The picture above is from an article in Rolling Stone titled, "The Point of No Return: Climate Change Nightmares Are Already Here." Are you in the market for another nightmare? If you have been keeping up on global warming, this article isn't going to tell you much you don't already know.
Fact is, we are already pretty well acquainted with that global warming nightmare that Rolling Stone is talking about.
Want to know who is just figuring it out?
Walruses.
The picture shows walruses on a beach. According to the article, "federal scientists discovered 35,000 walruses congregating on a single beach. It was the largest-ever documented "haul out" of walruses, and a sign that sea ice, their favored habitat, is becoming harder and harder to find."
No ice
Is not nice
For walruses.
It's not very nice for anyone else, either (including you and me).
The Beatles got it right (speaking for every one of us):
I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together. See how they run like pigs from a gun, see how they fly. I'm crying.
I am. You are. We are ...
"All Together Now!"
That's another great Beatles' song.
That's another great idea. Better than a nightmare.
Together. We need to get ourselves together.
Goo Goo G'joob!
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-point-of-no-return-climate-change-nightmares-are-already-here-20150805
Gary, as you may know, I worked on St. Lawrence Island and Punuk Island in the Bering Strait as part of my Doctoral dissertation and subsequent professional archaeology work for the University of Alaska Museum of Natural History in Fairbanks.
ReplyDeleteA good part of my work involved walrus tusks and walrus behavior resulting in varying amounts of walrus ivory available to indigenous ivory carvers on St. Lawrence Island over the past 2,500 years..
Walrus haulouts on land are a regular occurrence in the Bering Strait, documented in detail in archaeology sites over the past centuries, long before human industrial activity released CO2 into the atmosphere. My research showed cultural attributes of Siberian Yupik people on St. Lawrence Island were correlated with these periodic large haulouts. In short, big haulouts meant lots of ivory available, which meant more ivory carving and more diversity in carved ivory shapes and decoration.
The unfortunate August 5 Rolling Stone article and its misleading hyperbolic headline, about the Fall 2014 pictures of a large haulout on land, was devoid of any scientific understanding of walrus behavior.
The walrus did not haulout on land because there was no pack ice available for them. This kind of haulout is normal walrus behavior that has gone on for millennia. No one knows why they gather in large numbers on these shores, but gather they do and gather they have for centuries, regardless of ice conditions. It probably has more to do with walrus population dynamics than climate conditions.
Here are two articles that explain the natural history involved;
http://ow.ly/ReDI2
http://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2014/10/walrus-fuss.pdf
It is clear that walrus haulout behavior is not an indicator of climate change, and does not mean that ice is getting harder and harder for walrus to find. In fact, over the past two years, Arctic ice has been increasing, not decreasing!
There are many things to be concerned about regarding the effects of human industrial activity on the natural world. Walrus hauling out on land is not one of them.