Three California ecosystems endangered, report finds

 

In a classic example of winning a sweepstakes you don’t want to be in, a report released Wednesday found that California has more endangered ecosystems than any other state, claiming three of the top 10 imperiled places.

The report, prepared by the Endangered Species Coalition, examined the effects of climate change on endangered species and came up with no surprises: Arctic Sea ice, shallow coral reefs and the Everglades.

California’s vulnerability was exposed in its deserts, the Sierra Nevada and the San Francisco Bay Delta.

The other ecosystems identified were the Hawaiian Islands, the Snake River Basin, the Greater Yellowstone region and the wetlands of the Gulf Coast.

The Mojave Desert is home to the pupfish and the Desert Tortoise, two species that are feeling the effects of higher temperatures and less precipitation. In the Sierra, earlier snow melt is devastating for amphibians. The report says that half the region’s 30 native species have declined. In the Delta -- where 12 of the region’s original 29 species are either extinct or endangered -- reduced water availability and fewer cold-water rivers are reducing the population of trout, salmon and smelt.

The report didn’t go much beyond identifying endangered places, but did call for reduction of greenhouse gas pollution, conservation of wild lands and strong enforcement of the Endangered Species Act.

The report ends with a mention of seven ecosystems that didn’t make the top 10 but are deeply in danger. In another tip of the hat to California, the entire West Coast is on the critical list.

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-- Julie Cart

Photo: Rain falls over Lower Pine Lake in the Sierra Nevada. Credit: Ken Hively /Los Angeles Times

Comments

[glenn grab]

gee, the Endangered Species Coalition, do you think that they might find that certain species are endangered? Do you think a mechanic might say your brakes are bad, even if they aren't? Even if your answer is "sometimes", I think you can figure where I'm coming from. These environment guys just want to keep their jobs, they figure that even if they're wrong, nobody got hurt and it was for the greater good. It's human nature, if you are looking for facts after you have made up your mind on a subject, you will find them, or create them.

[Bowl Weevils]

It seems like a lot of folks don't understand the difference between climate and weather.

Weather is what you see when you look out your window, like the biggest snowpack in years in your town.

Climate is what happens over the course of decades and thousands of miles. Untrained individuals usually cannot make useful judgments concerning it because the changes generally happen so slowly that most people don't have the equipment needed to detect them.

When you stick your head out the window, you are doing half-assed weather forecasting.

When you use this qualitative information from a highly specific area to make claims about the climate across decades and continents, you are an egomaniac and arrogantly ignorant.

[Huh?]

Have been in science all my life. The profession has built in, very strict checks and balances. It's called peer review. The science community does not suffer fools gladly, and false data and dumb conclusions are simply not tolerated.

The politics of it are the real invention by those with absolutely no understanding nor desire to understand the information and how it is gathered.

My advice to outdoor guy and others is to get some edumacation, get out and see for yourself, get the big picture. You're seeing it from your own limited experience and perspective. That doesn't make a case in any instance.

[Tahni]

As a scientist, I can assure you that if species were not endangered, jobs would not be affected. There are so many interesting things to study. Also, where is all this money generated from the climate change scam everyone is talking about? I haven't seen a cent.

[outdoor guy]

Yawn. Same old Chicken Little claims from the environmental community spun with the newest eco trends.

[CA Scientist]

Oh Pat, even students in a high school statistics course understand that a single sample anomaly does not discount a long-term statistical pattern. One cold year doesn't disprove global warming just as one warm year doesn't prove it. Your comments make me truly sad.

[DVS]

John Smith...

You nailed it. I don't know where people like Adam and Pat get their info, but these are scientists pointing out the environments decline. Get it? Scientists. They have no agenda. They aren't some political hack trying to get your vote. They do long term studies and present their findings. They really don't care if you believe it or not. Their finding are based on FACTS, not speculation from some idiot who regurgitates something they've heard somewhere else.

Adam says: "Global warming is the biggest scam of all time." Really? Exactly how do you cash in a global "scam" who's facts are backed by nearly every scientist in every country around the world?

And Pat, by virtue of saying "...the MOST snow we have received in Tahoe in a hundred years. " shows a complete lack of understanding on the subject of global warming. Just go back to your X-Box and Cheetos.

[Nova yos Galen]

Pat - Ignorance is bliss, isn't it? One year of heavy snow pack does not prove anything. REAL science is done by careful, methodical researchers over decades and decades. Either get educated about the science or stop denying or both.

[John Smith]

Dear Adam Vant, and Pat. Please, before you begin to 'troll' a newspaper source, do some time at a public library, or even online. You will find (with reading) that the data DOES support climate CHANGE (that CHANGE is for you, pat).

I could site the data myself, but you won't believe it because you're both the kind of people who have to be right, so you can play scientist! Find as many studies as you can, or do your own based on public records of heat trends, and then you can dismiss people's hard work to save your own life.

Or you can just sit at home, and post counter-intuitive comments on a newspaper site. Your choice.

[Adam Vant]

Yawn. Most dire predictions by the Warmists. Global warming is the biggest scam of all time.

[Noodlemonkey]

Clearly, we must do more to stem the tide of global climate change. The bottom line is that the world's leading scientists and economists agree that a carbon tax is the best way to stem the tide of global climate change. And it's long past time that our decision makers take their advice.

[Pat]

Here we go again. Here I sit looking out at the MOST snow we have received in Tahoe in a hundred years.

Find a new yarn stupid.

[Meme Mine]

THE DENIERS HAVE WON
As a former climate change believer, I personally apologize for condemning billions to death by CO2 for 25 years of needless panic. I meant well but issuing CO2 death threats to my kids just to get them to turn the lights out a little more often, had made me a neocon of CO2 environMENTALism. I apologize for calling cold -warm, warm -hot and for calling all bad weather -Humanity’s fault. I apologize for leading responsible environmentalism down the wrong road and wasting a quarter century on climate control instead of needed population control. Finally, I apologize for the demonizing that was so unprogressive and I’m sorry for exaggerating climate change to include death to the planet yet not admitting unstoppable and runaway and out of control climate warming were death threats to all.
The neocons have never admitted their Iraq War WMD’s. I admit my ideology’s WMD’s that led us to another Bush-like false war against a false enemy.

[glenn grab]

what did you expect them to find?...that everything was ok?....that would be the end of their jobs...this totally unscientific charade is self-perpetuating by design....if not much is wrong, your job is over, so you must find things wrong, get it?