PEuT Episode 2 goes out Tonight - LIFE ON THE MOVE
- 27 Nov 06, 09:14 AM
Tune in tonight at 21.02 GMT on ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4 - listen on FM or LW. The programme is also streamed on this site and you'll be able to listen to the show any time after tonight by visiting this blog.
In this episode Gabrielle investigates how species and whole habitats are heading for the higher latitudes and higher altitudes to find a cooler climate.
In this extraordinary wildlife race there are winners and losers.
The Gelada Baboons of the Ethiopian Highlands seem to be running out of mountain - "they are going to fly off the tops". And all the "Disney" wildlife we're familiar with is measurably "running out of real estate" in the US Rocky Mountains.
But there are winners - some butterflies in the UK are making hay while the sun shines - and it looks like it's good news for deer in Scandinavia.
So, listen out to Gabrielle Walker - our America correspondent Howard Stableford and our reporters Chris Sperring and Gordon Radley.
Update:
Comments Post your comment
If, as everyone seems to agree, the 'average' temperatures on the planet have only risen by about 0.6 degrees C in 100 years, what is this wildlife supposedly escaping from? This I fear will be just another instance of the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ putting 2 and 2 together and making 5 in its constant efforts to shore up its anthropgenic climate change propoganda.
Thank goodness the voice of sanity has been at last heard in the mainstream media in the guise of Christopher Monckton and his articles in the Sunday Telegraph. When will the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ ever begin admit that science of AGW is shaky, to say the least, and the constant doomsday warnings it delights in splashing across our screens are based on the outcomes of computer programmes which cannot begin to aproximate the chaotic, non-linear system that is our climate.
Complain about this post
Oh dear ... someone else taken in by Monckton. I expect you'll be referring us to the Lawsons, Piers Corbyn, S Fred Singer and similar purveyors of nonsense on anthropogenic global warming next.
George Monbiot took Monckton to task in his Guardian piece entitled "This is a dazzling debunking of climate change science. It is also wildly wrong"
The climate scientists over at Real Climate have also taken a close look at Monckton's pronouncements . Here's a taster. "These pieces look scientific to the layperson (they have equations! references to 19th Century physicists!), but like cuckoo eggs in a nest, they are only designed to look real enough to fool onlookers and crowd out the real science."
The ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ should do the maximum to alert us to this "planetary emergency" as Al Gore succinctly puts it. That would be real public service broadcasting.
Douglas Coker
Complain about this post
Thank you, Douglas, for replying to Steve and for providing the links. I guess someone had to muster the energy. I'm off for higher latitudes.
Complain about this post
Hope you all enjoy the show tonight. I've been reading all the blogs and I'll offer more of my missives later - but loads of you have been asking for transcripts of the programmes. I'd love to be able to give you this, but we don't transcribe radio shows as a matter of course. Can I urge you to use the listen again facility.
Complain about this post
It pretty much did what it said on the tin. A range of interesting examples of spp on a form of great escape - with reports mostly from the remotest spots imaginable. It does beg the question as to why we can't run a more local gradient. With its giant wasps, ladybirds and fieldfares - I think the back garden provides an excellent example. Plus, this would help reinforce what we can all witness at close range.
The identified problem was quickly brushed over:
"They (corals) seem to be able to manage their population."
"Better than we do?"
"Yeah - no doubt!"
The only solution suggested was a bloke from Harvard saying that we will need to build corridors and reconfigure reserves.
The problem requires a longer term solution than the one suggested. The mountains ain't high enough.
There was an opportunity to achieve a clear communication objective as well as produce an interesting show.
One half was OK.
Complain about this post
Can we have a bit more of that reputed balance from the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ, please?
The planet is quite clearly NOT under threat, despite the doomsayers. The evidence is absolutely solid that, over the last two million years at least (and probably for very much longer) Earth has gone through 17 or 18 periodic ice ages, with warm periods in between. Both extremes of the cycle, peak warm periods and peak glaciations, have presented existing species with challenges. Those species able to adapt have survived, others have not. That includes homo sapiens - indeed, we are what we are because nature has selected for intelligence, adaptability and creativity in face of challenge.
The lowest temperature in the current cycle is recorded in ice cores as occurring about 28,000 yrs. ago. That means we are now in the warm part of the cycle with about 20,000 years to go until maximum warmth, followed by another 25,000 years of slowly moderating temperatures until the onset of the next big glaciation, which will peak after a further 25,000 yrs. These big temperature cycles follow the elongation cycle of Earth's orbit round the Sun. There will be plenty of small temperature variations up and down, for several hundred or even a thousand years or so at a time, during these main trends, due to other natural astronomic cycles.
But Planet Earth will definitely survive, together with whatever species - including ourselves - prove to be capable of adapting to new conditions.
The greenhouse gas scare is simply very bad science, like the imminent ice age scare of thirty years ago. The less than four hundredths of one percent (yes, that small!) of CO2 - a very poor heat absorber - now in our atmosphere is physically incapable of contributing to significant global temperature change. The small proportion of it that is produced by man is even less significant. The ice core record also shows CO2 following these temperature changes, increasing during warm interglacials and always decreasing as temperatures fall towards peak glaciation.
Balance, please. I know it's not as exciting as imminent doom, but it makes sense.
Peter Lloyd
Complain about this post
Peter Lloyd says "The greenhouse gas scare is simply very bad science ... " This is nonsense.
His post is full of completely unwarranted assertions, clear indications of a lack of understanding of, for instance, the greenhouse effect and allusions to natural causes of global warming which are no where near as significant as human produced CO2.
The A in AGW stands for anthropogenic!! We are causing global warming.
I don't suppose someone with Peter's perspective is interested in following the links I've provided in other posts. For those who are open to reason here is another suggestion for reading. Try The Rough Guide to Climate Change by Robert Henson. Up to date and very good. Check out A Heated Debate in Part 4. Here Henson deals with the naysayers, climate denial lobby groups and others who have tried to sow doubt.
Thankfully the climate change deniers are increasingly reduced to a few cranks who have nothing useful left to say on this issue.
Douglas Coker
Complain about this post
Peter Lloyd,
For a lucid discussion of the problem of "balance", see .
Vaya con Gaia
ed
Complain about this post
Douglas and Ed - trust you guys to go and spoil things again by thumping us back to reality. Why let a few facts get in the way of Peter Lloyds' fantasy. For a minute there, I thought we were all OK!!
Complain about this post
I haven't had a chance to listen to Planet Earth under Threat yet, but wanted to mention Planet Earth - The Future, on Sunday (ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ4). I thought it really was excellent. My only gripe is that, when you have got so many constructive viewpoints put together, why is it not shown on ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ1 so that these issues are aired to the masses, rather than a niche market?
Just a few observations:
I thought the writer EO Wilson summed it up well when he said that ALL species matter. I don't think many people grasp the point about ecosystems, but that's because they don't know. It's the same with soil conservation... We have long since been educated about the importance of the rainforest, but why is soil conservation never discussed?
I'm an Ecology/Conservation Management student and I have had many sobering lectures about the decline in the numbers and variety of species. I would like to hear much more in the general media about the importance of gene pools, so that again, people can understand the importance of diversity amongst species and recognise how necessary it is in the future.
I was really interested in hearing the comments about the role of conservation charities. I think this is an area that requires further consideration. Poor, starving people in Africa will understandably be more interested in feeding their children, than saving the elephants who are rampaging through the few crops they can grow. Perhaps if Oxfam and say, the WWF liaised with each other, they might find a better, more productive way of furthering their causes.
Finally, I would love to know if I was the only one shocked by the woman from the Zoo in America who was talking about the possibilities of the human race in the future, moving to another planet and taking the DNA/gene pool from extinct animals with us to start again. What a depressing thought......
Think the blog is great Julian, keep up the good work!
Rachel
Complain about this post
Things seem to have slowed down a little at the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ. I suspect it has something to do with Grades departure. Get over it guys - he was offered a better deal (Β£825K salary plus more in perks) and was poached. I'm sure that that your existing chief - MT has all in hand and probably doesn't need a Chairman to lean on anyway. However, it is important that the new guy is properly qualified to help shape one of the most influential orgs in the UK.
Top of the list of interview criteria has got to be a sound scientific education. We have had enough of 'quackery' being given airtime. Future decisions need to be informed by peer-reviewed, evidence based facts and data, and the new gaffer needs to be cute enough to understand the difference. As Hardin explained; it is no longer sufficient to be numerate and literate - you should also be ecolate.
It is also vital that the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ do not cave into the Chancellor. Brown is clearly employing financial soften-up tactics. Please hold your central nervous system - it'll be worth it in the longer term.
Complain about this post
Just checked in to see what reaction my post got and the answer is, not unexpectedly, the Pavlovian response in spades.
βOh dear ... someone else taken in by Monckton. I expect you'll be referring us to the Lawsons, Piers Corbyn, S Fred Singer and similar purveyors of nonsense on anthropogenic global warming next.
George Monbiot took Monckton to task here in his Guardian piece entitled "This is a dazzling debunking of climate change science. It is also wildly wrong".β
I have not been βtaken in by Moncktonβ as this poster assumes (and I also think he, Monckton, gave better than he got in his reply, also in The Guardian). I started out researching this subject myself a few years ago, and had already reached pretty much the same conclusions as Monckton has arrived at.
There were two particular things that initially got my BS antenna buzzing. One is the constant refrain that anyone who disagrees with the AGW hypothesis is:
1. a liar;
2. certifiably insane;
3. extremely stupid;
4. in the pay of Big Oil, Big Coal, or Big Whatever;
5. any combination or all of the above.
I do not believe this to be the case. However, this is my opinion, based on what I have read, and no amount of referencing substantiating articles here will, I know, be enough to dissuade the believers.
The second was the conduct of the media, that of the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ being particularly egregious in this matter. On the flimsiest of pretexts, and with an alarming regularity, a report from some interest group with an agenda would be produced, then hyped up, threatening us all with hell and damnation unless we changed our profligate consumerist ways. Every prophet of doom in the Western world has been wheeled in front of the microphones, each trying to outdo the last in depictions of the gruesome punishments that await us. As a veteran of a number of βcrisesβ (global cooling, global famine, acid rain, Y2K, ozone layer, etc.) I just had to take a few steps back (βbut this time itβs TRUEβ I hear you all sayβ¦).
Julian - I tuned into Radio 4 tonight just before the 6 oβclock news. Was it really you who was hyping this Radio 4 programme by talking about the worldβs βgreatest thinkersβ and βunstoppable trainsβ? Do you really think that anybody, apart from a few diehards, actually believes this rubbish? I mix with a lot of different people, most of whom are not Guardian or Independent readers, and I can assure you that the majority of them take all this with a very big pinch of salt (despite the daily propaganda from the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ).
Anyway, Iβve really not a great deal more to say, and the world view of the true believers will remain unchanged. However, what Monckton did accomplish, to his very great credit, was get the message across to a very large number of people that the AGW hypothesis is built on very shaky foundations, and that the forecasts for the future (βscenariosβ in IPCC speak) have very little, if any, grounding in the real world.
I am confident that the truth will out, eventually. But I am prepared for the long haul.
Complain about this post
Steve - Douglas came back to you with a logical, evidence-based set of retorts to your comments. If you do not like what he is saying you should reply with your own substantiated case. You have not done so.
Complain about this post
I do love being patronised by Ed, Douglas and others that I cannot resist getting involved with this blog.
Evidence based, an interesting concept that when I tried to use direct evidence that the climate models might be wrong, or that it has all happened many times before,in my blogs, I get accused of not fully understanding the science.
Well maybe I don't fully understand climate science, but I certainly have an understanding of human behaviour, we are capable of believing almost anything, with or without evidence.
The belief that our behaviour affects the climate of the planet is a very primitive belief that goes to the heart of our nature. We have always believed that if we live our lives a little better then all will be well.
This is how religious belief continues, why wars are fought, how we relate to one another.
And it is why I do not believe.
Complain about this post
The AGW detracters all have a solid point - the media (most mass media) are terribly guilty of whipping up a proportional peice of evidence into a eye-popping harbinger of doom. We then have 'commentators' commentating on the media stories rather than the original scientific reports - and of course it's very easy to criticise media exaggeration. We have poor general scientific literacy and are therefore condemmed to mass media translation of science into blockbuster stories. While this continues we won't be able to have a proper debate, because we'll be debating the opinions of those with the loudest vioces (those in the media) rather then those who actually do the work.
Complain about this post
Clive - you are spot on. I thought Bird Flu was a classic example. The science can always be manipulated by interested parties. There was just too big a sales opportunity to be missed. The fact that there has been a 'theoretical' risk of cross-species infection since birds and man first co-existed seems to have been conveniently overlooked. Although, the risk is greater - as a result of our growing population. The science on AGW, although still developing, has pretty much been settled. It's time to move on ...
Complain about this post
John Cooknell and Steve Holmes are, I assume, lost causes. Thank you Ed and Bob for the positive posts.
I'd encourage all to visit Ed's site by the way. As someone who originates from Prestwick I share his enthusiasm for the south-west of Scotland. And of course isostatic rebound favours this part of the world in the longer term.
Clive Trueman's post is interesting. I'm on record as warning against "unnecessarily alarmist" talk on AGW. I have the likes of that mischievous old curmudgeon James Lovelock in mind.
Maybe the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ could do a programme focussing on scientific method, the peer review process, reason and logic. This might go some way to reduce the abundance of unsupported assertions, non sequiturs and ignorance used and displayed by some. And really β¦ anyone not understanding the danger of the hole in the ozone layer and implying this was not really serious β¦ cannot be serious!
See this over at Wiki for help on the process of critical thinking.
Finally Al Gore, in response to Monckton, said this in the Telegraph βA former colleague of mine in the US Senate, the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, once said: "Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts."β Quite. The whole piece is here
Douglas Coker
Complain about this post
The question climate change deniers like Steve have to ask themselves is this: Can I be 100% sure that the predictions of catastrophic climate change later this century are all wrong?(and that the opinion of overwhelming majority of scientists around the world is also are wrong?) If the answer is no, it's plain common sense that we take precautionary approach and try to do something about it. If the answer is yes...well you can't really be serious!
Complain about this post
Douglas,
Thanks for the pointer to Critical thinking - a worthwhile piece. And may I take the opportunity to remind readers of the piece on "balance" in reporting and discussion .
A visit to
Vaya con Gaia
ed
Complain about this post
Thanks Douglas for the vote of confidence, haven't been called a lost cause since my teenage school days, a long time ago!
I have no objection to the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ producing programmes like PEuT, in fact I welcome them, as the title actually lets you know what the content will be.
I do have an issue with the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ news at times when the subject of climate change comes up.
Stories I have seen on ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ TV News:-
1. Early ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ News reports on the Asian Tsunami actually said that climate change had caused the Tsunami. Later reports got it right, but you do wonder at what the editor actually was thinking at this time.
2.When they did a series of articles on climate change they stood the reporter in front of the eroding cliffs in North Norfolk (houses falling in sea etc.), and then led the viewer to believe this was caused by climate change. I know this was their intention and indeed their belief, because when I wrote to the editor asking what the point was he told me that I didn't understand and that these cliffs were eroding due to climate change.
I followed up by sending extracts from the geological survey that said that cliffs were soft glacial deposits and that this erosion was a natural process. So the only climate change implicated was the one that happened about 10,000 years ago when the glaciers melted in a hurry and left the geological strata all mixed up.
The editor did write back with a half hearted apology but I believe he still thinks its all down to climate change.
I did think the News was meant to be about things that had happened, if you include speculation or theory then by definition it isn't news.
Complain about this post
John, I think you make a slightly different, but valid point over confused definitions and what is meant? The Title of the show clearly lends itself to a number of different interpretations.
Julian - can you please explain what you meant?
Complain about this post
Your comments are really interesting. A lot of your missives relate to who's telling who. And I suppose the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ gets caught up in this because we have to report who's saying what to who. I'm very struck that ordinary folk like you and I are bombarded with huge ideas, concepts and doomsday scenarios that are incredibly hard to manage. It's not that the ideas are too hard to comprehend, it's what you do with your self when the idea is planted. In episode 6 of PEuT we hear from a US geologist who says there's a vast store of methane ready to erupt from the seabed in our warming climate - a gas 60x more potent than CO2. If it goes we're done for. Ideas of a 1/7th loss of the Greenland ice sheet causing a 1m rise in sea level world wide, of 50% species extinctions - mainly the ones we love like polar bears, turtles and Eagles - and of course this hideous notion that the momentum of climate change cannot be halted inside 100 years, even if we did all the right things now. I'm 48 years old - I lived my early life under the bomb. The dark forces of the cold war saying that mutual annihilation was possible, even inevitable. I remember the advice of closing your windows and sitting under the kitchen table if the evil of total mutual exchange were to be unleashed. We all carried on as normal because what the hell can you do with an idea like that. I've said it in this blog, but we're looking for a global environmental leader who can make the concepts relevant to ordinary people and ordinary lives. And not to frighten us rigid, but to impose a sense of care so our behaviour changes and we influence the change in others.
Keep blogging. This is great.
Complain about this post
Life on the Move? Meaning, as the climate changes so do the local conditions and the adaptations animals and plants have to their surrounds no longer seem appropriate - so they disperse. Not all succeed. Some do. Species seem to move faster than habitats - so fragmentaion happens. So the title is a biological one. Does that answer your question?
Complain about this post
In context to the blogs I was actually referring to the 'Planet Earth Under Threat' title. I have stated that the planet is under threat ... and I meant this in terms of human populations and population by-products. However, this threat is nothing in comparison to large meteorites, extraordinary sun spot activity, nuclear war, Yellowstone erupting or even a methane bubble burst. Some of the blogs have therefore been absolutely right when refering to mans' arrogance in thinking that we might have some sort of effect. That is why I felt that the definition needed to be tied down a bit.
It might be non-PC, some of the recommendations are likely to be highly distasteful to certain groups, but unlike Yellowstone, there is something we can do about populations, consumption and pollution.
As this blog demonstrates, there are massive educational hurdles and taboos to overcome, but it is in everyones interest to ensure that rapid progress is made. The alternative is to hide under the kitchen table. This is the key communication objective that the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ should be gunning for. Or am I missing something?
Complain about this post
With regard to the slur "climate change deniers". Climate does, and always has, changed. It is the notion that puny man is responsible for it, or more contentiously can control the chaotic system which we call the weather is the real issue. I'm impressed by Julian Hector's balanced reporting, however I'm rather less impressed by the McCarthyite responses by the more hardline doomsters. There is a substantial raft of new evidence,especially referring to Danish and Russian research on the effect of sunspot activity on the formation and reflectivity of clouds.This according to recent data may well equate to 50% of the recent warming ( 0.6 of a degree in 150 years)and may also conversely cause cooling by the same mechanism. I do not remember this exposure receiving the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ blockbuster treatment.Newsnight's Ethical Man may well consider buying a new car!!
Complain about this post
John,
The North Norfolk cliffs will erode more quickly if climate change brings higher sea levels and more storms, both of which are predicted by most models. Looking to our 'sea defences' is one of the least controversial being circulated.
"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe."
-- John Muir
Complain about this post
Thanks Ed
I guess we can include the wings of butterflies?
Regardless of other causes - including tectonic activity - clearly the more aggressive products of AGW will accelerate the erosion of areas that are already vulnerable. However, this example does illustrate the need for a 'control' and full explanation.
Complain about this post
Bob,
For a 'control', wouldn't we need another planet? Better ask the mice.
ed
Complain about this post
... he he he yes, ideally, but I understand that geographers can use other models.
While on the subject of other worlds, although an entirely different point.
According to Prof Chris Rapley, Director of the British Antarctic Survey we actually need 2.8 Earths to sustain our population.
Complain about this post
Ed
I forwarded the reference to you and I hope that this is useful. He is saying that if we wish to continue a sustainable western lifestyle, even with full conversion to renewables - the population would need to be 2.2 billion! I'd be interested to know what you think?
Complain about this post
Bob,
It's an excellent article, and I've emailed you with a suggestion to make it available.
As to Prof. Repley's article, it refers to supporting the present population at the level of the present , a level which is already unsustainable with only 20% of us doing it. We are cutting trees faster than they grow, using fresh water faster than it recycles itself, depleting commercial fish species, destroying topsoil and depending upon numerous non-renewable resources.
The prognosis is not uplifting, at least for Homo supposedly Sapiens.
ed
Complain about this post
Thanks Ed
I'm v. grateful for your kind feedback.If, and I have no reason to doubt it, Prof Rapley is right we certainly do have our collective work cut out for us - and no-one can blame you for not trying to do your bit!
Complain about this post