We like birds and always have a special place in our essay series for good news about their future. A recent article in Acta Oecologica deals with bird diversity in China and the news could not be better, particularly given the results from three other recent studies from China that find that find that plant productivity—a primary determinent of species richness of China’s birds—is on the rise, quite probabily a result of rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.

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We hear over and over that climate change is now so rapid that ecosystems all over the world are in peril as they attempt to cope with changes to the environment. This view of “delicate” ecosystems is at odds with the reality of the long climate history of the Earth. The climate has warmed in the past, cooled in the past, and many of these changes were quite rapid. Delicate ecosystems would have disappeared long ago and the most robust systems would have survived.

Birds are particular well-suited to move as conditions change. Somewhere deep in their DNA is a memory of changes in the past and how to cope with those changes. Four articles have appeared recently reminding us that birds are fully capable of responding to change in climate.

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We at World Climate Report wholeheartedly endorse First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign to curb childhood obesity. As she has said many times, about two-thirds of American adults, and about a third of American children, are overweight or obese. The country spends $150 billion every year treating obesity-related diseases, most of which are preventable. Military officials, looking at a pool of increasingly overweight recruits, have said that the nation’s weight problem is a security issue as well as an economic one—obesity is now one of the most common disqualifiers for military service.

If you are in the DC area, be sure to make a visit to the south lawn of the White House grounds where the first lady will be organically growing lots and lots of spinach (more spinach than anything else—see Figure 1)! She not only plans on growing the stuff, but she is featuring her side dish called “No Cream Creamed Spinach” which to feed six people requires two pounds of baby spinach (the recipe is at the end of our article). We are sure the Obama children just cannot get enough of her healthy spinach salad.

Figure 1. Layout of the White House vegetable garden. Note the preponderance of spinach!

Given the Obama’s focus on spinach, we decided to deliver them some wonderful news about how spinach responds to elevated levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2).

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In recognition of the recent discovery of the world’s largest beaver dam, we take a look into the activities of past beavers to see what they may be able to tell us about previous climate changes, and we speculate on the impacts that on-going climate changes may be having on the likes and dislikes of current beavers.

World’s largest beaver dam in found in Northern Alberta, Canada.

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Last week, we reported on a truly rare bird—that is, a story in which “global warming” was linked to something good happening to a “good” species, in that case, the grey whale. This week, we have found another rare bird, literally. We report on a findings which suggest that global warming is benefitting another iconic, beloved species, the Trumpeter swan. Maybe there is a growing trend here.

Since it is apparently acceptable practice for Science magazine to accompany an article extolling the evils of anthropogenic climate change (and the need to take action) with an picture of a polar bear (or two) stranded on an ice floe (even though polar bears were not mentioned in the article), perhaps we’ll accompany all of our articles with a photo of a thriving Trumpeter swan. After all, what’s good the goose (or, er, swan)…

Trumpeter swans thriving in a world of enriched CO2.

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A few years ago we identified what we termed the good for bad and bad for good paradigm of global warming impacts—that is, if some plant or animal species were generally regarded as being “good”—penguins, polar bears, butterflies, etc.—then global warming was supposed to do bad things to it. Conversely, if some type of plant or animal was generally viewed in a negative light—jellyfish, poison ivy, ragweed, etc.—then the publicized global warming impacts were, of course, positive.

Reporting anything to the contrary may have the unintended consequence of leading some people to think that global warming may not be so bad after all and may in fact have beneficial consequences. Which, of course, would violate rule No. 1 of the global warming alarmists’ playbook—human alteration to the global climate is B-A-D. Period.

Case and point, the Environmental Protection Agency in justifying its finding that greenhouse gases (GHGs) endanger the public health and welfare went to great pains to play up the negatives all the while downplaying the positive aspects of climate change. After all, you can’t very well justify regulating GHGs if they lead to benefits, now can you?

So, consequently, we rarely hear that something good comes about from climate change.

So, shiver me timbers, were we surprised to read this story from the wires:

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Here is the question of the day – who is Kevin VanDam (KVD)? Have a look at the picture below and now think about the question. Come on … admit it to the world – you have watched bass fishing on ESPN stations and you know that KVD is one of the world’s best bass fishermen. KVD has won the Bassmaster Classic three times (2001, 2005, and 2010) and many would argue KVD is simply the greatest bass fishermen who has ever lived. Leading pro bass fishermen are well paid (KVD won $500,000 for the 2010 Bassmaster Classic alone), they are well-sponsored, they have their own TV shows, iPhone apps, and video games, and they endorse countless products in the bassmaster line. Top anglers are superstars in their sport, and if you haven’t heard, pro bass fishing will be the next NASCAR (time will tell). The stuff is on TV all the time, and if you want to see KVD in action (and 1,000s show up for the pro events), there are events all over the USA – get into the sport and follow the women’s tour and junior’s tour as well! If KVD can win millions, why can’t you?

World Champion Kevin VanDam and a couple of live, freshly-caught largemouth bass
(Micropterus salmoides)

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The Washington Post ran a front page story on Monday, February 23, describing ecomigration—in this case, people moving to avoid the impacts of global warming. The story was odd because in the starring role was a fellow moving his family from Montgomery County, Maryland, to New Zealand! When we think of reasons people want to leave Montgomery County, global warming doesn’t jump to the top of list—perhaps moving to try to get away from all the traffic produced by the large influx of all the other people moving into the region is a more likely candidate.

Another potential ecomigrant highlighted in the Post article who was considering fleeing from global warming’s way was a guy who was thinking of moving back to Michigan from his home in Florida. Again, someone who is apparently swimming against the tide of domestic (and otherwise) migrants into the state of Florida—one the fastest growing places in the U.S.

Now maybe these examples were selected by Washington Post staffwriter Shankar Vedantam to show that people in places other than the Pacific atolls of Tuvalu or Kiribati are concerned about the coming climate, but the choices were strange.

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There is an interesting (of course!) new post up over at MasterResource.org taking a closer look at the Audubon Society’s latest pronouncement about birds and climate change. Here it the abstract:

On Tuesday, the National Audubon Society released a report “Birds and Climate Change” which interpreted an average northern shift of the over-wintering range of a large collection of North American bird species over the course of the past 40 years or so. Audubon decided that this range shift was due, in part, to “global warming.” Therefore, it was bad and action must be taken to avert it:

It is the complete picture of widespread movement and the failure of some species to move at all that illustrate the impacts of climate change on birds. They are sending us a powerful signal that we need to 1) take policy action to curb climate change and its impacts, and 2) help wildlife and ecosystems adapt to unavoidable habitat changes, even as we work to curb climate change itself.

What the Audubon Society failed to mention

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While having coffee and reading through the paper on Sunday morning, I came across an AP article about the recent sighting of a LBB (little brown bird in birder’s parlance) in southern Texas. It turns out that everyone was atwitter that the LBB was actually a pine flycatcher—a species which usually inhabits that high elevation mountains of Mexico and Guatemala much further to the south and which had never before been documented in the United States.

I kept reading waiting for the explantion that was sure to come—that “global warming” was likely responsible for the pine flycatcher’s visit as now the climate of the low Texas scrubland was on its way to becoming a possible suitable habitat. But, as I continued to read about the large numbers of bird watchers who had flocked to the area from miles around who could barely contain their enthusiasm, I soon realized that the requisite “blame it on global warming” content was absent.

Then it dawned on me why…this was a story in which people were happy about seeing a cute animal species farther north than it is usually found!

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