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Fine. Show me where insect populations have not been decimated. Find a environment where glaciation is increasing, or record low temperatures are being consiste

Fine. Show me where insect populations have not been decimated. Find a environment where glaciation is increasing, or record low temperatures are being consistently recorded year over year. Short term gains over medium term doom is hardly something to brag about.

arethuza 8y ago
We moved to a house in the country about 2 years ago and it seems to be in a small oasis of insect life - I suspect that because it's quite rather hilly it is low intensity cow and sheep farming with a lot of scrub and woodland. Going by prevailing winds its probably 15km (mostly over sea) to the nearest areas with more intensive arable farming. It's very noticeable that we have more insects here than surrounding areas. For the avoidance of doubt: I'm not disagreeing with the article!
kbutler 8y ago
The origin of this thread was NY Times emphasis on doom and gloom. The reason is that it sells, even if the world as a whole is getting better. For your specific points: Yes, it looks like overall insect populations are down (and more than just decimated). But note that projections of insects thriving because of global warming are also framed as bad news: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/30/climate/insects-eating-more-crops.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/30/climate/insects-eating-mo... https://phys.org/news/2018-08-global-insects-crops.html https://phys.org/news/2018-08-global-insects-crops.html "environment where glaciation is increasing": Greenland 2018 "large net mass gain for the ice sheet in 2018 of 150 billion tons" https://nsidc.org/greenland-today/ https://nsidc.org/greenland-today/ (the exception that proves the rule, if you like). But note that if we start our glacier baseline at the end of the little ice age, we'd expect a lot of glacial retreat simply from reversion to the mean. Record temperatures is really not a good indicator (weather, not climate), especially with the bias of increased urbanization, but the southeast US is getting colder https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2018/02/20/defying-climate-change-southeast-u-s-is-getting-colder-instead-of-warmer-via-polar-vortex/#77672555f84c https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2018/02/20/defying-c... and note that the list of coldest temperatures recorded includes many in the 2010s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_weather_records#Lowest_temperatures_recorded https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_weather_records#Lowest... If you want to frame global warming in a more positive light, the temperature changes in the world up to this point have been overwhelmingly positive. The climate of the 1800s was too cold in much of the breadbasket regions of the world. Temperatures overall have moderated (warmer colds) rather than become more extreme (hotter hots) (which is consistent with CO2-influenced warming). That isn't to say that all warming is beneficial, that future warming will be beneficial, or that CO2 doesn't influence the climate. Just that there's a lot more reporting of the "dooooom" than of the "look how much progress we've made".

arethuza 8y ago

We moved to a house in the country about 2 years ago and it seems to be in a small oasis of insect life - I suspect that because it's quite rather hilly it is low intensity cow and sheep farming with a lot of scrub and woodland. Going by prevailing winds its probably 15km (mostly over sea) to the nearest areas with more intensive arable farming. It's very noticeable that we have more insects here than surrounding areas. For the avoidance of doubt: I'm not disagreeing with the article!

kbutler 8y ago

The origin of this thread was NY Times emphasis on doom and gloom. The reason is that it sells, even if the world as a whole is getting better. For your specific points: Yes, it looks like overall insect populations are down (and more than just decimated). But note that projections of insects thriving because of global warming are also framed as bad news: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/30/climate/insects-eating-more-crops.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/30/climate/insects-eating-mo... https://phys.org/news/2018-08-global-insects-crops.html https://phys.org/news/2018-08-global-insects-crops.html "environment where glaciation is increasing": Greenland 2018 "large net mass gain for the ice sheet in 2018 of 150 billion tons" https://nsidc.org/greenland-today/ https://nsidc.org/greenland-today/ (the exception that proves the rule, if you like). But note that if we start our glacier baseline at the end of the little ice age, we'd expect a lot of glacial retreat simply from reversion to the mean. Record temperatures is really not a good indicator (weather, not climate), especially with the bias of increased urbanization, but the southeast US is getting colder https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2018/02/20/defying-climate-change-southeast-u-s-is-getting-colder-instead-of-warmer-via-polar-vortex/#77672555f84c https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2018/02/20/defying-c... and note that the list of coldest temperatures recorded includes many in the 2010s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_weather_records#Lowest_temperatures_recorded https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_weather_records#Lowest... If you want to frame global warming in a more positive light, the temperature changes in the world up to this point have been overwhelmingly positive. The climate of the 1800s was too cold in much of the breadbasket regions of the world. Temperatures overall have moderated (warmer colds) rather than become more extreme (hotter hots) (which is consistent with CO2-influenced warming). That isn't to say that all warming is beneficial, that future warming will be beneficial, or that CO2 doesn't influence the climate. Just that there's a lot more reporting of the "dooooom" than of the "look how much progress we've made".