{"id":59686,"date":"2020-09-16T13:06:43","date_gmt":"2020-09-16T18:06:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=59686"},"modified":"2020-09-16T13:06:43","modified_gmt":"2020-09-16T18:06:43","slug":"59686","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=59686","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

The \u201cEscalator to Extinction\u201d Myth<\/a><\/p>\n

In\u00a0Life on the Mississippi<\/em>\u00a0Mark Twain wrote, \u201cThere is something fascinating about science. One gets such\u00a0wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact<\/em>.\u201d Unfortunately, conjecture based on limited facts has produced \u201cresearch\u201d trumpeting catastrophic fears of extinction. The \u201cescalator to extinction\u201d theory argues organisms must migrate to higher elevations where a cooler altitude will offset global warming temperatures. But there is scant evidence that is happening.<\/p>\n

For example, in 1985 researchers spent 33 days surveying the wondrous bird diversity along a narrow ascending 5-mile trail in southern Peru. They recorded an amazing 455 unique species. In 2017 they\u00a0repeated the survey<\/a>, but for only 22 days. Still they observed 422 species consisting of 52 additional species never observed in 1985, but they also failed to detect 71 species that had been documented in 1985. Clearly, more extensive surveys are needed to accurately detect all species and determine their abundance. Nonetheless, because 8 ridgetop species (i.e. Crested Quetzal) that were previously observed only at the highest elevations but were not detected in 2017, researchers conjectured the \u201cescalator to extinction\u201d eliminated those 8 species. Additionally, they asserted similar local extinctions must be happening along ridgetops all across the earth\u2019s tropical mountains.<\/p>\n

Modeled temperatures had risen by 0.8\u00b0F between the two surveys, so they concluded those missing 8 species were extirpated by global warming because birds already at the ridgetop could no longer flee upwards to cooler temperatures. \u00a0For most people, the idea that a 0.8\u00b0F rise in ridgetop temperatures could be deadly greatly strains the imagination. Moreover researchers in nearby regions of\u00a0Manu National Park<\/a>, found the alleged \u201cextirpated species\u201d thriving at lower elevations where temperatures are 3-5 \u00b0F warmer than their ridgetop. Falsely asserting most Peruvian birds are \u201chighly sedentary\u201d and don\u2019t migrate, the scientists argued it was unlikely they missed any birds during their 10 days on the ridgetop due to migration. Thus, the birds must be locally extinct. \u00a0Not having the critical eye of a Mark Twain, mass media journalists \u2013\u00a0BBC<\/a>,\u00a0the Atlantic<\/a>, and\u00a0Yale Environment 360<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 promoted those extinction fears. Regretfully only good investigative journalism has become extinct.<\/p>\n

It is well documented that about\u00a024% of Peru\u2019s birds are \u201celevational migrants\u201d<\/a>. Elevational migrants are typically on the move between different elevations during August and September, the same months of the 1985 and 2017 surveys. The high chance of not observing randomly migrating species prudently explains why their short-term surveys each missed detecting 12% and 16% of the region\u2019s species. And there\u2019s good news to counter their extinction conclusions. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature determined those \u201cextinct\u201d 8 species are relatively abundant elsewhere and categorized as species of Least Concern.<\/p>\n

A\u00a0global warming explanation only obscures complex movements<\/a>\u00a0within ecosystems elsewhere. Researchers comparing early 20th century bird surveys in California\u2019s mountains found as many species were moving downslope as species \u201cfleeing\u201d upslope. Furthermore, the same species moved differently in different regions. But fearmongering media journalists don\u2019t find such facts newsworthy.<\/p>\n

The theory that global warming relentlessly pushes species up mountain slopes to their eventual extinction, has been preached by climate scientists like James Hansen to add urgency to his catastrophic theories.\u00a0 Unfortunately, such theories have constrained the objectivity of several researchers to the point they manipulated observations to fit the theory.<\/p>\n

For example, pika are rabbit-like creatures that live in rockslides of western America\u2019s mountains. By comparing the elevations of territories documented in the early 1900s to their current elevation\u00a0Dr. Beever argued<\/a>\u00a0global warming was causing a \u201cfive-fold increase in the rate of local extinctions.\u201d However, of the 25 pika territories surveyed, 10 were now inhabiting lower and warmer elevations. To preserve a scary theory,\u00a0Beever eliminated those observations from his calculations, guaranteeing\u00a0a statistical upslope retreat. But recent US Forest Service surveys also found 19%\u00a0of the currently known pika populations are at\u00a0lower elevations<\/em>\u00a0than documented during the cooler 1900s, as well as a few thriving pika territories that Dr. Beever had deemed locally extinct.<\/p>\n

Dr. Camille Parmesan\u2019s 1994 Edith\u2019s Checkerspot butterfly study made her an icon for climate change catastrophe. Featured on the Union of Concerned Scientists\u2019 website Parmesan stated,\u00a0 \u201cThe latest research shows clearly that we face the threat of mass extinctions in coming years,\u201d For promoting global warming catastrophe, she earned an invitation to speak at the Clinton White House and to join the IPCC. I tried to replicate her study, but she refused to supply the necessary data and she never published a methods section. However, \u00a0it was privately admitted the Checkerspot butterfly had been increasing through the 2000s and many butterfly colonies she designated extinct<\/a>, were now thriving. But such good news was never published. What is truly worrisome is all these misleading \u00a0claims have duped the public into a hysteria regards climate \u201cextinctions\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The \u201cEscalator to Extinction\u201d Myth In\u00a0Life on the Mississippi\u00a0Mark Twain wrote, \u201cThere is something fascinating about science. One gets such\u00a0wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.\u201d Unfortunately, conjecture based on limited facts has produced \u201cresearch\u201d trumpeting catastrophic fears of extinction. The \u201cescalator to extinction\u201d theory argues organisms must migrate to … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64,18,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-deceit","category-econuts","category-fraud"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59686"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59687,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59686\/revisions\/59687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}