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Climate change stole my bees

12 May 2021 | News Roundup

A theory that explains everything explains nothing and cannot be tested, a troubling point in context of the assertion that climate change causes warming, cooling, more hurricanes, fewer hurricanes and anything else that just happened. But it gets worse because we do mean anything. It’s not just weather. Apparently climate change is a major cause of anything you dislike from a wave of beehive thefts in France to pitifully small salmon fillets in Alaska. So the proof that climate change is real is that life is not perfect, a theory that explains everything and therefore nothing.

Of course there are other causes behind the beehive thefts. Like thieves. And, the story concedes, “French beekeepers have been stung by a wave of thefts of their hives, which they blame on rising demand and plummeting honey bee populations due to pesticides, the Asian hornet and climate change.” Then it conceded that “it was difficult to give a precise figure of nationwide thefts because many victims ‘don’t talk about it’” according to the president of the national French beekeepers’ union.

It also seems to be a problem that the legal system doesn’t treat the crime seriously. So perverse incentives are contributing to the issue. Or would be if it wasn’t all climate change all the time.

Since it is, how exactly is climate change supposedly promoting beehive theft? Well, France is of course (drum roll please) warming faster than the global average. At least according to Climate Change Post, which says “The global warming recorded in mainland France during the 20th century is about 30 % greater than the average warming throughout the globe. The average annual temperature has risen by 0.95 °C in mainland France, compared to 0.74 °C globally.” And you can just imagine what that additional 0.21 °C is doing to les abeilles… because there are no facts on which to base something beyond trendy conjecture. (And for some reason there are no bees on cool, comfy Baffin Island, unlike blazing, hive-melting France where projected highs this week are roughly 16°C at least in Paris.)

If you care, Euronews located in Europe says Europe is warming faster than the global average which makes sense because Europe is on land. So are bees.

As for the salmon, this story that ran everywhere from Bloomberg to the Malaysian Reserve to the New Hampshire Union Leader eventually spat out that “These disruptions are, for now, more a nuisance than serious problem. But they almost certainly presage more costly changes to come and, much more importantly, raise alarm bells about the growing crisis in some key salmon populations that is being driven, according to many scientists, by climate change and more competition for food. Decades after the Atlantic cod fisheries collapsed, concern is now mounting among experts that wild Pacific salmon could face a similar fate.”

Uh, not to return to this issue of similar effects having similar causes or anything annoyingly scientific along those lines. But if the Atlantic cod fishery collapsed due to overfishing because of a very obvious tragedy of the commons, and wild Pacific salmon are being overfished and might collapse in the same way for the same reason, and indeed “In Europe and New England, the memory of rivers teeming with wild Atlantic salmon is all but forgotten due to overfishing, habitat loss and dam construction that blocked spawning grounds, said David Montgomery, whose 2003 book 'King of Fish: The Thousand Year Run of Salmon' warns that the Pacific species could face the same fate”, what’s climate change got to do with it? Where, indeed, is the evidence that climate change is even involved?

Evidence? We don’t need no stinking evidence. “‘The whole thing is out of whack,’ said Laurie Weitkamp, a U.S. fisheries biologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. ‘Salmon managers are realizing that climate change is impacting their stocks and it is generally not favorable and it’s only going to get worse.’” Oh really? How? Where is the water warmer and what is it doing to the reproductive cycle?

Admit it. You have no idea. And in fact they do admit it, once the obligatory genuflection at the altar of green apocalypse is out of the way: “Alaskan salmon are getting smaller partly because they’re returning from the ocean at a younger age, though scientists don’t really know why.” Must be climate change. We know because we don’t. How do you like that science?

Now at this point some clown may say yeah, climate change is blamed for everything from road rage to eczema. But it didn’t cause those California fires. At least the giant, deadly Markley Fire, which merged with the Hennessey Fire to become the fifth-largest in LNU Lightning Complex Fire, was allegedly set by a man trying to conceal a murder. But of course (drum roll please) climate change causes increases in crime. And makes fire worse. And unleashes deadly fungal diseases.

Never mind that temperature readings have not increased by an amount anyone could detect without a digital thermometer in the last 100 years. Climate change makes people steal French bees, makes salmon head for home early, and makes your hands itch and creep toward someone’s throat. It’s the worst.

3 comments on “Climate change stole my bees”

  1. The supposed greater accuracy of digital thermometers is spurious - they have what is called a 'four and a half digit' display. Half a digit? How does that work? Simple, the least significant decimal place can only show a zero, or a five (not 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, or 9). so you can see 104.10 degrees F, or 104.15F, or 104.20F, but not 104.17F, or 104.12F, so the impression of measuring to a hundredth of a degree is false. Even measuring to a tenth of a degree is probably not entirely valid, as these devices are probably not accurately calibrated across their range, and not subject to regular comparisons with reliable mercury-in-glass thermometers.

  2. What those doubting Thomases of climate sceptics invariably forget is the fundamental law, the zeroth law, of climate science (drum roll please) :
    If it's nice, it's natural variation. If it's nasty it's climate change.
    Thus, when glaciers are rolling past your house, which in any case is buried under several metres of ice, be assured that it's all due to global warming cause by CO2 emissions.

  3. I fully appreciate CDN's efforts to keep things on an even keel, but what can I do other than report another symptom of climate change: the deleterious effect it appears to be having on the cognitive abilities of one of our Members of Parliament. Step forward Tobias Ellwood, Conservative Member of Parliament for Bournemouth East and Chair of the House of Commons Select Defence Committee.

    In a recent radio interview, he had this to say:

    Ellwood: "So when we come to saying how can we change this, it all comes down to this hole in the ozone layer which is allowing the planet to heat up, and we can actually close back this ozone layer if we're a little bit more careful about CO2 emissions.

    "A lot of the stuff that we are burning today has been accumulated over millions of years, and coal and so forth, and that is causing such a jump in CO2 emissions, it's causing to burn a hole in the ozone layer."

    Presenter: "It's not burning holes in the ozone layer, though, is it? That was CFC's; this is about greenhouse gases."

    Ellwood: "It's the same thing, it's the same thing. It's causing our planet to heat up because the sun is able to have too much of an impact."

    Our future safe in their hands?

    Listen/see for yourself on YouTube – "talkRADIO - James Whale and Ash | 20-Apr-21" - from 11' 40".

    https://youtu.be/HTOT3lHrdPw

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