(05-31-2023, 12:33 PM)quintessentone Wrote: That's right, we don't know how other regions in the world are being affected because we can't observe it, however we can learn what is going on worldwide if we just do the research.
You are missing many factors with the true reality here, first and foremost is what other people worldwide are observing and experiencing. What the people on the ground there know to be true.
Secondly, we are not aware of how other people are taking steps to help wildlife, ecosystems etc. So, of course, with all the work that is going on it would seem like there isn't a problem.
Which wildlife rescue organization(s) is/are working behind the scenes in your region to ensure extinction of wildlife and/or ecosystems does not happen?
Take a quiz and learn how WWF is working to help save wildlife around the world.
https://support.worldwildlife.org/site/S...UwMzQ4ODQz
That's one of the problems I have with the alarmists - it's a "world wide" problem when it suits the narrative, but morphs into a "simply regional" problem when that is more convenient to the narrative.
The fact is, we have had "regional" problems like drought or flood since long before humans - or fossil fuels - were in existence. We will see the same long after humans and fossil fuels are gone. It seems to have more to do with mutable weather patterns - like el nino - than it does atmospheric composition.
As an example, during most of the Carboniferous - 320 million years ago or so - CO2 levels were at least 4 times the current levels, and the planet was a lush jungle of greenery. Biodiversity was off the charts. O2 levels were much higher than current as well. 32% as opposed to the current 21%, leading to things like 8 foot long millipedes and dragon flies with nearly 3 foot wingspans, because of the saturated availability of oxygen in the air. Quite opposite from "destructive" presence of such high (relative to the current dearth) of CO2, life did not suffer, it flourished.
But then, in the natural course of Earth cycles, the CO2 levels dropped dangerously near to current levels, and life DID suffer. The rain forests formerly in existence collapsed as CO2, O2, and temperatures plummeted.
THAT is the world the alarmists are attempting to usher in through artificial means. My only consolation in the matter is that it is as unlikely that mankind can do anything to wreck the climate as they have planned - it's just as unlikely as the notion that mankind can overheat the planet. it's the height of hubris to think that puny people can wreck the entire ecosystem of an entire planet.
Back to the current day, and the local environment. As far as I know, there are no governmental or NGO organizations "boosting" the local wildlife. I live in the area the organizations have forgot. There is a saying around here that Richmond thinks Virginia ends at Roanoke, and we are left pretty much to our own devices at all times that are not election seasons. During election seasons, we get all manner of flowery promises that never materialize after the elections are over and we go back to our forgotten status.
The elk were not introduced here by any organizations. they wandered back in from other regions as their numbers increased there and some were pushed out in search of fodder. The separate herds are not huge, but fairly sizable - I've counted up to 43 individuals grazing in a single field at a time. The same holds true for the coyotes and wolves - they've wandered back in after the increasing herds of herbivores.
Increases in wildlife that didn't disappear altogether, but got dangerously low, seem to be organic - particularly white tail deer, bear, and bobcats/lynxes. As climate has improved, their numbers have increased due to the increase in forage for them. When I was younger, you really had to hunt to find a deer - now they are regular occurrences, with a small herd passing between my house and my neighbor's house on their daily rounds, every morning. A couple months ago, a 6 or 8 point buck jumped my fence and was grazing in my yard - I guess he saw the grass as greener or something. The last snow left lynx tracks walking right across my deck, an unheard of occurrence in my youth. maybe he was after the deer. that's my best guess.
Mountain lions are still at a pretty low level here, but I expect them to increase in the coming years, if we can stave off the climate alarmists and keep the recovery going rather than deplete in in the name of pseudo-science and taxation. When I was young, I found mountain lion tracks along with mountain lion kitten tracks in a cave on Clinch River, but I figured that, being in a cave, they were protected from the elements and could have been centuries old. However, over the next month or two, a large cat DID start predating on local canines, outside the cave. I never saw it, but did recover it's tracks beside a creek at a kill site, and so could identify the culprit. In my old age, I have actually seen one in Buchanan County, about 5 or 6 years ago. So I know they are here now, and probably in slightly greater numbers, but nothing overwhelming yet. On average, a mountain lion has a 20 square mile territorial range, so they may be close to maxing out, and may never increase beyond their current boundaries.
My point is that far from climate change being a negative, it has improved ecosystems, and will continue to do so if left alone to follow nature's course. The only thing we are currently lacking here, compared to 300 years ago, is woods bison, or "buffalo". I doubt those will be making a comeback, however, since the last relict population of them that I am aware of is in eastern Canada (they are a different species from the plains bison in Yellowstone), and that's likely too far for them to migrate across all the "civilization" between here and there.
The only governmental interference that I know of is bag limits for hunters (which is increasingly less of a problem since hunting is on the decline here in favor of more processed store-bought grub), and two state parks that have been set off-limits to human kind, places where as a kid I roamed freely. One is Cedar Creek Park in Russell County, off limits now due to some plant that is found nowhere else on Earth, and another state park called "The Channels", on top of Clinch Mountain. As far as NGO's go, I've not found their thumb print anywhere within 200 miles of here.
Yet somehow, in spite of that lack of interference, biodiversity and wildlife presence is all but exploding here, "climate change" or no. It gripes me to see alarmists trying to destroy all that in the name of taxation and unjust enrichment, in a futile attempt to bring on the next ice age early and blow it ALL up.
ETA: I'm told this area is either the 4th or the 7th most biodiverse biome on planet Earth. I don't know how true that is, but a local college is running a program to catalog the local biodiversity - https://sw.edu/biodiversity/ - keep in mind that catalog is not exhaustive, but only contains species verified so far by the catalogers. For example, woodchucks, turkey vultures, and black vultures are not shown to be in Buchanan County yet in their lists, but I have personally seen all 3 species there. The same holds true for plant life, probably more so, because you have to get out into the wilderness to find that, it's doesn't just occasionally wander in like animal species do.
I have personally watched that biodiversity explode exponentially over the past 60 years or so, and am loathe to see the alarmists bring it to a grinding, screeching, screaming halt and then reverse the gains made in the name of some misguided concept of "man-made climate change".
Leave nature be. It does what it does. It always has, and always will.
Quote:The Southern Appalachians, which includes southwest Virginia, was identified as one of six biodiversity hotspots in the United States by The Nature Conservancy and NatureServe in their joint publication, Precious Heritage: The Status of Biodiversity in the United States (2000). The nation's leading hotspot of aquatic diversity is Virginia's Clinch and Powell rivers, and Virginia is ranked second in the U. S. for dragonfly diversity.
http://www.landscope.org/virginia/plants...ies%20101/
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