Product Description
One of the great horror stories associated with predictions of CO2-induced global warming is that the warming will be so fast and furious that many species of plants and animals will not be able to migrate towards cooler regions – poleward in latitude, or upward in elevation – at rates that are fast enough to avoid extinction. But is this claim true? Learn what the scientific evidence suggests in this insightful new book…. More >>
CO2, Global Warming and Species Extinctions: Prospects for the Future
EXTINCTION DENIED
The following review is by my friend and colleague, Dr. Vincent Gray.
Bob Ferguson
A review of
Dr. Craig D. Idso and Dr. Sherwood B. Idso
CO2, Global Warming and Species Extinction: Prospects for the Future
Science and Public Policy Institute 2009 134 pages
Those of us who have been interested in the great climate debate owe an immense debt to the Idso family (Sherwood and his sons Craig and Keith) who have provided a website (CO2 Climate) which for these many years have given us scholarly reviews and analyses of so many significant scientific papers from all sides of the controversial topic, at a time when access to scientific journals has become more and more difficult because of the proliferation of journals, their escalating cost, and their reduced availability in libraries. In addition, the Idsos have made significant contributions to the climate debate by their experimental studies.
They are now providing important contributions to several topics of the climate debate, using their own fund of information and expertise.
“CO2, Global Warming and Coral Reefs” by Dr. Craig Idso appeared in February 24, 2009.
It was then followed by the impressive
Climate Change Reconsidered: The Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change by S. Fred Singer and Craig Idso on – June 1, 2009,
This report arose from the activities of an international team of experts assembled by Fred Singer, and it is an effective counter to the recent reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Now we have
CO2, Global Warming and Species Extinction: Prospects for the Future.
This book assembles information from over three hundred references to provide the first authoritative monograph on the subject of species extinction.
It deals with what might at first sight be regarded as a non-problem. Bjorn Lomborg had a brief Chapter on “Biodiversity” in his “Skeptical Environmentalist” of 2001. In it he quotes a report by Myers that a Conference in 1974 claimed that the extinction rate had then reached 100 species a year and was about to approach 40,000 per year. More extravagant claims have escalated since, now often based on models, yet not a year has passed with a scrap of evidence that such a crisis is imminent.
The increasing numbers of species that somehow get designated as “endangered” or “threatened” seem never ever to reach the status of extinction. Although many have reduced numbers, we also hear of some, such as the wolves in North America where increases have led to the necessity for culling these “threatened” animals.
This book explains in some detail how the opinion in some quarters of a forthcoming species extinction has developed, despite the obvious absence of evidence. This has been done by selecting only those small areas where a case can be made for declining species. The essential technique is to “measure” biodiversity. The quotes are there because the actual number of species is never measured, only those that are visible, and which can have an emotional association with humans. They never count rats or cockroaches or any of the vast majority of smaller species which actually determine ecology in a particular region and its subsequent evolutionary changes.
The Idsos list the factors in these studies that are omitted by most of the studies, to show that they usually counteract or reverse the supposed threats from warming. They back this up with experimental evidence, sometimes obtained by their own studies.
Most organisms actually benefit from warming rather than the reverse. Increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere also benefits most organisms and assists the spread of their habitat. Evolution is usually ignored. Organisms have a greater capacity to adapt to changed circumstances than they are given credit for, as is shown by several examples in this book. The argument that warming is too rapid for this to happen seems unlikely when the “global cooling” which has occurred for the past ten years is considered.
This raises an additional issue that is not treated by the Idsos, the fact that climate fluctuates rather than advancing inexorably. There is considerable evidence that global temperature goes through a cycle of about 60 years in line with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Most of the area studies reported deal only with the upswing of the cycle when temperature rises. They ignore the downswing when temperature falls, when species response is more likely to be negative, and they ignore the evidence that we are about to enter another downswing instead of the continued temperature increase projected by the computer models.
There are sections dealing with the possible responses of many individual organisms; plants, animals, birds butterflies and amphibians. The beneficial effects of increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere on plants is the most important finding, since many other creatures depend on plant products.
The section dealing with marine creatures is particularly useful, as it shows that they all benefit from increased carbon dioxide in the sea, including a higher pH.
The book thus gives a considered and scientifically detailed answer to the forecasts of imminent mass extinction and finds they are not justified.
3rd November 2009
Rating: 5 / 5
As a world traveling, empiricist with an extensive background in Genetics and Physiological Ecology, I found this ‘Critique’ of the recent decades’ over-selling of CO2 induced Global Warming, and subsequent Enhanced Rates of Species Extinction – to be long overdue. This book is more than just a ‘contrarian commentary’. The series of systematic refutations, based on many diverse location’s empirical observations, comparing species numbers and distributions from the late 1800s, or within the 20th Century, clearly focused on the last thirty years ‘warming’, provide a far more realistic basis for outlining both future species level expectations, and their causes, than the poorly defensible ‘CO2 is Bad’ mob behavior.
The Idso’s long immersion in relevant plant physiology, relevant thermal, growth pattern changes, and nutritional responses to enhanced CO2, temperature changes, and other processes provides a strong foundation for their systematic analyses of known adaptations, and evolutionary responses of the various life forms, eg Birds, Butterflies, Amphibians, Marine Life, and Other Animals – based on the key physiological and behavioral options that each species has evolved – often in previous ‘dynamic climate change’ periods, and/or high/low CO2 periods. The 23 pages of References from which their conclusions are derived provide both fact-based statements and refutation of the unsupported ‘fear mongering’ that is being pitched by various interests, that has swept under the table, the “Real World”‘ issues, such as human-induced landscape perturbations; habitat issues such as pollution; and habitat loss due to urbanization.
The final Message in this book – about the misuse of agricultural production, and the switch to biofuel production, rather than enhanced food production, should be read and (hopefully) understood by everyone – as the ongoing human population growth that dominates these issues – requires maximization of food production. Basically, CO2 is the fundamental input that supports the wide range of primary production processes required. Decreasing/sequestering CO2 reverses these necessary production outputs, and threatens both mankind and Nature. – The Wrong Way to Go!
Rating: 5 / 5