Global Warming To Blame For U.S. Airways Crash Of FL 1549?
January 16, 2009
The moaning and groaning of global warming hysteria is beginning to slowly rear its head blaming the crash of Flight 1549 into the Hudson River on global warming. As of right now, nobody has officially gone on the record but today on the Rush Limbaugh radio show, he talked of someone blaming global warming on the fact these Canada geese shouldn’t have been there. They said climate change has screwed up the migration patterns of the geese and birds in general.
Here’s some factual information that for intelligent people helps explain a few things. According to Science Daily, birds migrate because they get hungry.
One textbook explanation suggests either eating fruit or living in non-forested environments were the precursors needed to evolve migratory behavior.
Not so, report a pair of ecologists from The University of Arizona in Tucson. The pressure to migrate comes from seasonal food scarcity.
“It’s not just whether you eat insects, fruit, nectar or candy bars or where you eat them — it matters how reliable that food source is from day-to-day,” said W. Alice Boyle. “For example, some really long-distance migrants like arctic terns are not fruit-eaters.”
And all this time I thought they went South for the same reasons people do; warmer weather.
So in essence what is being said is that some birds will not migrate provided they have enough food right where they are. (Please see end of article for a very famous and fitting fable.)
I have dear friends who live in Maine and spend many hours over the course of different times of the year counting birds. Recently, in a phone conversation with one of them, he told me that he and his wife were recently volunteering for another bird count. He began telling me about all the species of birds he was seeing in the dead of winter in Northern New England, that normally wouldn’t be there. If you haven’t heard, Maine, like many other places in the U.S., is experiencing very cold weather and sufficient snowfall covering much of the available food supply for birds and when the lakes and rivers freeze over, USUALLY the ducks and geese head south and follow open water.
So why aren’t these birds going South? There’s really a very simple explanation. And it’s ironic that many of the same ill people who insist the world is coming to an end from climate change are the ones at fault for birds not migrating.
We as a society have become so obsessed with animals and their protection, millions and millions of people are feeding wildlife from their back yards. As a result, they are keeping these birds, along with other species, well fed, unafraid of humans and therefore they have no real reason to leave.
Canada geese are no different. What used to be a rarity to see Canada geese in the Northern climes after the freeze over, is now commonplace because so many people feed them. In some locals it has become so bad the smaller ponds and backyard water holes are nasty polluted with the excrement and leftover waste from far too many ducks and geese.
Being amply fed, the birds are not migrating like they used to. It’s not climate change screwing up their migration patterns, it’s you and me. So we can blame ourselves for the crash of Flight 1549.
Now on to a very fitting fable:
A bird who normally flies South for the winter, discovered a house where the people who lived there put out bird food. The bird was so happy and well fed and decided to build a nest high up on the roof of the house, behind the chimney where it would also be warm.
Life was good and as the cold weather began to settle in, the bird merely flew from his comfortable nest down to the bird feeder and back.
One day, as the bird was perched on the feeder, he noticed the feed was all gone. He scratched and pecked hoping to find food. Days passed and still no food. The owners of the house had “migrated” to a warmer climate for the brunt of the cold winter.
It was too late for the little bird to fly South and he had become weakened from not enough to eat. He just sat in his nest trying to stay warm and hoping spring would come.
Over time he became too weak to fly or hardly even walk but fate would befriend him. A neighbor farmer stopped by to check up on the house and had decided to ride his horse for the chore. As the horse and farmer were leaving, the little bird noticed the horse deposited a very large pile of manure right near the side of the house.
The bird thought perhaps there was something to eat in that pile, so he slowly crawled and scratched and worked his way to the edge of the roof. He judged his fall hoping to land in the pile of manure.
His aim was good and within a short amount of time the bird got his fill and was re-energized. He was so happy he flew back up to is nest, perching on the edge singing loudly. In a flash, a hawk swooped down, took the bird away and ate him, leaving nothing but a pile of feathers.
The moral of the story is: “When you’re full of shit, keep your mouth shut!”
Tom Remington
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We got Canadian Honkers hanging out here eating corn all winter long…and have for years…some of them stop their migrations right here…I busted four of them in the last week of December, mighty good sausage to…One thing we do need to stop pronto is GLOBAL DUMBING DOWN SYNDROME….I’m only 400 miles south of Canada….give or take an asshat or two…
I was interested to find this blog. 20 years ago I had a book published on different economic concepts to point the way to a sustainable world economy. Someone who liked the book contacted me this year to suggest that I update and re-publish it as a blog. She set up the blog, and the book is now complete on the blog in a series of postings. There are now also additional pieces on global warming and other subjects. Here is the link:
http://www.economicsforaroundearth.com
With all good wishes,
Charles Pierce
LIBERTY ? or Sustainable Development ? I choose Liberty, as Sustainable Development, a known Soviet Russian Model is not for liberty nor for me…America is headed in the wrong direction, look to the Russain constitution as your proofs, as well look to the Russian people themselves, who did not act in a way that benefited society because there was no benefit for the INDIVIDUAL to engage in productive action in the Soviet Sustainable Developmental Society itself…If the benefit of acting in your own interests is denied, via this old model called sustainable development from the Russian model where it was tried…AGAIN actually see history…those self intererests are denied by force…see America today…using this Soviet Model..Sustainable development….your life is/will become that of a slave and society is and will be a controlled encampment….Communism has several nice names…I’m against all versions of communism…So no thanks to this forced sustainable development via its thousands of lies….ONE being man caused Global Warming….another being it is the Climate Changing and we still need funds and less right LIBERTY to manage our CLIMATE….I say bullshit….and Americans loving Liberty need to take a stand emmediatley to stop this insanity NOW…..Start by ignoring fools speaking to you from in front of a TELE-PROMPTER….on the BOOBY TUBE, you know the TELLS-ALL-LIES-TV-SET….most dumbed down Americans have one sitting in their living rooms…..DUMPSTER that nasty devise now….take your minds back from them..Stop listening to Sustainable non profits development…It is in truth the Dismantling of freedom, Liberty, and those God Given Rights of INDIVIDUALITY, the Communists hate….Believe me it’s not a Village it’s a TRAP….wake up…..
First, I’ll confess. I didn’t read through to the end of your post. However, there were some flaws in your reasonings above. First of all, let me quote: “Canadian Geese. The migration of Canada geese is being affected now by climate change. In response to increasing temperatures, these geese are arriving in Hudson Bay, during the summer, several weeks earlier than their food supply allows. Their primary food is marsh plants, which grow in response to the length of days, not to changes in temperature, and sprout after the geese arrive. But the birds are hungry and cannot wait for the plants to sprout. The geese eat the plants’ roots, decimating their own future food supply, while threatening this habitat used by other bird species” Nature Conservancy Magazine, September/October 2001 edition, article titled A Sea Change by Carol Goodstein.
So the idea of human’s feeding geese as you suggested, while it may be true, and there is most definitely a risk in allowing human’s to coddle wildlife, Canadian Geese aren’t staying because a few people are handing them food. Or because they’re eating human waste. Warmer climes mean longer food abundance. The Canadian Goose doesn’t need to leave, because, food is available all year round. The food they naturally eat, not out of bird feeders, and handouts in parks. I think it’s ludicrous to suggest that global warming caused the accident that brought down the plane–simply because, if it happened during the summer, what sort of argument would you have? The geese should not have been there. That is true, they should have migrated earlier. But the simple fact of the matter is that it was an accident. They happen. Not everything has to be a cause celebre.
That said, I much prefer natural predation to hunting. But as a respectful observer of your site, overabundant wildlife populations do need to be tamed, and so hunting provides a valuable service to the environment at large, in certain situations. Still, if the natural predators, foxes, owls, snapping turtles, etc. hadn’t been hunted so severely, the problem would solve itself. And then you’d have even MORE species to hunt! Hunting is fine, I say, but a certain restraint is always necessary.
Evidently you overlooked this sentence. “So in essence what is being said is that some birds will not migrate provided they have enough food right where they are.” It would be ridiculous to think that I would claim that all or even the majority of birds fail to migrate because people feed them.
Your theory on natural predation is flawed simply by the fact that most believers in natural predation forget that man is an animal/predator on this planet too. Natural theorists always want to blame man for everything about nature most of which they don’t understand. It is quite fortunate that man has evolved more intelligently than other animal species and over time has learned the need of protecting the species we so much depend on.
Yes, man was responsible to a certain degree to the changes the resulted in overhunting and other abuses but that doesn’t mean we need to bring them back where not practical.
[...] http://mainehuntingtoday.com/bbb/2009/01/16/global-warming-to-blame-for-us-airways-crash-of-fl-1549/One thing we do need to stop pronto is GLOBAL DUMBING DOWN SYNDROME….I’m only 400 miles south of Canada….give or take an asshat or two… Charles Pierce, Australia on January 16th, 2009 airfares advice 10:42 pm. I was interested to find this blog. … [...]