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Thursday, May 20, 2021

"Climate change stole my bees"

Source:

"A theory that explains everything explains nothing, and cannot be tested,

(is) a troubling point in context of the assertion that climate change causes warming, cooling, more hurricanes, fewer hurricanes and anything else that just happened.


But it gets worse because we do mean anything.

It’s not just weather.

Apparently climate change is a major cause of anything you dislike from a wave of beehive thefts in France to pitifully small salmon fillets in Alaska.

So the proof that climate change is real is that life is not perfect, a theory that explains everything and therefore nothing.

Of course there are other causes behind the beehive thefts.

Like thieves.

And, the story concedes, “French beekeepers have been stung by a wave of thefts of their hives, which they blame on rising demand and plummeting honey bee populations due to pesticides, the Asian hornet and climate change.”

Then it conceded that “it was difficult to give a precise figure of nationwide thefts because many victims ‘don’t talk about it’” according to the president of the national French beekeepers’ union.

It also seems to be a problem that the legal system doesn’t treat the crime seriously.

So perverse incentives are contributing to the issue.

 Or would be if it wasn’t all climate change all the time.

Since it is, how exactly is climate change supposedly promoting beehive theft?

Well, France is of course (drum roll please) warming faster than the global average.

At least according to Climate Change Post, which says “The global warming recorded in mainland France during the 20th century is about 30 % greater than the average warming throughout the globe.

The average annual temperature has risen by 0.95 °C in mainland France, compared to 0.74 °C globally.”

And you can just imagine what that additional 0.21 °C is doing to les abeilles (bees) … because there are no facts on which to base something beyond trendy conjecture.

... for some reason there are no bees on cool, comfy Baffin Island, unlike blazing, hive-melting France where projected highs this week are roughly 16°C at least in Paris.

If you care, Euronews located in Europe says Europe is warming faster than the global average which makes sense because Europe is on land.

So are bees.

As for the salmon, this story that ran everywhere from Bloomberg to the Malaysian Reserve to the New Hampshire Union Leader eventually spat out that

“These disruptions are, for now, more a nuisance than serious problem.

But they almost certainly presage more costly changes to come and, much more importantly, raise alarm bells about the growing crisis in some key salmon populations

that is being driven, according to many scientists, by climate change and more competition for food.

Decades after the Atlantic cod fisheries collapsed, concern is now mounting among experts that wild Pacific salmon could face a similar fate.”

... not to return to this issue of similar effects having similar causes or anything annoyingly scientific along those lines.

But if the Atlantic cod fishery collapsed due to overfishing because of a very obvious tragedy of the commons,

and wild Pacific salmon are being overfished and might collapse in the same way for the same reason,

and indeed “In Europe and New England, the memory of rivers teeming with wild Atlantic salmon is all but forgotten due to over fishing,

habitat loss and dam construction that blocked spawning grounds,

said David Montgomery, whose 2003 book 'King of Fish: The Thousand Year Run of Salmon' warns that the Pacific species could face the same fate”,

what’s climate change got to do with it?

Where, indeed, is the evidence that climate change is even involved?

... We don’t need no stinking evidence.

“‘The whole thing is out of whack,’ said Laurie Weitkamp, a U.S. fisheries biologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

‘Salmon managers are realizing that climate change is impacting their stocks and it is generally not favorable and it’s only going to get worse.’”

... How?

Where is the water warmer and what is it doing to the reproductive cycle?

... You have no idea.

And in fact they do admit it, once the obligatory genuflection at the altar of green apocalypse is out of the way:

“Alaskan salmon are getting smaller partly because they’re returning from the ocean at a younger age, though scientists don’t really know why.”

Must be climate change.

We know because we don’t.

How do you like that science?

... climate change is blamed for everything
...

But it didn’t cause those California fires.

At least the giant, deadly Markley Fire, which merged with the Hennessey Fire to become the fifth-largest in LNU Lightning Complex Fire, was allegedly set by a man trying to conceal a murder.

But of course ... climate change causes increases in crime.

And makes fire worse.

And unleashes deadly fungal diseases.

Never mind that temperature readings have not increased by an amount anyone could detect without a digital thermometer in the last 100 years.

Climate change makes people steal French bees,

makes salmon head for home early,

and makes your hands itch and creep toward someone’s throat.

It’s the worst."