Tiger-Eye's Link
So much idiocy here on so many levels I hesitated to even acknowledge it with a response. In this article, trees contribute to global warming. But, I have also heard the deforestation was the cause. As any hunter worth his salt knows, snow will last longer in the woods where it is cooler than in the fields. Well as usual the AGW crowd gets it both ways.
Secondly they argue that the snow insulates the ground from the -40F winds. The winds have nothing to do with it. The permafrost is a cool 32. Doesn't get any colder. Ice is ice and 32 F is the number regardless the temperature or the wind.
Then there is this gem:
"When mammoths roamed in a northern area known as the "mammoth steppe," that ecosystem was rich in grasses. But after the woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) went extinct and other grazers left the area, grasses gave way to shrubs and a tundra ecosystem, an environment that the Harvard Woolly Mammoth Revival team says is "contributing to human-driven climate change."
Sounds more like mammoth driven climate change.
Other questions. Why did the mammoths die off? Was the earth naturally warming (not much man made AGW 4000 years age). Or perhaps, using the author's theory got it backwards on the relationship of mammoths with trees and shrubs. Could the mammoths have caused their own downfall by toppling enough trees so that climate changed? Or was it Mammoth Farts
They blasted theirselves into extinction!
Overview Woolly: The True Story of the Quest to Revive One of History's Most Iconic Extinct Creatures by Ben Mezrich
Science fiction becomes reality in this Jurassic Park-like story of the genetic resurrection of an extinct species—the woolly mammoth—by the bestselling author of The Accidental Billionaires and The 37th Parallel.
“With his knack for turning narrative nonfiction into stories worthy of the best thriller fiction” (Omnivoracious), Ben Mezrich takes us on an exhilarating true adventure story from the icy terrain of Siberia to the cutting-edge genetic labs of Harvard University. A group of young scientists, under the guidance of Dr. George Church, the most brilliant geneticist of our time, works to make fantasy reality by sequencing the DNA of a frozen woolly mammoth harvested from above the Arctic circle, and splicing elements of that sequence into the DNA of a modern elephant. Will they be able to turn the hybrid cells into a functional embryo and bring the extinct creatures to life in our modern world?
Along with Church and his team of Harvard scientists, a world-famous conservationist and a genius Russian scientist plan to turn a tract of the Siberian tundra into Pleistocene Park, populating the permafrost with ancient herbivores as a hedge against an environmental ticking time bomb. More than a story of genetics, this is a thriller illuminating the race against global warming, the incredible power of modern technology, the brave fossil hunters who battle polar bears and extreme weather conditions, and the ethical quandary of cloning extinct animals. Can we right the wrongs of our ancestors who hunted the woolly mammoth to extinction—and at what cost?
But in real life? Seems like asking for a LOT to go wrong.
And I'm a AGW believer - see that, we are not totally crazy, just partly... :)
Terry
