Global Warming is Causing Evolution

Today's Independent (UK) carried an article on Global Warming that was a bit confusing. It seems to be alarmist and reassuring at the same time, but I can't imagine the media ever being reassuring about global warming, so I must have misunderstood something.

Some species of animals are changing genetically in order to adapt to rapid climate change within just a few generations, scientists believe.

Smaller animals in particular that can breed quickly, such as squirrels, some birds and insects, are showing signs of evolving new patterns of behaviour to increase their chances of survival. Scientists say that many of the genetic adaptations are to cope with changes in the length of the seasons rather than the absolute increases in summer temperatures.

Don't squirrels and birds breed once a year? How is that quick? Insects (ugh!), of course, are fast-breeding pestilence.

And what makes behavior (excuse me, "behaviour") changes equivalent to "genetic adaptations"? They may be bird-brains, but they are capable of learning.

"Studies show that over the past several decades, rapid climate change has led to heritable, genetic changes in animal populations," said Christina Holzapfel, from the University of Oregon in Eugene.

Examples included Canadian red squirrels reproducing earlier in the year, German blackcap birds migrating and arriving earlier at their nesting grounds, and northern American mosquitoes living in water-filled leaves of carnivorous plants which can adjust their life cycles to shorter more "southern" day lengths.

According to Holzapfel, doing things earlier in the year is a "heritable, genetic change." It's behavior! Hello! Doesn't she remember her undergraduate education, where she would have learned that Skinner taught pigeons to peck on the lever for food? Was that a heritable, genetic change?

On vacation many years ago, we stopped at a Denny's for lunch. Lots of other people had stopped there too, so all the parking spots along the sidewalk were taken. I noticed a sparrow on a car's bumper eating the bugs that had been caught on the car's front grill. When it finished with that car, it flew over to the next car and started on the bugs in that grill. After lunch, the sparrow was still availing itself of its personal buffet.

Was that a genetic adaptation to an industrialized society, or was it opportunistic behavior on the part of a particularly resourceful (or lazy) sparrow?

William Bradshaw, professor of biology at Oregon, said that global warming is going at a faster rate at more northerly latitudes which is causing longer growing seasons, and less cold stress caused by extreme winter weather.

Didn't he read the reports that said the earth has been cooling slightly since 1998? Oh, he's a biologist. He may not read climate reports.

"However, it is clear that unless the long-term magnitude of rapid change is widely acknowledged and effective steps are taken to mitigate its effects, natural communities that we are familiar with will cease to exist," [Holzapfel] says. (Note: See how she uses "effects" correctly.)

There's that favorite alarmist wording, "cease to exist." It was inevitable that it would be in the article somewhere.

The article ends with this aside:

* Global warming could be returning the world to the way it was four million years ago when sea levels were 80 feet higher than they are today, according to another study in Science.

If global warming is bringing the world back to the condition it was in before mankind got here and messed it up, why are the scientists so alarmed? They should be encouraging it.

I'm confused!