Articles by Biodiversivist

So says a dumb article

I used this picture in an earlier article -- forgive me. It is just so appropriate to this topic. Anyway, that particular Homo sapiens hugging the dolphin carries my genes into the future.

Speaking of genes, researchers have caught a dolphin with residual back legs. I chose this particular article over the others because it is, well, asinine. I am not particularly empathetic with the excesses of the animals rights movement, but this article makes abso-fricken-lutely no sense. The author lost me immediately when she suggested that these fins will somehow "prove mammals know more than animal rights activists about the Animal Kingdom." Correct me if I am wrong, but animal rights activists also give birth to live young and then nourish them with breast milk. If you send her an email, please, be nice. Don't reinforce her warped image with aggressive and rude diatribes (like this one). God help her, she obviously just isn't that bright.

Children, anxiety, and global warming

I found this post over on the Climate Ark blog.

Hello,

My 8-year-old daughter has just come running to me in a flood of tears. Why? Because she thinks the world is going to end sometime soon and it's the fault of me and, to a lesser extent, my generation. That's why. Why does she think that? Because she takes it for gospel that over bearing boffins like yourself know more than ordinary folk like me. Does it make you feel good? Making an eight-year-old girl with a mouth brace bawl her little eyes out?

I really empathized with this father. There's more:

Carbon offsets that go to developing world forests rule

Here's an uplifting article by Rhett Butler over at Mongabay. It enables my personal eco-fantasy. It's titled, Avoided deforestation could help fight third world poverty under global warming pact. $43 billion could flow into developing countries:

When trees are cut greenhouse gases are released into the atmosphere -- roughly 20 percent of annual emissions of such heat-trapping gases result from deforestation and forest degradation. Avoided deforestation is the concept where countries are paid to prevent deforestation that would otherwise occur. Funds come from industrialized countries seeking to meet emissions commitments under international agreements like the Kyoto Protocol. Policymakers and environmentalists alike find the idea attractive because it could help fight climate change at a low cost while improving living standards for some of the world's poorest people, safeguarding biodiversity, and preserving other ecosystem services. A number of prominent conservation biologists and development agencies including the World Bank and the U.N. have already endorsed the idea. [Even the United States government has voiced support for the plan.]

The article also arrived just in time to support my argument presented here. Don't you just love it when you find people who share your point of view?

An article on volcanoes and global warming

An article in this month's Scientific American titled "Impact from the Deep" has prompted me to write my first article on global warming. I avoid the topic because it is already covered practically every day by other commentaries. The article posits a theory that chronic and heavy volcanic activity caused some of the mass extinctions of the past, explaining how it happened along with some supporting evidence.

Today, we don't have thousands of volcanoes spewing forth massive amounts of CO2, but what we do have are billions of point sources of CO2 emissions. To give you a feel for the magnitude of our oil, coal, and gas burning, think back to the Gulf War and the thousands of oil wells that were set on fire. Look at that picture for a moment and ponder that cars in the U.S. alone emit five times more CO2 per day than those fires did at their peak -- and our coal- and gas-fired power plants emit twice as much as our cars.