Just like every action prompts a reaction, every statement about climate change provokes an angry screed calling global warming a myth.
If it does turn out climate change is a figment of Al Gore’s seemingly barren imagination, we’d better find out what’s killing so many animals.
The world’s mammal population has plummeted by 50 per cent since 1970, according to a report by the World Wide Fund for Nature. The same holds true for reptiles, fish, birds and amphibians. Half of them are gone due to deforestation, hunting, and the carbon dioxide we belch into the atmosphere.
For a more graphic example of what climate change has wrought, picture 35,000 walruses clustered together on a beach like rats in a pipe.
That image was taken over Alaska by a National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration team Saturday.
NOAA researchers surmise the walruses flocked to the beach in record numbers because so much ice had melted into the sea.
The environmental damage we’ve caused is extensive, but perhaps not irreversible.
We were heartened last June when President Barack Obama put some of the White House’s resources into investigating the demise of the honeybee.
Many scientists have linked colony collapse disorder with neonicotinoids, a pesticide that appears to attack the bee’s sense of direction.
We lack the expertise to verify or dismiss that supposition. We only hope the world’s leaders, including our own science-averse Prime Minister, act on the best information.
