Posted on 01/12/2006 7:40:32 AM PST by cogitator
Whew, am I'm glad to hear that. As I though it was because her tennis playing basically stunk.
:-)
If one lousy degree is enough to send 70 percent of frogs into extinction, shouldn't the frog have gone extinct one hundred times throughout its history?
Especially when you factor in the statistic that The French consume "3,000 to 4,000 tons of Frog's Legs per year - 60 to 80 million frogs".
I'd think that would put a dent in any species population :-)
Just being in Costa Rica, people and guides there were very upbeat on their govt's attaempt to keep the rain forest, jungles, many species alive and thought that dealing with the turtles, sloths, etc. other frogs(red and greenies), Costa Rica was doing a good job. Just anecdotal, I realize, but on variedplantations I visited, the same statements were made. If there is a Frog death march going on, those people were not aware of it.
It's one degree, combined with alterations of regional climate, combined with fungus infestation. One reference indicated that human activities also contributed to the spread of the fungus.
Rarely is one effect directly attributable to one single cause in nature.
The point is that the warming trend (as we exit from the Little Ice Age) is irrelevant. It has been warmer than this before (during the MWP), and the frogs did not go extinct. These days a lot of "scientific" articles tack on "Global Warming" as decoration in order to qualify for grant money.
Where'd you go in CR? I'm going to the Puerto Jimenez region this summer and looking forward to it.
First, you might like to think that the warming trend is post-Little Ice Age, but that's not supported by the data particularly for the mid-1980s to now warming trend. Further, the observed amphibian loss increasingly appears to be caused by a fungus infestation or other diseases that is exacerbated by warming. Habitat loss and climate change may be making the frogs more susceptible to disease than in previous warm periods. (It's somewhat akin to coral diseases, which are on the rise too: the corals are environmentally stressed and therefore more susceptible to diseases.)
You might have to be a herpetologist to notice, but there have been articles about amphibian losses around the world for several years. (And Costa Rica is doing an admirable job of environmental protection.)
Cogitator,
Don't waste any more cogitation time on weather models and global warming. The METS model is one of the biggies, and it predicts that summer rainfall in the Central Sahara is the same as Ireland.
For those unfamiliar with the global warming bit, the Central Sahara last recorded a summer rain nearly a century ago.
Check Google for Dr. Patrick Michaels, Professor Linzden at MIT, etc..
OOPSIE, There!
Coral diseases like the "coral bleaching" make for good press for Communism Lite enablers in the media ("presstitutes" to the FR community), but reality doesn't support man as a cause.
For those willing to actually read the literature, look up Dr. Eugene Shinn's paper on iron enrichment (iron blown across the Atlantic from the Sahara) and coral response thereto.
His "The Night Periplanata Died" is hilarious. Fair warning, it regularly induces hyper-ventilation in hyper-environmentalists.
bump for later
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