SOS Forests

Regarding the Logic of Cause and Effect

The rad, bad pseudos are having another illogical cow.

Study: Yellowstone-area whitebark toll 1M acres

By MEAD GRUVER, AP, Washington Post, July 21st, 2010 [here]

A researcher says aerial photographs and maps document 1 million acres of whitebark forest dead or dying from mountain pine beetles and an invasive fungus in the Yellowstone area, with another 1 million acres considered at risk.

The Natural Resources Defense Council released a report Wednesday on the dead and dying high-elevation forests in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana. Report author Wally Macfarlane says the toll is approaching and could far exceed the acreage of all trees that burned in the region’s infamous 1988 wildfires.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plans to decide next year on the group’s petition to list the pine as endangered. The group says climate change is primarily responsible by causing the beetle outbreak.

That’s interesting because the National Climate Data Center [here] reports that Wyoming winter temperatures have been trending downward at negative 2.00 degF per decade for the last fifteen years.

Climate At A Glance: Winter (Dec-Feb) Temperature, Wyoming, 1995 - 2010 Trend = -2.00 degF / Decade

and Wyoming summer temperatures have been trending downward at negative 1.09 degF per decade for the last ten years.

Climate At A Glance: Summer (Jun-Aug) Temperature, Wyoming, 1999 - 2009 Trend = -1.09 degF / Decade

Here’s some logic. See if you can follow the argument. If you propose that Cause A results in Outcome B, but Cause A does not exist in the real world, then Outcome B cannot have been caused by Cause A, since Cause A is a BIG HONKING LIE.

An example: let’s say you have a bad case of toe fungus, and you say the toe fungus is due to your frequent abductions by space aliens and the experiments they have performed on you. Any competent doctor or other logical person will doubt you. They will say, “First prove you have been abducted by aliens.” And since you cannot do so, they will assume that your toe fungus has a different causal agent.

Similarly, if radical nutzoid sue-happy pro-holocaust anti-human groups claim that glooobal waaarming has caused bark beetle outbreaks, then it is incumbent on them to demonstrate with solid evidence that glooobal waaaarming has indeed occurred. But since the people who measure temperatures say that temperatures have declined, there is no such evidence.

Logically, the radical nutzoid sue-happy pro-holocaust anti-human groups have their collective head up their collective…

I know, I know. You have been pepper-sprayed by a propaganda onslaught to where you are now convinced that the globe has warmed, with all sorts of repercussions like bark beetle outbreaks. But the globe has not warmed. The bark beetle outbreaks have a different causal agent.

Logic is painful, especially when $billions have been spent to convince you of an illogical proposition. It’s easier just to go along with the radical nutzoid sue-happy pro-holocaust anti-human groups than to question their veracity or other moral characteristics.

You could ask a forester instead, somebody with some actual expertise in trees, bark beetles, etc. The forester will tell you that bark beetle outbreaks are common in dense, thicket forests where trees are stressed by competition. The forester will tell you that bark beetle outbreaks are nothing new, that bark beetle outbreaks have been quelled by judicious thinning, and that there is a 100-year history of such thinnings averting bark beetle infestations.

But that would be too much truth, and we all know that truth causes toe fungus. Maybe if the space aliens stopped abducting the radical nutzoids and experimenting on them, we could all sleep easier at night.