Hugh Hewitt has issued a Challenge. How exciting.
Ask A Global Warming Alarmist What They Think Of This
For a companion piece useful to the illustration of the vanity of environmentalists, read this as well.
OK. Link One.
Scientists in Alberta have discovered the largest dinosaur bonebed ever documented – along with evidence of massive carnage – near Hilda, 50 km north of Medicine Hat.
The find covers an area of about 2.3 square kilometres and contains thousands of bones from the plant-eating dinosaur Centrosaurus apertus, according to a new book “New Perspectives On Horned Dinosaurs,” published this month by Indiana University Press....
“Data from this mega bonebed provide pretty clear evidence that these and other dinosaurs were routinely wiped out by catastrophic tropical storms that flooded what was once a coastal lowland here in Alberta, 76 million years ago,” said David Eberth, a senior research scientist at the museum, the lead author on the study and one of the book's three editors.
Gosh, I bet climate scientists are totally embarrassed about how they never before realized that dinosaurs went extinct. Or perhaps not.
Link Two.
On a trip to the Northwest Territories last year, Jim Martell spent more than $45,000 for the right to shoot a polar bear. But the animal he killed turned out to have puzzling characteristics - long claws, a humped back and brown patches in its white fur. Had he shot a grizzly by mistake? If so, the American tourist faced up to a year in jail for hunting without a proper licence.
DNA tests showed that the animal in question was not, in fact, a grizzly. But neither was it a polar bear. It was the only confirmed case of a hybrid - born of a polar bear mother and grizzly father - in the wild. This let Mr. Martell off the hook. He even got to take the "grizzlar" home. As he told one newspaper, "It will be quite a trophy"....
"The vanity of environmentalists"...? Let's read on!
Climate change is another factor in the rise of interspecies mating. Because of changing temperatures, the blue-winged warbler has been moving north - both competing and mating with its closely related golden-winged cousins.
This also could explain the "grizzlar." Wildlife geneticist David Paetkau, whose company tested the hybrid's DNA, thinks that warming temperatures may have caused the grizzly father to spend less time hibernating, giving him more time to wander farther afield. And once he found himself so far out of his usual range, he may have chosen to mate with a polar bear because he could find no females of his own kind.
In fact, grizzlies and polar bears separated into two distinct species less than one million years ago. In evolutionary terms, this is a blink of an eye, and the bears' genes are so similar that Mr. Paetkau suspects that the offspring, like other hybrid species, was probably fertile.
So the appearance of hybrid species is evidence of climate change -- and rapid climate change, too, which is why a million years have gone by without grizzlies fucking polar bears.
Hewitt's point seems to be that Lefties are just plain weird and full of hubris, because what the hey, human-caused mass species extinction is no biggie, we'll all adapt.
Shit, if you live on a coast, you richly deserve to drown if you can't learn how to go about fucking a polar bear.
MAS. An even more fun companion piece as regards vanity. Via. Links to the specific Sunday Times piece seem katywampus but here is the nut of the biscuit:
The article “UN climate panel shamed by bogus rainforest claim” (News, Jan 31) stated that the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report had included an “unsubstantiated claim” that up to 40% of the Amazon rainforest could be sensitive to future changes in rainfall. The IPCC had referenced the claim to a report prepared for the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) by Andrew Rowell and Peter Moore, whom the article described as “green campaigners” with “little scientific expertise.” The article also stated that the authors’ research had been based on a scientific paper that dealt with the impact of human activity rather than climate change.
In fact, the IPCC’s Amazon statement is supported by peer-reviewed scientific evidence. In the case of the WWF report, the figure had, in error, not been referenced, but was based on research by the respected Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM) which did relate to the impact of climate change. We also understand and accept that Mr Rowell is an experienced environmental journalist and that Dr Moore is an expert in forest management, and apologise for any suggestion to the contrary.
The article also quoted criticism of the IPCC’s use of the WWF report by Dr Simon Lewis, a Royal Society research fellow at the University of Leeds and leading specialist in tropical forest ecology. We accept that, in his quoted remarks, Dr Lewis was making the general point that both the IPCC and WWF should have cited the appropriate peer-reviewed scientific research literature. As he made clear to us at the time, including by sending us some of the research literature, Dr Lewis does not dispute the scientific basis for both the IPCC and the WWF reports’ statements on the potential vulnerability of the Amazon rainforest to droughts caused by climate change.
In addition, the article stated that Dr Lewis’ concern at the IPCC’s use of reports by environmental campaign groups related to the prospect of those reports being biased in their conclusions. We accept that Dr Lewis holds no such view – rather, he was concerned that the use of non-peer-reviewed sources risks creating the perception of bias and unnecessary controversy, which is unhelpful in advancing the public’s understanding of the science of climate change. A version of our article that had been checked with Dr Lewis underwent significant late editing and so did not give a fair or accurate account of his views on these points. We apologise for this.
The British press has been wildly irresponsible in its science reporting on climate change. While the retraction is good news, I suppose, that this article even appeared in the first place is the real issue, given how awful and vicious it was. If Leake still has a job after this we'll know what the retraction really means.