statement “partly by extreme weather” and then talk about introduced cats.
These people (I deign from calling them scientists) have no shame!!
Cheers,
120
If there really was only one then I think I know why it died out.
60
All those “environMENTALists” running around hunting it, digging up its nests, scaring the crap out of it etc etc…
….. can’t have help much either.
Oh look… here’s one.. let’s put it in a cage and study it !!!
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AndyG55 @ # 20.1
Maybe closer than you think to the realities, Andy.
Back in the early 1970’s Rachel Carson wrote her book, Silent Spring where she claimed without any hard evidence at all [ sounds familiar when it comes to the green sleaze, ] that DDT was responsible for the large reduction in the numbers of Raptors in Africa due to the thinning of the Raptor’s egg shells and the consequent very high levels of death amongst the Raptor’s chicks.
Silent Spring of course was the excuse that the then new and nascent Greenpeace organisation, which without any consideration for the ethical or moral consequences of the ability of DDT to control the malaria mosquito, needed to give itself vast reams of publicity by demanding the total elimination of any use in any circumstances of the malarial mosquito controlling DDT.
As most readers here will know, the elimination of DDT according to the WHO has now cost at least 50 million avoidable deaths since the mid 1970’s due to the resurgence of Malaria after DDT was banned.
Some researchers and workers in the 1970’s Malaria disease field have since claimed they were not far off of eliminating Malaria [ like the Small Pox elimination ] with DDT when it was banned, mostly through the decision of just one person, the then American head of the USA’s federal health department who decided after heavy lobbying by the Greenpeace organisation to ban DDT use and production without ever reading the scientific report that basically said that DDT was a truly essential element in the war against Malaria.
.
Since then some biologists have claimed that the deaths of raptor chicks during that 1970’s period was not due so much to DDT but was caused by the extreme stress inflicted on the Raptors by the environmentalists ie; Greenpeace and etc operatives constantly climbing up to their nests to inspect and handle the chicks.
Interference with nesting birds on this scale will invariably lead to extreme stress in the adults and chicks and therefore a very high death toll amongst the susceptible chicks of any wild species of birds or animals .
.
But hey, they were environmentalists who cared so much about the environment and so they were immune from critiscm as they were already back then saving the world’s dissapearing wild life weren’t they?.
And soon they were to graduate to “saving the entire planet” with the increasingly disastrous consequences for humanity and the world’s wild life that we are now beginning to see all around us.
And it is only recently that I have come across some comments that were not challenged, where the late Rachel Carson, the darling of the hard left green watermelon environmental movement has been called some very nasty names as one of the most destructive persons and destructive influences on the pragmatic preservation of wild life and the initiator of the deaths of millions of the poorest people on this planet with her very biased and bigoted claims against DDT which she promulgated without any scientific evidence or backing for her claims and then her demands for the banning of DDT done without any scientific backing for such a strategy at any level.
And Greenpeace was the vehicle by which eagerly took up all her claims as an environmental gospel and then enforced the banning of both the use and production of DDT world wide through very high powered and exceedingly generously financed lobbying at the highest levels in numerous governments.
Greenpeace and the WWF and other green watermelon environmental organisations have never ever admitted any culpability in the deaths of those millions from Malaria due almost entirely to their lobbying to get DDT banned.
India for one did not swallow that DDT banning demand but kept right on producing DDT .
And now with a new generation of researchers and politicals DDT is again in production across the world but is being used with far more discrimination along with other insecticides to try and once again bring the malarial mosquito and malaria under control.
61
I read Rachel Carson what seems like eons ago. And for a short while I was convinced we had committed an incredible mistake in ever using DDT.
But then I read about the diseases the mosquitos carried. Maybe we weren’t so bad. And then I thought about the “studies” I’d read (because my eco buddies gave them to me) which weren’t much more than some people saying they had counted dead birds and un-hatched eggs – but no measurements of shells, no chemical analysis of embryos or bodies. So no proof.
Paving over fields and piping streams underground kills more birds than DDT ever did. Windmills kill more birds than DDT ever did.
I propose a new book – “From Silent Spring to Silent Summer – How Clean Energy Killed the Birds.”
00
I wonder if Climate Change will be responsible for our extinction?
Bit of a conundrum there!
If we, that is mankind, goes extinct then who is going to held responsible for Climate Change and all the other extinctions it will trigger that will invariably follow our Climate Change induced extinction?
Climate Change is a truly universal panacea for unexplained or as an alternative for completely logical explanations which are unacceptable to Climate Change cult believers as being too logical and too simple to explain occurrences of every nature and type.
Climate change with its very vaporous and un-describable construct that nobody, including its most advanced adherents of the highest caste can explain easily or explain at all but which can be used to explain and has been used to explain just about every single destructive and alleged disaster along with every similar and future predicted and similar disasters and destructive happenings on this planet for many decades into the future.
And yet like ”Gravity” nobody including its strongest adherents, can clearly define Climate Change and explain just what is Climate change nor through what mechanism it has this tremendous power over whatever it touches as so eloquently described and so frequently espoused by the climate alarmists, climate scientists and greens and climate catastrophists in every conceivable situation and happening regardless of any rational and pragmatic “natural” explanations for the sequence of events.
“Climate Change” is pure magic, its powers and subtleties far beyond the understanding and comprehension of even its fiercest progenitors and proponents let alone the understanding of Climate Change and all its immense powers by the common man.
They, in their fanatical beliefs in Climate Change’s intimidating ability to destroy every known organism and every formerly natural event on this planet almost without any exceptions, know it is always there in its all powerful, ever dominate guise.
And only man, that is man as the Climate Scientist Climate Change adherent can ever know how to blunt its deadly destructive potential or to predict its deadly onset which as we are told by those same Climate Scientists, Climate Change adherents, is being seen in every aspect of our lives and society and environment already today let alone the destruction that has been so profoundly predicted to occur through Climate Change in the decades into the future.
.
Do I need a /sarc ?
70
Climate change, a useful catechism.
No need to think, just quote catastrophism.
Something changed?
Don’t get deranged.
Take refuge in anti-intellectualism.
90
Mass extinctions are where climates at.
But there’s only one example, a rat.
Its home on a cay,
Passed by logs each day,
Yet a species it became, what scat!
90
forget Ratty…we’ll all be gone in six months.
poor Andrew Simms is virtually incoherent at this point, perhaps he’s panicking as the end draws near:
14 Jun: Guardian: Andrew Simms: 100 months to save the world: It’s the economy that needs to be integrated into the environment – not the other way around
Six months and counting
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jun/14/putting-a-price-on-nature-is-wrong
when u start an article with $100 trillion, it definitely gets my attention:
15 Jun: ClimateChangeNews: Pascal Canfin: Green bonds must keep the green promise
With almost US$100tn in assets, global debt capital markets are among the largest and deepest financial markets in the world, providing investors with fixed-income investment opportunities that allow them to preserve and increase their financial capital at a relatively low risk.
They could also play a paramount role in financing sustainable development. The challenge is to figure out ways in which we can tap into this pool to raise the financial capital we need to create a sustainable economy for the only planet we have; where natural capital is preserved, restored and enhanced rather than destroyed…
Better information is needed to allow investors to take a view. Issuers should be required to provide data annually and at maturity of the bond to demonstrate the environmental impact of its underlying assets over its entire lifetime, as well as an analysis of budgeted vs. actual environmental benefits according to the appropriate key-performance metrics…
Green bonds can help break the tragedy of the horizon by connecting present and future generations. This is also WWF’s mission and imperative: to build a future where people live in harmony with nature.
About the writer: Pascal Canfin is head of WWF France
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/06/15/green-bonds-must-keep-the-green-promise/
40
Pat…
I wonder if anyone understands and can explain the phrase
Umm, sustainable development … I wonder what they mean?
Would be that the same as the crony capitalist ideas of the Great UN elitist Maurice Strong, Agenda 21, and the International Institute for Sustainable Development, with its empty definitions, misanthropist ideas, and its determination to cause damage to both the natural world and the human world while ensuring the crony capitalists get richer.
100
Bankrolling a global genocide to appease some high functioning psychopaths, short version but yours was better.
50
Be doubtful that a creature is extinct,
Which warmists claim is man-made warming linked.
80
In parts of USA the Moose population is declining and it seems the troughers can’t help but suggest that climate change is the problem.
Moose are mammals, live in boreal forest areas with winter temps regularly going as low as -40F and summer temps as high as +100F. They apparently are unable to cope with a degree or two of average temperature increase.
Even though WE KNOW the massive increase in population of the Grey Wolf, an observed predator of Moose, correlates with the Moose decline-
Even though WE KNOW the spread to Moose of a fatal parasite carried by White-Tailed Deer whose population increase in Moose country is unchecked and could be managed better by hunting but is not-
Even though vigorous forest fire fighting and prohibitions on logging ARE KNOWN to have caused a decline in Moose favorable habitat (they are observed to move into cleared and burned areas)-
even though it is the “EXPERTS” in government that have caused the increase in Grey Wolf population, have sole control over the hunting of White-Tailed Deer, control the logging and fire-fighting, we are still told that nearly unproven “climate change” plays a role in the decline of Moose.
B.S. artists!
150
And the legendary snail darter finally has a companion…..
60
This snail?
Seychelles snail, thought extinct, found alive
“A snail once thought to have been among the first species to go extinct because of [Global Warming] has reappeared in the wild.”
60
The Tasmanian Tiger became extinct on an island and it was another man made extinction.
30
The Tasmanian Tiger was “induced” by “humans” into extinction.
More “human” “induced” extinction.
From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_vulture_crisis
“Decline
In the 1990s, a decrease in the number of vultures was noted by Vibhu Prakash of the Bombay Natural History Society, who had monitored vulture populations at Keoladeo National Park.[7][8] As the decline accelerated, the international scientific community looked for a reason. …………”
“Causes
After work on possible viral causes of the decline, the culprit was discovered by Dr. Lindsay Oaks and his team in 2003 to be diclofenac.[10] Diclofenac is a common anti-inflammatory drug administered to livestock and is used to treat the symptoms of inflammation, fevers and/or pain associated with disease or wounds. It was widely used in India beginning in the 1990s. The drug is fatal to vultures, however, and a vulture is exposed to a mortal dose of diclofenac if it eats from the carcass of an animal that has been treated with diclofenac recently.[11] A simulation model demonstrated that if only 1% of carcasses were contaminated by diclofenac, Indian vultures would be decimated, and a study of carcasses showed that about 10% were contaminated.[12]
Gyps species were the most affected by diclofenac.[13] The population of the White-rumped vulture (Gyps bengalensis) fell 99.7% between 1993 and 2002. The populations of the Indian vulture (Gyps indicus) and the slender-billed vulture (Gyps tenuirostris) fell 97.4%. The percentages differ slightly because the white-rumped vulture is more sensitive to diclofenac than the other two species, but all three were in danger of extinction.[14] Two other species of Gyps, the Himalayan vulture (Gyps himalayensis) and the Eurasian griffon (Gyps fulvus) were less affected, the Eurasian griffon because it only winters in India and has a much smaller initial population and the Himalayan vulture, with a similarly small population, because it is exclusively mountain-dwelling.[15] Vulture populations have continued to decline in India at a rate of between 20% and 40% each year since 2007.[16]
40
In this rare case I have to agree with the CAGW alarmists; but with a slightly different twist. AGW didn’t directly cause the rats’ demise, but indirectly it did because the rats decided to desert the CAGW sinking ship.
61
But wait!! It’s not too late.
We need a grant to immediately go collect whatever DNA scraps we can find, map the genome, and start growing the little beastie.
Climate Change is our biggest threat and this sweet cowerin’ timourous critter needs to be saved!
42
The same thing happened to the pursuing Egyptians . . . inundation by an incoming sea , in what is , without doubt, the first recorded instance of catastrophic climate change.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_Red_Sea
41
Forget the human death toll.
Think of the extermination of “Egyptian horses”.
31
If anybody really wants to see life living on the edge here in Australia I suggest they have a look at the Australia’s Desert Springs site.
This site gives a roundup of the Mound Springs around Lake Eyre that are fed by the Great Artesian Basin waters.
Desert Goby’s plus snails and various other species of very small fish are apparently common in most of these springs.
And it seems that some of these tiny fish living in these extreme desert environment daily experience both huge and very rapid variations in temperatures, intense solar UV, severe frosts at night, the probability of rapidly changing water qualities with heavy rain bringing fresh water and then back to the mineral laden artesian water on a very irregular basis.
And surprisingly there are variations between fish of the same species but in different springs which indicates they have been in those individual springs for a long time and many generations.
The photographs are very poor but give a good perspective of just how small and shallow some of these springs are such as in the Edgbaston springs in Queensland, the water is only a few centimetres deep but the fish are still there and obviously have been for a long time.
A short quote;
Also a page with a lot of links to the fish of Australia’s Desert outback; Index to the Australian Desert Fishes Pages
The green sleaze and alarmist troughers carry on at length about species far removed from Australian shores but it seems that they know almost nothing about the real Australia outside of their concrete jungles in the inner cities if we go by their reactions to the Barrier Reef bleaching and other regular and quite natural events that happen continually in any natural system.
As for the Guardian, its reporters are way, way out of their depth the moment they move outside of the offices they occupy somewhere in the UK.
—————–
And for what it is worth, the original Ghan Railway from Pt Augusta to Alice Springs ran up the western side of Lake Eyre and across a lot of creeks and short rivers that feed Lake Eyre from the west when they get good rains in Central Australia.
I could never work out why those early 20th century Ghan Railway builders built across that rough country on the route they did and didn’t build the line to Alice Springs a lot further west towards where the new Ghan railroad now runs.
Well it turns out that the answer is very simple.
They ran that rail line close to and up the western side of Lake Eyre so as to be able to tap and use the water from the Mound Springs, there is no other guaranteed supply of water anywhere else there, to fill the water demands of the steam locomotives that hauled the Ghan.
Those steam locos needed water about every 100 miles or 160 kilometres and the Mound Springs were their only guaranteed source of water hence the first Ghan rail route was across some rough country to the west of Lake Eyre so as to tap those Mound springs for water for their locomotives.
61
ABC Radio National this morning, South Australia is the renewable energy state and soon batteries to store that energy will transform the state into a powerhouse economy (my description). The cost is a bit high right now but like took place with solar panels it will be lower over time as more are put into service.
So there we are, no more planning needed for replacement of fossil fuel power stations, they will soon be obsolete.
40
AGL has just announced that power prices in SA will increase by 10% next year because of the closure of the last coal fired power station
40
S. Aust. has 1447 MW of rated wind turbines. With the current frontal systems production of up to about 80% has been achieved. However, equally over the past few months production as low as 5% has been also noted. For example production hovered between 5 and 20 % for the first four days of the month before going up higher.
Is it really possible to run the country on 50% renewables when half of the production can vary between 5 and 80% of capacity over a matter of three of four days? But this is the manifesto of the major parties, 100% renewable energy by whenever.
40
Electricity prices are due to rise here in Qld as well. Too late to save the rat, though.
30
While this seems like just a price rise for the cost of electricity, it’s a direct Government tax placed on electricity, as all the money raised goes straight to the Queensland Government.
Now a price rise for the cost of electricity is ‘spruiked’ by the Government as being only tiny when it comes to the cost of a residential power bill, perhaps just a minute amount of only a cent or two per KWH, nothing really.
Queensland consumes 63TWH of power per year, so for every one cent per KWH (nothing, eh, barely 3% even) rise in the cost of electricity, then that one cent per KWH equates to $630 MILLION per year, straight into Government coffers.
Tony.
61
Tony,
SSSSSSSssssssssssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
00
14 June, 2016: Antarctic CO2 Hit 400 PPM For First Time in 4 Million Years
14 June, 2016: Record cold in Antarctica – In Vostok, temperature of -80.3 degrees was recorded.
Coldest since observations began. Meteonovosti.ru
Google translate:
Record cold in Antarctica
IA “Meteonovosti” / 11:24 Wednesday, June 15
The most icy area of the globe is in Antarctica, where a number of meteorological stations.
One of them is “East” Russian station, where on a regular basis, our polar winter.
The temperature in this part of Antarctica in winter and summer otritsatelnaya.V currently working explorers in the pitch darkness, as with the polar night in winter and comes in Antarctica.
Indicators of the thermometer, which were taken on June 14 of this year were extremely low for the entire observation period. It was recorded temperature of -80.3 °
. . .
Further evidence carbon (sic) does not retain heat.
51
‘Further evidence carbon (sic) does not retain heat.’
Interesting observation, the Southern Ocean carbon sink was only recently reactivated.
20
h/t: el gordo:
SEPTEMBER 11, 2015: Southern Ocean ‘sink’ turns the tide on climate change alarm
“CSIRO Southern Ocean expert Steve Rintoul, who was not part of the research team, said the new analysis showed the strength of the Southern Ocean carbon sink varied with time more strongly than expected.
“The weakening and strengthening of the Southern Ocean carbon sink reflects changes in ocean temperature and carbon dioxide driven by variations in the winds blowing on the ocean surface,” Dr Rintoul said.”
30
There maybe a correlation.
https://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/14-southern-ssta.png
10
Every 65 million years there is mass species extinction where 95% of species are wiped out. What’s new?
20
Drudge has put up iceagenow links for:
RECORD COLD ANTARCTICA…
-80.3°…
but i can’t open the link…seems too many trying to access the website.
as for ABC –
14 Jun: ABC Life Matters: Ellen Fanning: Who is living off the grid?
Just 2% of Australians live off the grid; many by choice, some by necessity.
What are the realities and the compromises that come with powering your life from the sun?
Guests:
Jill Redwood, Living off the grid for more than 30 years
Bronwyn Adcock, Journalist
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/lifematters/who-is-living-off-the-grid/7475472
basically, they can’t use power tools, irons, hair dryers, clothes dryers, use wood-fired stoves and heating, a windmill burned out twice because of high wind. one spent fifty thousand because getting power to the house from the grid would cost $100,000, no mention of solar having a finite lifespan requiring purchasing everything again, but ABC audience texts the programs all excited.
the guests, one old ABC friend, as happens so often:
Abut ***Bronwyn Adcock
Bronwyn is an award winning Australian journalist and writer with 14 years experience. She has worked as a radio current affairs reporter and radio documentary maker for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), as a video journalist for the international affairs program Dateline on SBS Television Australia, and as a freelance writer…
plus one ABC media darling:
2015: ABC: Environment group to go to police over ‘recklessly provocative’ behaviour by logging supporters
An environment group called Knitting Nannas of Toolangi is taking a complaint of intimidation to police after a logging truck drove past one of their gatherings at an “unacceptably high speed” last week, north of Melbourne…
***Jill Redwood from another group, Environment East Gippsland, said it was the loggers “giving the finger” to environmental groups.
“It was recklessly provocative and shows total contempt for community values and the concerns about our forests,” she said.
“It was put up the same day I and two other groups were meeting with department [Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning] to start process of working out giant tree prescriptions [to protect them],” she said…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-27/environment-groups-go-to-police-over-alleged-intimidation-by-lo/6886638
10
Species come and species go. I can’t get really worked up about a rat.
20
PICS: 14 Jun: HuffPo Weird News: Chris D’Angelo: It Just Snowed On Hawaii’s Big Island
Pack your swimsuit AND your parka.
Residents of Hawaii’s Big Island woke on Tuesday to find the summit of Mauna Kea volcano dusted with a fresh layer of summer snow.
Considered both the world’s tallest volcano and its tallest mountain (when measured from the ocean floor), Mauna Kea occasionally sees snow. But a storm in mid-June is relatively bizarre.
The National Weather Service in Honolulu said the dusting resulted from a combination of passing precipitation and “cold upper level temperatures.”…
The mountain’s weather is extremely unpredictable, according to the Mauna Kea Weather Center.
“A calm sunny day may quickly become treacherous with hurricane force winds and blizzard conditions,” a MKWC statement warns. “Summit winds above 120 mph are not uncommon. Snowstorms have even occurred during the summer months.”…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hawaii-summer-snow-2016_us_57606bb4e4b09c926cfd5c5b
nothing to see here…it’s just weather.
30
James Grainger, thou shouldst be living at this hour.
10
Some minor (i.e. major), problems with their claims.
• A) Dilettante’s visiting some isolated breakwater for a few hours daily does not represent any version of a legitimate search. Let them camp for a couple of weeks and see if any get bitten.
• B) One good sized Australian reptile could’ve easily eaten up the rats, or a couple of dingoes.
• C) Climate is a description for Earth’s weather over a substantial period of time. i.e. there is no operative action in Earth’s climate that specifically kills. That would have to be some version of a weather event that has the power to kill.
• D) To make said weather events climate requires that there be a substantial period of time that specific deadly weather occurred.
So what killed the rats, if they truly are dead?
Lightning strikes for 18 months?
Long significantly colder frozen winters?
Long significantly hotter summers?
An everlasting storm similar to Jupiter’s great spot?
Just because some researcher dilettantes can’t find, nor do they know what happened to a bunch of rats; doesn’t give the dilettantes any rationale to blame climate, paganism, or the hidden hungers of WWF and Greenpeas paid volunteers.
50
a little more of that global warming:
PICS: 15 Jun: KOMO News: Scott Sistek: Hiking in a winter wonderland? It’s snowing in the Cascades
Snow is falling above about 4,000 feet with web cameras up in the mountains showing surreal winter-like scenes…
In the lowlands, temperatures were stuck in the 50s, threatening to be among the coldest Flag Day’s on record. Seattle’s coldest June 14 was 57 degrees set in 1946…
The chilly temperatures are being caused by a massive trough of low pressure that is bringing very chilly air in from the north. In fact, the weather balloon launched from Forks early Tuesday morning recorded a temperature of -30C (-22F) at 18,000 feet — several degrees cooler than readings in northern Canada…
In fact, it appears the Forks’ reading was the coldest upper air reading in all of North America, including those inside the Arctic Circle! (Click to enlarge the pic or here to download it.)…
http://komonews.com/weather/scotts-weather-blog/hiking-in-a-winter-wonderland-its-snowing-in-the-cascades
10
If this rat was so rare, why wasn’t there a conservation program?
30
OK, its way off topic but we all need a laugh occasionally , sometimes a good laugh at another stupidity by those who think and believe they know much better than the rest of us.
Via the GWPF;
And Hunt and Talcum, maybe you should take a couple of minutes to read this too.
Shorten is excused as he couldn’t get past reading “Cap” without a lot of mental stress.
PRICING CARBON
Cap and Trade Calamity in California
50
One less rat for Kevin Rudd to………harass! 🙂
11
[…] The Facts in response from Jo Nova […]
00
It’s a pity the Guardian wasn’t wiped out instead of the rat. There is no justice!
01
A rat you say. Well I don’t like to see a species disappear but if one has to go, make it a rat. They carry disease, including rabies, they raid anything they can find of yours to eat themselves and to top it all off, they look like the thugs of the animal world — unsavory to say the least about them. They even hide like thugs do.
I’ll not say good riddance. But I’ll not weep either. And consider — this was certainly a natural thing, not manmade.
11
Extinct or merely AWOL
With so many researchers watching these poor little guys on such a small island, to make sure that they were all accounted for ….
It would not surprise me if they had watched the 1962 movie “A Slow Boat to China” and made their way to freedom in an effort just to avoid the annoying researchers !
00
Well, the Bramble Rat may not be extinct, as they weren’t certain that Bramble Cay was the only place the rat lived.
Emphasis below is mine.
https://www.environment.gov.au/resource/recovery-plan-bramble-cay-melomys-melomys-rubicola
“Species
Bramble Cay melomys, Melomys rubicola, a small rodent of uncertain origins, is morphologically distinct from other Australian melomys. With a population of less than 100 individuals inhabiting a single small sand cay whose existence is threatened by erosion, the Bramble Cay melomys is one of the most threatened mammals in Australia. Speculation exists that the species may also occur in Papua New Guinea (PNG) given the close proximity of the cay to the Fly River region, or on other islands in the Torres Strait. Further survey work on these islands and PNG along with clarification of its taxonomic status in relation to PNG species is required.
Current species status
The small population size and the naturally unstable nature of Bramble Cay has led to the species being listed as ‘Endangered’ under the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) and ‘Endangered’ under the Queensland Nature Conservation Act 1992 (NCA).
Habitat and distribution summary
Bramble Cay is a small (approximately 5ha), vegetated sand cay surrounded by reef and located in the far northeast of the Torres Strait, about 50km from the mouth of the Fly River in PNG. Vegetation consists of low herbaceous cover to about 40cm in height. It is intermittently broken by bare patches of compacted guano depressions that hold water during the wet season. Bramble Cay melomys appear to primarily inhabit the vegetated portion of the cay, an area of about 2.2ha. Eleven plant species have been recorded however composition varies from year to year. Bramble Cay is also the largest nesting site of green turtles in the Torres Strait and supports the only large seabird colony in the region.
Threats summary
1.Erosion of the cay is the major threat to the species survival. The cay is in a state of flux with its movements strongly influenced by the prevailing weather patterns. While there appears to have been a net loss of the cay in recorded history, recent measurements suggest the cay might be in a depositional phase. Erosion may be compounded by high winds, wave action and storm surges associated with cyclones.
2.The introduction of exotic predators or weeds to the cay could potentially be catastrophic, given the small and vulnerable nature of the melomys population. The cay’s isolation, close proximity to PNG and its use as an anchorage by fishing boats means there is a threat of pest and/or disease establishment. Two weed species are already present.
3.Genetic analysis of this species reveals a level of inbreeding which theoretically could lead to inbreeding depression and ultimately extinction.”
Please also note that this information is from the Aussie Enviro people and was easily found and accessed even -after- all the newsy headlines appeared, so the newsy people didn’t even bother to look up the basic facts about how precarious the Bramble Cay Melomys’s situation was to start with.
00