Planetsave

The science of climate change is not really the question at hand anymore. Of course, there is always more to learn, but that highly accelerated climate change is real and that humans are the main cause of that are no longer questionable facts to the large majority of the scientific community. What is questionable is whether or not we will address the issue, or to what degree we will address it, and how much our children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, etc. will have to pay the price for our late and limited action.

Of course, outside of the scientific community, many climate change deniers and so-called “skeptics” continue to trick the media and act as if those fundamental issues of climate science are not resolved. As a concise response (with relevant links) to some of the most popular claims put forth by the anti-science climate change deniers, here is a list of 7 myths regarding climate change science.

For more in-depth coverage of a few of these topics, read Dr. Joseph Romm’s “The year climate science caught up with what climate scientists have been saying for years” or follow the links included for each myth.

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Michael Mann, the somewhat infamous climate scientist from Penn State, shouldn’t be so infamous after all, we find out yet another time!

“An academic inquiry into the so-called ‘climategate’ email scandal has concluded that a well-known U.S. scientist [Mann] did not directly or indirectly falsify data in his research,” according to Mike De Souza of the National Post.

The investigation made it very clear (as other peer-reviewed analyses have done) that Mann’s “trick,” so horribly taken out of context and demonized by anti-science media and followers, was nothing unscientific, misleading or to be concerned about.

“They were not falsifying data,” said the report. “They were trying to construct an understandable graph for those who were not experts in the field. The so-called ‘trick’ was nothing more than a statistical method used to bring two or more different kinds of data sets together in a legitimate fashion by a technique that has been reviewed by a broad array of peers in the field.”

Furthermore, the report went on to praise Mann for how he dealt with this greatly unfounded skepticism and criticism of his scientific work. “The report praised Dr. Mann for his ‘composure’ and ‘forthright response’ to all questions, finding no evidence that he had attempted to hide or destroy information, emails or data from his research. It also cleared him of allegations of misusing any privileged or confidential information he had access to as an academic scholar.”

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Google Inc. is joining forces with space agencies around the world and the conservation organization Group on Earth Observations (GEO) to monitor deforestation rates using satellite imagery. Among the space agencies working on the program are NASA, the ESA, and the national space agencies of Japan, Germany, Italy, India, and Brazil.

The GEO is a global partnership of 80 governments and more than 50 organizations. Internet company Google currently collects satellite images for use in its Google Earth application, and will be providing satellite images to the project.

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In 2007 federal protections were dropped for the protection of Yellowstone grizzlies. Ever since then, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition have been fighting to give protection back to the bears. They argued that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) failed to address the loss of essential food sources for the bears, whitebark pine seeds and cutthroat trout.

On Monday, September 21 they finally achieved what they were fighting for when Judge Donald Molloy ruled that inadequate regulatory mechanisms were put in place to manage the bears. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and six other groups, represented by Earthjustice, have a similar case pending in Idaho.

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We can’t expect much from the oil industry, but Greenpeace’s newest finding is as ugly as it gets.
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We’ve all heard the legend of Johnny Appleseed, the legendary apple tree planter of the United States. He walked across the country with his walking stick, and a bucket of seeds, just walking and planting as he went. Everywhere he went, apple trees sprouted up. And he was a hero. It is such a hero that Yosemite is looking for now.

The number of large trees is falling in Yosemite National Park, but no Johnny can be found. And the decrease is bad news for many species, including spotted owls, mosses, orchids and fishers (a carnivore related to weasels). These species, as well as others, are losing their habitat with the loss of the trees.

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When I was doing research on Catalina Island, there was a wanted poster hanging in the dive locker. Although, this wanted poster was not for any bank robber or bandit. This was a wanted poster for kelp. Undaria pinnatifida, an invasive species from Asia that has hitched a ride on boat’s hulls and ballast water. Also known as wakame, you may know that name as an ingredient in many Asian dishes or miso soup.

Wakame has become a large problem from New Zealand to Monterey Bay. It is an aggressive and costly intruder that takes over a habitat at the expensive of the native species. Since its discovery in San Francisco Bay, 140 lbs of the kelp have been removed from the San Francisco Marina alone. Wakame’s destructive nature has earned it a spot on the 100 of the Worlds Worst Invasive Species list.

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Wastewater treatment facilities end up dumping a lot of mud that is extracted from the in-flowing water. And, like everything else, that mud takes up space. Space that could be used for other things, even at the dumping yards. But researchers from the Rovira i Virgili University (URV) have suggested, and successfully shown, that the waste mud doesn’t need to be taken to a dumping ground; rather, it can be used as fuel.

This is great news for industries that are trying to comply with the Kyoto Protocol and cut CO2 emissions. It is also good news in a world that is trying to shake itself free of the addictions to traditional oils and coals.

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It is estimated that man has been in Oceania for up to 125,000 years. The land was there before man. And for a long time a balance has been found between man and nature. Perhaps that balance was achieved because man and nature were not separate entities, but one and the same. However, in the recent past, that balance has been disturbed by population and consumption. Man became an invader rather than an aboriginal. And with that, habit loss for other species has been a concern. And now life isn’t what it used to be in Oceania.

It is such an invasion, not just by humans, but species of both flora and fauna that threatens aboriginal life in Oceania. A new study, which was published in the international journal Conservation Biology expresses the need for governments to act quickly in order to halt the loss of biodiversity and the extinction of species.

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Cold-blooded animals have a lifespan which is exponentially related to the temperature of their environment, a new study finds.

That means that as temperatures increase due to global warming, cold-blooded animals around the world will begin dying younger. Given that the vast majority of animals on Earth are cold-blooded, including the likes of amphibians, mollusks, crustaceans and reptiles, global warming could have unexpected, profound impacts on the world’s ecosystems.
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