From farmersweekly.co

By Staff Reporter

The farming and processing of edible insects for human and animal consumption appears to be gaining in popularity. However, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, there are risks to eating insects that have not been farmed with the correct biosecurity measures in place, and these risks are potentially dangerous to human and animal health.

Historically, many cultures in different parts of the world have made insects a part of their diets. According to recent estimates, approximately 2 111 species of insects are consumed in about 140 countries, with entomophagy [the practice of eating insects] documented around the world.

Research shows that 92% of known edible insect species are wild-harvested, 6% are semi-domesticated, and 2% are farmed. Among the known wild-harvested edible insect species, 88% are terrestrial, while the rest are collected from aquatic ecosystems.

With the global population expected to reach 9,7 billion by 2050, concerns are growing over whether the planet’s finite resources such as agricultural land can meet the food needs of so many people. Such food-security concerns are propelling exploration into alternative food sources for humans and animals that are nutritionally sound and can be obtained sustainably.

An alternative food and feed source
Insects are fast emerging as a viable food and feed group, with mass production gaining popularity globally. This can be attributed to the significant nutritional value of insects, as well as the environmental benefits and improvement in livelihoods associated with insect farming.

However, insects might carry biological and chemical contaminants as well as physical hazards that can be detrimental to the health of consumers. These food safety hazards are associated with direct or indirect (via animal feed) consumption of insects.

According to the European Food Safety Authority, the health risks associated with using insects as food for humans and as animal feed depend on the insect species and their substrate, as well as on how the insects are reared, harvested and processed. It should be pointed out, however, that the food safety hazards described below apply to numerous foods and not only to insects.

Unlike other livestock, insects are consumed in their entirety, which necessitates paying close attention to how they are farmed and processed. Insects can accumulate contaminants from their feed or housing materials.

Due to their small size, it can be difficult to decontaminate harvested insects, and any eventual contamination may be carried along the production and processing chain.

The source of edible insects is also an important consideration, as consuming insects reared under controlled and hygienic conditions may pose different food safety concerns to those harvested in the wild. While there are food safety hazards associated with raw or unprocessed insects, it is less likely that humans will eat insects in this state.

In order to create and implement insect species-appropriate hygienic practices for rearing, processing, storing and transporting, it is important to characterise the various food-safety-related hazards in edible insects.

Biological hazards
While pathogenic microbes of insects (entomopathogenic) are considered harmless to humans and animals due to phylogenetic differences, insects can be vectors for various micro-organisms that are detrimental to human and animal health, especially under poorly controlled hygienic conditions.

The risk of transmitting zoonotic infections to humans through edible insects seems low, but this topic requires greater research to clarify the potential risks for food and feed.

The microbiota of insects is complex; rather than being localised in the gut, it occurs on various anatomical parts. This microbiota comprises microbes that are either intrinsically part of an insect’s life cycle or are introduced during farming and processing. With some exceptions, insects are usually consumed in their entirety, as removal of the gut is not always possible.

Bacteria
Several bacterial species have been associated with both farm-reared and wild-caught edible insects. These include bacterial species from the genera Staphylococcus, Streptococcus, Bacillus, Pseudomonas, Micrococcus, Lactobacillus, Erwinia, Clostridium and Acinetobacter, as well as members of the family Enterobacteriaceae.

Certain of these bacteria are not only pathogenic and opportunistic, but can also reduce the shelf life of edible insects.

To reduce the transmission of foodborne pathogens to humans through insect consumption, it is important for insect farms to have strong biosecurity measures in place and prevent contact with livestock animals.

More research is needed to understand the behaviour of foodborne pathogens in edible insects. Feeding experiments with houseflies (Musca domestica) using Escherichia coli O157:H7 show that the ingested bacteria can be found in the intestine, crop and mouthparts of the insects.

The bacteria were found to be excreted for three days post-feeding, which shows that the potential for houseflies to spread the bacteria can be high.

Rearing materials can also determine if there are any potential microbiological risks to consider. For example, if materials such as paper egg cartons are used for rearing insects, there are risks of contamination with Salmonella and Campylobacter.

Contamination of edible insects post-processing is also an area of concern. For instance, edible insects sun-dried in humid areas may be susceptible to microbial growth due to moisture.

Air-drying of insects, where they may come into contact with soil, also poses potential food safety issues. ‘Ready-to-eat’ insects sold to consumers in many parts of the world are generally roasted or fried, steps that are effective in eliminating foodborne pathogens.

However, re-contamination or cross-contamination risks arise if such insects are not hygienically handled or stored before consumption.

The presence of endospore-forming bacteria in edible insects is another major food safety concern, as the heat-resistant spores may withstand the common processing methods adopted for edible insects, such as boiling and deep-frying.

Spore-forming bacteria such as Bacillus cereus sensu stricto, B. cytotoxicus, B. weihenstephanensis and Clostridium thermopalmarium have been found in processed edible yellow mealworms, locusts and house crickets.

Improper cooling after the heat treatment of insects may therefore facilitate the germination of spores that allow B. cereus s. s. to multiply and produce toxins. Other lethal toxin-producing, spore-forming bacteria such as C. sordellii have also been identified in edible insects.

Viruses
So far, the risks associated with contracting foodborne viruses, such as hepatitis A and E and norovirus, through the consumption of edible insects, are low, but care must be taken not to introduce the viruses in insect-production units through substrates. Insects can potentially serve as replicative vectors for viruses that infect vertebrates.

Additional studies are needed to investigate the possible occurrence and transmission of arthropod-borne arboviruses, which can cause a number of human diseases such as West Nile virus and haemorrhagic fever, through edible insects.

From Watts Up With That?

Essay by Eric Worrall

I was in the room when former Aussie PM Tony Abbott said “I am a climate skeptic” at the last Aussie CPAC, and received wild applause from the audience. He joins a growing list of politicians, academics and environmental activists who have come to realize there is no risk of catastrophic climate change and believe that to the extent temperatures may rise civilization is entirely capable of adapting, as it has to the severe changes in climate that has occurred over the past 11,000 years.  Former prime minister Abbott joins over 45 academics and policy makers at the GWPF.

Tony Abbott, former Australian prime minister, joins the GWPF
Press Release

London, 6 February – Tony Abbott, former prime minister of Australia, has joined the Board of Trustees of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF).

Tony Abbott was Australian prime minister from 2013 to 2015 and served as the member of the Australian parliament from 1994 to 2019. He is a director of the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation, serves on the council of the Australian War Memorial, and is an adviser to the UK Board of Trade. He is patron to several charities, including Soldier On, the International Sports Promotion Society, and Worldwide Support for Development.
 
Dr Jerome Booth, the GWPF chairman, said:
 
“I am delighted to welcome Tony Abbott onto the board of the Global Warming Policy Foundation. As a former prime minister, he brings a global perspective and policy insight at the very highest level. He will further assist our objectives and help our efforts to foster a culture of debate, respect and scrutiny in policy areas that are currently dominated by intolerance, high emotions, moral reasoning and confusion.”
 
Tony Abbott said:
 
“I’m pleased to be joining GWPF because it’s consistently injected a note of realism into the climate debate. All of us want to save the only planet we have but this should not be by means which impoverish poorer people in richer countries and hold poorer countries back. Right now, in countries like Australia, the impact of climate policy is to make electricity less affordable and less reliable rather than perceptibly to cool the planet. We need more genuine science and less groupthink in this debate – that’s where the GWPF has been a commendably consistent if lonely voice.”
 
 
About the Global Warming Policy Foundation
 
The Global Warming Policy Foundation is one of the world’s leading climate and energy policy think tanks. The Foundation is committed to providing a platform for educational research and informed debates on these important issues. Its aim is to raise standards in learning and understanding through rigorous research and analysis, to help inform a balanced debate amongst the interested public and decision-makers and to foster a culture of open debate, tolerance and learning.  

* GWPF Board of Trustees

* GWPF Academic Advisory Council

Contact
 
Dr Benny Peiser
Director, Global Warming Policy Foundation
m: 07553 361717
e: benny.peiser@thegwpf.org
 Link: https://www.thegwpf.org/tony-abbott-former-australian-prime-minister-joins-the-gwpf/

One thing I found fascinating about the last CPAC is a senior conservative who on stage appeared to be a centrist, but in private admitted they wanted Tony Abbott back.

I wonder how many other Aussie conservative politicians yearn for the days when they could show their face at CPAC without getting booed by the audience for their weak policy positions?

Appeasement just looks dishonest. Honesty is a rare and valued trait in politics.

If Tony Abbott ever throws his hat into the ring again, the green extremists who currently run Australia will have a real fight on their hands. Last time Australia had a carbon tax, Tony Abbott delivered a landslide victory for conservatives, against the incumbent Green Labor coalition.

From dailytelegraph.co.nz

By Daily Telegraph New Zealand

Sucharit Bhakdi (L) and Princess Bajrakitiyabha (R).

44 YEAR OLD PRINCESS BAJRAKITIYABHA OF THAILAND COLLAPSED WHILE OUT WALKING HER DOGS ON 14 DECEMBER LAST YEAR.

According to sources she had not felt well after receiving her 3rd booster. After her collapse she lost consciousness and remains in a coma. According to a report in The Independent, she is ‘on medical equipment supporting her heart, lungs and kidneys.’

Princess Bajrakitiyabha is the eldest child of current King Rama X. The law graduate is a senior diplomat in the Thai government.

The Thai palace confirmed she had suffered a ‘heart issue’. But the explanation given by the authorities and a local university that it was caused by a bacterial infection has been called ‘ridiculous’ by medical expert Professor Sucharit Bhakdi.

Thai-born Bhakdi, a former professor of microbiology at the University of Mainz in Germany had a celebrated career in medical science as a world expert on the immune system and arterial disease, until mainstream narratives and ‘fact checkers’ labelled him a ‘conspiracy theorist’ for his strong opposition to the COVID ‘vaccines’.

According to Bhakdi, who claims he and his contacts have been in direct contact with the Thai Royal Family over the matter, the princess’ collapse was an adverse reaction to the COVID jab. She was previously healthy with no known medical conditions.

Speaking on the ‘neutralswiss‘ Rumble channel yesterday, Bhakdi said:

‘This whole COVID-19 agenda is a fake… And I was able to lay out for them the proof that the COVID vaccinations were based on fraud… The EMA declared that safety pharmacological studies were never performed – never. And they were never deemed necessary. So now we have it. So, when I told the Thais this, you know guys, they jumped up. They jumped up in the room. And so they said to me ‘we will see to it that Thailand is the first country in the world that is going to declare this contract null… Which means that Pfizer BioNTech is going to have to pay back those billions to Thailand, with which Thailand will recompensate those peoples that have lost their existence…

‘One daughter of the present king Rama X collapsed and is in a coma… within 23 days after the third shot, 44 years old, never been seriously ill, collapsed and is now in a coma. The diagnosis that was given by the authorities and by the university is so ridiculous – she’s supposed to have a bacterial infection that will never do what she suffered from. And so we are determined, and the activists in Thailand who have been on this many many months now – great guys, also a professor from the University of Bangkok, he’s gotten in touch with the Royal Family, and we are sending information to the Royal Family to alert them to the fact that in all probability the princess is suffering as a victim of this jab, as so many people around the world have been suffering.’

The Thai Princess has been in a coma, she didn't feel well after her jab. 20 days later she's in a coma.
Some are trying to blame an infection, others claim the jab .. https://t.co/wNLd9Nmghi

— June Slater (@juneslater17) January 29, 2023

https://rumble.com/embed/v24vykj/?pub=lybth

From Science Matters

By Ron Clutz

Robert Bradley at Master Resource reports on how cognitive dissonance can be pushed below the level of awareness in his article “Cognitive Dissonance” and Climate Change: A Takedown.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Sometimes a rebuttal on social media is just too good to not memorialize. This one concerns a post about “Cognitive Dissonance” in reference to a 49-minute Apple Podcast, “Hidden Brain: When You Need It to Be True.” Its synopsis states:

When we want something very badly, it can be hard to see warning signs that might be obvious to other people. This week, we revisit a favorite episode from 2021, bringing you two stories about how easy it can be to believe in a false reality — even when the facts don’t back us up.

The upshot (see below) is that since we know climate science is settled and the verdict is a crisis (ahem), psychological explanations are necessary to understand why so many of us (the silent majority?) are not in anguish and demanding a transformation of modern life (like crying Peter Kalmus).

Susan Krumdieck, Research Director, Islands Centre for Net Zero, interpreted “When You Need It to Be True” as follows:

Cognitive Dissonance is a phenomena those of us in Energy Transition need to understand and develop ways to deal with in ourselves and others.

The first big dissonance was 40 years ago when the belief that scientific observations warning of environmental damage would cause the necessary change. I still want it to be true. But I look at data and evidence to determine what is most likely. And then I investigate how changes can work and how different people play a part.

Purposeful questions about assumptions is necessary. Questioning widely held assumptions about what can and can’t be done in what timeframe by whom means you are awake to facts.

This story about people believing alien guardians were going to come save them from the destruction of the earth should be of interest.

To which I commented:

I see ‘Cognitive Dissonance’ as the problem with climate alarmism and forced energy transformation. Waste, futile –and a mindset geared toward unnecessary ‘climate anxiety’.

But a comment before mine was the real takedown. Stated Richard Lyon of Lyon Energy Futures Ltd.:

Thanks, Susan. One of the first warnings 40 years ago was from prominent climate catastrophist Paul Ehrlich that “everyone will disappear in a cloud of blue steam by 1989”.

Since then, we’ve thrilled to warnings that the oceans would be “As dead as Lake Erie by 1980” (Ehrlich, 1970), that there would be a new Ice Age in 10 years (NASA, 1971), that England would cease to exist by 2000 (Ehrlich, 1971), that there was “no end in sight of the cooling trend” (New York Times, 1978), that the Maldives would be “completely underwater in 30 years (1989), that UK snowfalls were a thing of the past (University of East Anglia, 2000), that Britain would be “Siberian” by 2025 (Pentagon, 2004), that the Arctic would be ice free by 2013/2014/2016/2018 (Gore, US Navy, NASA), etc.

What you note as “warnings” 40 years ago are more accurately labelled as falsified speculations produced by climate models observably unfit for duty.

That is producing severe Cognitive Dissonance in an industry that depends on the hypothesis being true that there is a climate crisis, and is manifesting itself most visibly in the proliferation of what Lakatos proposes as “Auxiliary Theory” in his account of pseudoscience – “theory to explain the failure of the theory”

Bravo … And here we are where Richard Lyons (et al.) are arguing and winning the intellectual debate, while the alarmist believers of a Cognitive Dissonance are stuck in their own … cognitive dissonance. Message to Susan Krumdieck, who has bought into the climate alarm. Check your premises rather than try to find psychological explanations for the world not heeding the climate alarm.

Start with the time series data with each weather extreme,
as well as the satellite data on global warming.

[The graph above shows exhibit 2a from Truchelut and Staehling overlaid with the record of atmospheric CO2 concentrations.  From NOAA combining Mauna Loa with earlier datasets.]
To determine Integrated Storm Activity Annually over the Continental U.S. (ISAAC) from 1900 through 2017, we summed this landfall ACE spatially over the entire continental U.S. and temporally over each hour of each hurricane season. We used the same methodology to calculate integrated annual landfall ACE for five additional geographic subsets of the continental U.S.

Climate optimism, anyone?

From Roy Spencer, PhD.

February 7th, 2023 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.

In Part I I showed the Landsat satellite-based measurements of urbanization around the Global Historical Climate Network (GHCN) land temperature-monitoring stations. Virtually all of the GHCN stations have experienced growth in the coverage of human settlement “built-up” (BU) structures.

As an example of this growth, here is the 40-year change in BU values (which range from 0 to 100%) at 1 km spatial resolution over the Southeast United States.

How has this change in urbanization been expressed at the GHCN stations distributed around the world? Fig. 2 shows how urbanization has increased on average across 19,885 GHCN stations from 20N to 82.5N latitude, at various spatial averaging resolutions of the data.

NONE of the 19,885 GHCN stations experienced negative growth, which is not that surprising since that would require a removal of human settlement structures over time. In all of the analysis that follows, I will be using the 21×21 km averages of BU centered on the GHCN station locations.

So, what effect does urbanization measured in this manner have on GHCN temperatures? And, especially, on temperature trends used for monitoring global warming?

While we all know that urban areas are warmer than rural areas, especially at night and during the summer, does an increase in urbanization lead to spurious warming at the GHCN stations that experienced growth (which is the majority of them)?

And, even if it did, does the homogenization procedure NOAA uses to correct for spurious temperature effects remove (even partially) urban heat island (UHI) effects on reported temperature trends?

John Christy and I have been examining these questions by comparing the GHCN temperature dataset (both unadjusted and adjusted [homogenized] versions) to these Landsat-based measurements of human settlement structures, which I will just call “urbanization”.

Here’s what I’m finding so far.

The Strongest UHI Warming with Urbanization Growth Occurs at Nearly-Rural Stations

As Oke (1973) and others have demonstrated, the urban heat island effect is strongly nonlinear, with (for example) a 2% increase in urbanization at rural sites producing much more warming than a 2% increase at an urban site. This means that a climate monitoring dataset using mostly-rural stations is not immune from spurious warming from creeping urbanization, unless there has been absolutely zero growth.

For example, Fig. 3 shows the sensitivity of GHCN (absolute) temperatures to increasing urbanization in various classes of urbanization, based upon well over 1 million station pairs separated by less than 150 km.

By far the greatest sensitivity to a change in urbanization in Fig. 3 is in the 0-2% (nearly rural) category. We also see in Fig. 3 that the homogenization procedure used by NOAA reduces this effect by only 9% averaged across all seasons, and by even less (2.1%) in the summer season.

If we integrate the sensitivities in Fig. 3 from 0 to 100% urbanization, we get the total UHI effect on temperature (Fig. 4).

The temperature data used here is the average of the daily maximum and minimum temperatures ([Tmax+Tmin]/2), and since almost all of the urban heat island effect is in Tmin, the temperature scale in Fig. 4 would be nearly doubled for the Tmin UHI effect.

The black curve in Fig. 4 is a square-root relationship, which seems to match the data reasonable well for most of the GHCN stations (which are generally less than 30% urbanized). But this is not nearly as non-linear as the 4th root relationship Oke (1973) calculated for some eastern Canadian stations, using population data as a measure of urbanization.

But what I have shown so far is based upon spatial information (the difference between closely-spaced stations). It does not tell us whether, or by how much, spurious warming exists in the GHCN temperature trends. To examine this question, next I looked at how the NOAA homogenization procedure changed station trends as a function of how fast the station environment has become more urbanized.

NOAA’s homogenization produces a change in most of the station temperature trends. If I compute the average homogenization-induced change in trends in various categories of station growth in urbanization, we should see a negative trend adjustment associated with positive urbanization growth, right?

But just the opposite happens.

First let’s examine what happens at stations with no growth in urbanization. In Fig. 5 we see that the 881 stations with no trend in urbanization during 1975-2014 have an average 0.011 C/decade warmer trend in the adjusted (homogenized) data than in the unadjusted data. This, by itself, is entirely possible since there are time-of-observation (“Tobs”) adjustments made to the data, adjustments for station moves, instrumentation types, etc.

So, let’s assume that value at zero growth in Fig. 5 represents what we should expect for the NON-urbanization related adjustments to GHCN trends. As we move to the right from zero urbanization growth in Fig. 5, stations with increasing growth in urbanization should have downward adjustments in their temperature trends, but instead we see, for all classes of growth in urbanization, UPWARD adjustments instead!

Thus, it appears that NOAA’s homogenization procedure is spuriously warming station temperature trends (on average) when it should be cooling them. I don’t know how to conclude any different.

Why are the NOAA adjusments going in the wrong direction? I don’t know.

To say the least, I find these results… curious.

OK, so how big is this spurious warming effect on land temperature trends in the GHCN dataset?

Before you jump to the conclusion that GHCN temperature trends have too much spurious warming to be relied upon for monitoring global warming, what I have shown does not tell us by just how much the land-average temperature trends are biased upward. I will address that in Part III.

My very preliminary calculations so far (using the UHI curves in Fig. 4 applied to the 21×21 km urbanization growth curve in Fig. 2) suggest the UHI warming averaged over all stations is about 10-20% of the GHCN trends. Small, but not insignificant. But that could change as I dig deeper into the issue.

From Watts Up With That?

Guest Essay by Kip Hansen —  7 February 2023

Hark!  I hear birds singing.   And I hear a study reaching out for attention.

The new study is about stickers that people apply to their windows hoping that they will prevent birds from flying into the window because they think that there is a clear route to some place of safety. 

“A thump on the window, if you’re around to hear it. A dead songbird below. Many people seek to prevent this sorrowful scenario by warning birds away with decals or film applied to windows of homes and office buildings.”   [ source ] 

A 2014 study found: 

“Building collisions, and particularly collisions with windows, are a major anthropogenic threat to birds, with rough estimates of between 100 million and 1 billion birds killed annually in the United States. However, no current U.S. estimates are based on systematic analysis of multiple data sources. We reviewed the published literature and acquired unpublished datasets to systematically quantify bird–building collision mortality and species-specific vulnerability. Based on 23 studies, we estimate that between 365 and 988 million birds (median = 599 million) are killed annually by building collisions in the U.S., with roughly 56% of mortality at low-rises, 44% at residences, and <1% at high-rises.”

National Audubon encourages homeowners to protect birds by applying anti-collision stickers to windows:  “Those homeowners that want birds in their yard are probably killing most of them, unfortunately,” Kummer says. “The more birds that there are in the yard, and the more birds that are closer to a house and windows, the more likely that a collision is going to occur simply by sheer numbers.” “Use a Lot of Decals  — Many forest birds readily dart between branches and leaves, so a single decal will not deter them.”

The New York Times covered the latest study, which only compared two commercial “invisible to the human eye” anti-bird-collision films, it did not study the effect of placing stickers with birds shapes on windows. (the most popular treatment).  There have been other studies of various types that seem to show that stickers can help prevent bird-window collisions – but there are caveats. 

          1) The latest study with window films finds that films on the inside surface of windows are totally worthless – basically, did nothing.  These types of films must be applied on the outside surface of the window.  These films reflect frequencies of light easily seen by birds, but not by humans, all the while remaining fairly transparent. Pretty easy to apply to sliding glass doors leading to decks and patios and other first floor windows.  Not so easy to apply to the windows of office buildings’ upper floors. 

          2)  Other studies (not the new one) have found that adding lots of window stickers to the outside of windows helps prevent collisions.  The most popular seem to be bird-shape stickers.  Dr. John P. Swaddle, lead author of the latest study and author of many similar studies, is quoted saying:  “People who are buying decals and putting them on the windows, they want to do good, they want to do right by the birds.”  but if you are putting the sticker on the inside of the windows “Really all you’re doing is some interior decorating”… “You do have to take the extra step of putting it on the outside of the window.”

Additional recommendations from Cornell’s All About Birds for preventing bird window collisions are (excepted):

Treatments for Existing Windows:

To deter small birds, vertical markings on windows need to be spaced no more than 4 inches apart and horizontal markings no more than 2 inches apart across the entire window.

Tempera paint or soap. Mark the outside of the window with soap or tempera paint, which is inexpensive and long lasting. You can use either a grid pattern no more than 4 inches by 2 inches

Decals. Put decals, stickers, sun catchers, mylar strips, masking tape, or other objects (even sticky notes) on the outside surface of the window.

Dot Patterns and Tape. Long-lasting tape products offer an easier way to apply the correct spacing of dots across your window.

Acopian Bird Savers. Also known as “zen curtains,” these closely spaced ropes hang down over windows.

Screens. Installing mosquito screens over your windows is very effective

Netting. Cover the glass on the outside with netting at least 3 inches from the glass, taut enough to bounce birds off before they hit.

One-way transparent film. Products such as Collidescape permit people on the inside to see out, but makes the window appear opaque on the outside.

Other suggestions are to attach outside bird feeders directly to the windows or to locate bird feeders no more than three feet away from the windows (this is the solution we use at my home, along with exterior window screens on most windows).

The estimate of ~ 600 million birds being killed by colliding with windows in the United States annually is of course a WAG (wild guess) – but we should accept it as representing some significant number.  If your home has frequent bird-window collisions, you should do something.  I would suggest that frequent means more often than “it happened once”, your call.

# # # # #

If you find yourself opening the plate glass slider with bird stickers on it to let the cat out – you have missed the real problem.

But we need to compare this to another study – even more shocking:

One of National Audubon’s repeating themes in its fund-raiser emails is to repeat Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s 2019 study’s finding that since 1970, bird populations in the United States have decreased by nearly 3 billion birds. Of course, this is an estimate made up of estimates. But there is probably no doubt that there are fewer birds today than 50 years ago, mostly due to changes in land use: conversion of forests to farms, tall grass prairie to rangeland and corn fields, etc. resulting in altered habitat availability. Some of this (very little) may be marked down to window collisions.

“We estimate that free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0 billion birds and 6.3–22.3 billion mammals annually. Un-owned cats, as opposed to owned pets, cause the majority of this mortality. Our findings suggest that free-ranging cats cause substantially greater wildlife mortality than previously thought and are likely the single greatest source of anthropogenic mortality for US birds and mammals.”

Now, let me repeat that “free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0 billion birds…annually.” 

Compare that to “since 1970, bird populations have decreased by nearly 3 billion birds” – that’s 50 years.

But for free-ranging cats:   in that same 50 year period — 50 times 2.65 (average of 1.3-4.0) comes to 132.5 billion birds killed by free-ranging domestic cats.

When we say “free-ranging domestic cats” we simply mean pet cats that are allowed outside of a home to roam free, at least part of the day and this obviously includes all feral cats.

Now, our first study today said that “between 100 million and 1 billion birds killed annually” “by building collisions in the U.S”. For building collisions read window collisions – very few birds collide with solid walls.  Now that is a very wide estimate – the higher estimate is ten times the lower estimate. 

But even the very highest estimate  — 1 billion a year — is less than the lowest estimate for the number of birds killed by free-ranging cats: “free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0 billion birds…annually.” 

And there is a simple and sensible solution to this problem as well – keep your pet cats indoors and/or confined to your own property. Just like you do with your pet dogs (who will be picked up by Animal Control if they are found running loose). And this would apply to your pet cheeta, your pet tiger, your pet chickens, your pet pot-bellied pig, pet llama – in fact – like you do with all your other pets. 

[ If I’m perfectly honest, there is one pet often intentionally allowed to roam free for a short time each day – pet pigeons.   My father-in-law kept pigeons for years, in a coop that allowed them to fly free (when he raised a hatch) and was equipped with a one-way door for them when they returned, which they always did. ]

If you want to protect birds, keep your cat(s) indoors unless they have an outdoor cat run (such as these).  And encourage your local community to pass local regulations requiring that cats be restricted to their owner’s property.

# # # # #

Author’s Comment:

I like to write about interesting things – part of the purview of WUWT.

I like birds.  Birds of all kinds.  I like my backyard birds.  I like raptors of all kinds.  I don’t mind when the local raptors take a few of the song birds feeding at my backyard bird feeders.   I even like our chickens – which are rather like little dinosaurs. 

I like cats.  Cats of all kinds.  I like pet cats.  Buy I don’t like free-roaming domestic cats or,  worse, truly feral domestic cats.  They are simply little killing machines – it is their nature and I don’t really hold it against them.

Every time I have mentioned cats as a problem, a battle breaks out in the comments.  There are those who consider cats (and dogs) to be persons and think that they deserve all the rights to which homeless people are entitled.  There are others who feel that truly feral cats should be rounded up and euthanized en masse.    And yet others demand that the Trap Neuter Vaccinate Return (TNVR) approach is the best to deal with the large feral cat population problem. 

Readers may comment on cats if they chose (WUWT has a very liberal commenting policy) but this essay is really about birds – and windows.

Address comments to “Kip” if speaking to me.

Thanks for reading.

# # # # #

From Jim Steele

Jim Steele is Director emeritus of San Francisco State University’s Sierra Nevada Field Campus, authored Landscapes and Cycles: An Environmentalist’s Journey to Climate Skepticism, and proud member of the CO2 Coalition.

Jim Steele

This is the transcript for video 

WHY COOKING WITH GAS WONT MELT ARCTIC SEA ICE or How Temperature Anomaly Graphs Obscure Important Climate Dynamics

Video reveals the critical climate dynamics of ocean currents that naturally transport warm warm water from the tropics into the Arctic causing very different local temperatures and changes in sea ice extent.

Welcome back everyone. 

Today I want to demonstrate how the focus on temperature anomalies severely misleads the public about the natural dynamics of climate change

Indeed, as illustrated here by NASA’s 2016 winter temperature anomalies, the data shows the arctic is warming 4 times faster than elsewhere and winters are warming faster than the other seasons.

However, a dubious narrative uncritically attributes rising CO2 to those anomalies, then speculates about a future warming crisis while ignoring important natural dynamics such as ocean currents.

But there is a wealth of scientific research that has shown ocean currents can also cause those higher temperature anomalies, but that isn’t obvious from this anomaly illustration. To add to the misunderstanding, the high arctic temperatures are paradoxically due to heat ventilating out from the ocean and cooling the earth, thus actually preventing future extreme warming.

The warm 2016 winter temperatures in the eastern tropical pacific were caused by a natural El Nino event that also ventilated heat previously stored in the western pacific, briefly warming the air but again actually cooling the earth.

El Nino events also contribute to warmer sea surface temperatures simply by reducing the trade winds that drive upwelling of cold subsurface water. Such warming when upwelling is inhibited is observed globally. For example, a 3-month study showed how monthly changes in wind direction (the blue line) caused a 6 to 8C (14fF surface temperature change.

Along the coast of Oregon, when winds blow in a southward direction, upwelling is enhanced, and surface temperatures fall (the red line).

Conversely, when winds blow to the north upwelling of cooler deeper water is inhibited causing temperatures to rise by 6-8C (14F).

Such dramatic natural temperature changes have nothing to do with radiative heating from the sun or greenhouse gases. Nonetheless warmer temperatures from reduced upwelling are often mistakenly incorporated into the global average temperature as seen during El Nino events and then attributed to CO2 warming.

It is far more insightful to understand climate change by looking at actual temperature changes. Using publicly available national weather service data, a quick survey of subarctic temperatures on January 29th, 2023, at 60 degrees latitude just south of the Arctic Circle, reveals how ocean currents alone cause tremendous temperature differences.

The Hudson Bay was -33C or minus 28F. Clearly any warming effects from greenhouse gases did not prevent such life threatening extreme cold. Such deadly cold temperatures evoke a much different concern for Hudson Bay inhabitants than NASA’s 2-degree warmer temperature anomaly, that laughingly is suggested as evidence of a global warming crisis.

Temperatures in the middle of the Labrador Sea jump 34 C or 60 F to a very livable temperature just below the freezing point.

Further east, higher Irminger Sea temperatures rise above freezing to 2.2 C or 36F.

And the Norwegian current is even warmer at 42F.

Benefitting from eastward winds that transfer ventilating heat from the warm Norwegian Current, the Norwegian coast reaches a balmy 7C or 44F in the dead of winter. Even though all measurements were taken at the same latitude, on the same date and same time, there is a huge 40C or 73F temperature difference between the Hudson Bay and Norwegian coast

Indisputably, that variability is caused by heat transported northward by ocean currents and ventilated to the arctic atmosphere. It is the ocean currents that are the arctic’s climate control knob, not atmospheric greenhouse warming, as witnessed by the extremely cold Hudson Bay.

Indeed, a map of the warm and cold currents entering those subarctic seas, predicts precisely where temperatures would be warmest

The Norwegian current carries the warmest waters that originated in the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Current.

A portion of the warm north Atlantic current that veered westward while ventilating some heat plus mixing with the cold east Greenland current keeps the Irminger Sea just above freezing but cooler than the Norwegian sea

Further ventilation of Atlantic heat and mixing with colder water lowers the observed Labrador Sea temperatures to just below freezing

NASA and a few other climate researchers have uncritically attributed declining winter sea ice to rising CO2 simply based on a negative correlation. Furthermore, by presenting the ice decline trend as a representation of all the arctic and not a regional phenomenon, the national snow and ice data center’s sea ice trend is a very misleading abstraction.

Their global warming correlation does not hold for 80% of Arctic winter sea ice extent.

Inside the Arctic Circle most of the winter sea ice extent has not been reduced, suggesting warmer air, purported to be derived from rising greenhouse gases, has yet to cause any change.

Furthermore, south of the Arctic Circle there is scant reduction for Bering Sea ice,

Nor is there any change in Hudson Bay winter ice extent. Of course, this is expected with winter temperatures hovering around -33C (-28F)

NSIDC graph of winter sea ice is driven by losses confined only to regions where warm Atlantic water intrudes, around the Norwegian sea, and more deeply into the Arctic Circle and the Barents Sea.

According to NSIDC, heat transported into the arctic ocean has increased by 30% since 1900, making the variability of warm ocean currents the best explanation for the 20th century’s ebb and flow of arctic sea ice.

The cause of variable heat transport into the Arctic requires examining a complex of natural factors driving the great Ocean Conveyor Belt and its Atlantic segment, known as the meridional overturning circulation

The Atlantic is unique, in that warm water from the southern hemisphere crosses the equator and eventually reaches the arctic.

Furthermore, the heating of water in the south Atlantic is partly controlled by the ocean Conveyor Belt’s inflows from the tropical waters of the pacific and Indian ocean. I won’t discuss the circulation complexities any further here, except to share that La Nina conditions have a large impact. For those who want to understand the drivers of heating in those tropical waters, I suggest people view my previous video/blog on ocean heating “the science of solar ponds challenges the climate crisis”.

Focusing on the Atlantic, research has determined 45% of the water passing through the Florida Strait and into the gulf stream originated from the south Atlantic.

Changes in the strength and location of Atlantic pressure systems and resulting ocean circulation determines how much heat enters the Arctic Circle or is recirculated southwards.

Unfortunately, most illustrations of the Ocean Conveyor Belt typically stop half-way up the Norwegian coast, but that is very misleading.

Warm Atlantic water circulates throughout the arctic ocean and correctly predicts where arctic temperatures will be the warmest.

The warmest temperatures are where Atlantic water first enters the Norwegian and Barents Sea, with ventilating ocean heat warming the air. Then slightly cooler Atlantic water continues to circulate through the 3 major arctic basins beneath the thick sea ice.

A smaller volume of less warm water from the pacific enters via the Bering strait

Whereas hardly any heat from intruding warm currents reaches the islands of the Canadian archipelago explaining the region’s extreme cold.

Additionally, because the warm Atlantic water resides

Between 100- and 900-meter depths of the arctic ocean with a residence time of 25 to 30 years. Any cyclical slowdown of the gulf stream may not be detected in arctic ocean temperatures or its sea ice extent for 2 to 3 decades

Again, we can observe how the pattern of intruding warm currents drives Arctic ocean temperature differences just inside the Arctic Circle at 70 degrees latitude.

Around Wrangel island where cool pacific water enters via the Bering strait the temperature was -16.7 C or 1.9F.

However, where very little warm currents reach the islands of the Canadian archipelago, temperatures plummeted to -39C or -39F

For contrast, North Pole temperatures are 8 degrees Celsius or 15F warmer than the archipelago due to Atlantic heat stored in the arctic basins and ventilating through the ice. Partly due to such heating contrasts, Innuits hunting in the winter preferred to build their igloos on the ice instead of on land.

Temperatures over the southward out-flowing east Greenland current are -19C or -3 F in contrast to

The temperatures of the adjacent inflowing Norwegian current that is 21c or 38f warmer.

Natural dynamics affect the flow of heat in the Atlantic segment of the Ocean Conveyor Belt. One dynamic is the location of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (or ITCZ) which caused a dramatic temperature effect at the end of the last ice age.

Ice core data show temperatures that had been rapidly warming suddenly dropped by 20C or 36F in the northern hemisphere for about a thousand years during a cold period called the Younger Dryas (YD). In contrast, southern hemisphere temperatures slightly warmed.

Proxy data suggests the westward trade winds and ITCZ had shifted southward causing the warm south equatorial current (SEC) to also shift southward. Brazil’s eastern most land, Ponta do Seixas amplified that shift by deflecting more warm water back into the south Atlantic and thus cooling the north Atlantic.

The warmer 10 thousand years of the Holocene period correlates with the ITCZ shifting northward, causing the warm south equatorial current to deliver more warm water across the equator, to warm the north Atlantic while cooling the south.

A similar but smaller southward shift of the ITCZ corresponds with the little ice age which mostly cooled the northern Atlantic regions. The Little Ice Age ended around 1850 as the ITCZ moved northward for our most recent 150 years.

Like the drivers that caused and ended the Younger Dryas, the Atlantic Multidecadal Variability or Multidecadal Oscillation, represents 20+ years of warmer temperatures in the north Atlantic than the south and then reversing. This oscillation is intimately linked to variability of the surface currents in the Atlantic’s surface meridional overturning circulation within the Ocean Conveyor Belt.

First detected in the 1980s and officially named around 2000, the positive phase represents a warmer north Atlantic that is linked to several climate dynamics. From the 1930s to 60s and then 1990s to present, the positive warm phases were associated with less arctic sea ice, increased Sahel rainfall, increased hurricane activity, and frequent heat extremes in the southwestern USA.

The negative phase from the 1960s to 1990 (represented in blue), saw a reversal of those dynamics as arctic sea ice rebounded from its 1930s low extent. Accordingly, a 40-year research project over the arctic ocean during a cool phase and published in 1993 determined there was an “absence of evidence for greenhouse warming” over the arctic ocean.

So, for your sake, please understand these natural oscillations. Knowledge protects you from fear mongering politicians who blame loss of arctic sea ice on the car you drive or that you like cooking with a gas stove.

There 3 guidelines to consider preventing being victimized by their climate misinformation.

First consider all the science, an abundance of researchers reports warming dynamics other than CO2. Science is a process, and nothing is settled yet.

Second become well acquainted with natural climate change. Natural climate change serves as the baseline, or the control data, from which to accurately judge the effects of CO2 emissions. The purpose of my series of climate videos and blogs is to provide a better understanding of the science of natural climate change to the public.

And finally, embrace renowned scientist Thomas Huxley’s advice: “skepticism is the highest of duties and blind faith the one unpardonable sin”.

From Tallbloke’s Talkshop

‚What is carbon dioxide, anyway? How does it cause global warming?‘ – asks Phys.org. [Delete ‚how‘ – says the Talkshop.] Anyway, the entire article they attach to their loaded-question headline never once mentions water vapour. It’s all about demonising CO2. Even climate worrier Wikipedia says: ‚Water vapour is the gaseous phase of water…Being a component of Earth’s hydrosphere and hydrologic cycle, it is particularly abundant in Earth’s atmosphere, where it acts as a greenhouse gas and warming feedback, contributing more to total greenhouse effect than non-condensable gases such as carbon dioxide and methane.‘ So even for fans of greenhouse theories there’s no escaping the predominance of water vapour over carbon dioxide. Completely ignoring it makes the whole CO2-promoting article redundant.
– – –
Chemically, carbon dioxide is incredibly simple—it is just one carbon atom linked with two oxygen atoms, says Phys.org.

Together they create a colorless gas that makes up just a tiny fraction of the Earth’s atmosphere, about 0.04%.

That gas is critical to life on earth because plants use sunlight and carbon dioxide to create energy through the process of photosynthesis.

But carbon dioxide is also the primary reason the climate is warming, a long-term shift in temperature that threatens the delicately balanced ecosystems humans depend upon.

So how is something so necessary to life also so harmful? Here’s what to know:

Continued here.
– – –
A footnote to the article says:
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

From CFACT

Watch: Morano talks ‘climate justice’ & effort to restrict anesthesia to save climate: ‘This is an insane ideology that has infected our modern society’

Broadcast Feb. 6, 2022 – AMERICA First with Sebastian Gorka

Broadcast Feb. 6, 2022 – AMERICA First with Sebastian Gorka

Watch: Morano goes on epic rant about Anthony Fauci cashing in on his fame from pushing authoritarian COVID lockdowns – Morano: “You cannot find a man who has been more disastrous to modern western society than Anthony Fauci.”

Sebastian talks to @ClimateDepot founder Marc Morano about the Left's new crusade of "climate justice," and Anthony Fauci's latest grift of charging $100,000 for each speaking engagement.

FULL INTERVIEW: https://t.co/glLoHfYV33 pic.twitter.com/jd4ErFJsGt

— Sebastian Gorka DrG (@SebGorka) February 7, 2023

#

Background Links: 

Restrict anesthesia to save climate – Harvard Med to ‘Integrate Climate’ Into M.D. Curriculum & American Cancer Society Frets ‘carbon footprint of cancer care’

Restrictions on anesthesia next?! New Study suggests ‘lowering the flow of anesthetic gas’ in patients to save planet – 1 hour of surgical anesthesia equivalent to driving as many as 470 miles

Jane Fonda links the ‘climate crisis’ to racism: ‘Everything’s connected’ – ‘There’d be no climate crisis if it wasn’t for racism’

Climate Religion: Egypt’s Mount Sinai to receive ‘Climate Justice Ten Commandments’ during UN summit – Interfaith ‘Climate Repentance Ceremonies’

Fauci merges COVID & Climate: Infectious diseases ‘largely the result’ of human ‘encroachment on nature’ & ‘often aided by climate changes’ – Published in New England Journal of Medicine

‘The data is racist!’ Rhode Island professor denounces ‘science, statistics, and technology’ as ‘inherently racist’

Identity politics invades climate change debate

Academics pursue project to ‘Decolonize Physics’ – ‘We aim to critically investigate if & how physics itself has contributed & still contributes to colonialism’

Author

• CFACT Ed
• CFACT — We’re freedom people.

From Spectator AU

By Judith Sloan

I love a good fairy tale as much as the next person: Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Hansel and Gretel, Sun Cable. The really tragic part of this list is that it’s only Sun Cable that doesn’t have a happy ending.

Who would have thought that a project that involved hundreds of solar panels located in the middle of nowhere, a raft of gigantic batteries and over 4,000 kilometres of underwater cables could fail? The answer is pretty much everyone, but when there are two bulls – OK, billionaires – in the same paddock, the initial response by the aggressive beasts is to believe in the fairy tale.

It just sounded so good: Australia as an energy superpower. We were going to supply 15 per cent of Singapore’s electricity – this bit was actually news to Singapore – and at a mere $35 billion, at least, it was a complete steal. Just think of the environmental benefits. And think of the other possibilities – Singapore one day, the world the next.

Tragically, the project has come to a crashing halt and the underlying company has been put into administration. Both founding billionaires, ‘Twiggy’ Forrest and Mike Cannon-Brookes (aka Double Bay Jesus) will be forced to write off what to normal mortals sound like huge sums of money but for them will be mere pocket money. Taxpayers threw in from one of the legions of green assistance programs $15 million which is now gone, never to be recovered.

Mere details, such as the fact that the Northern Territory is to the east of Singapore (and therefore solar energy peaks at the wrong time for the evening peak in Singapore), eventually took their toll. Where was the dumb blonde who could have pointed this out before raising a single dollar for this massive boondoggle? (No, my hair is grey these days, not blonde.)

But fear not, one or other of the bulls may rescue the project from administration and head it in a different direction. Double Bay Jesus thinks that an overland cable to Sydney might do the trick, because that would be easy to achieve. Twiggy, however, wants to use the solar power to create green hydrogen which might be a problem because the panels are not really near any reliable water sources. In any case, it will be many years before we see an operational project based on even part of the Sun Cable dream.

Talking of billionaires, we have had the privilege of the presence of Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft and latterly, philanthropist and policy wonk. Having ear-bashed Albo for a few hours – nuclear, eliminating our livestock, hydrogen, that sort of thing – he took to taking in the touristic pleasures of this great southern land, such as attending the Australian Open. (Am I allowed to praise our country now or is self-loathing compulsory?)

An interesting prior issue is why Gatesy thinks he has any particular expertise in climate, energy, agriculture, etc., just because he was able to extract vast monopoly profits from his company. Don’t get me wrong here: he is clearly a genius when it comes to matters software and I am full of admiration for someone who builds a company like Microsoft from scratch. But can’t we be spared the other stuff?

Anyway, Bill is big on nuclear and he is investing heavily in an alternative means of nuclear power generation that requires little water and is considerably cheaper than conventional means. But his bizarre message to Albo was that it’s OK for Australia to turn its back on nuclear power because we don’t like it, there is insufficient public acceptance or whatever.

His chin-wag with the PM could have been much more useful if he had just told him – billionaires can do that – to get on with removing the legislative restrictions on nuclear power and prepare for substantial investment in this green source of power.

Getting back to our local billionaires, Speccie readers will be devastated to learn that the US partner in Twiggy’s Gladstone hydrogen outfit has pulled out, citing the difficulty of producing hydrogen at a sufficiently low cost. (By the way, Gates likes grey hydrogen, which is produced from natural gas. Greenies would be storming Canberra were Albo’s government to give any support for grey hydrogen. For them it’s green – by electrolysing water – or nothing.)

But demonstrating the unwavering enthusiasm that is typical of the very rich, Twiggy has declared that the demise of this partnership is not really a setback and everything is on track for commercial quantities of hydrogen to be produced this year. This seems as likely as me travelling to the moon, but who knows?

Hydrogen has proven a very useful word to attack the climate realists who point out the combination of decommissioned coal-fired plants, lots of wind and solar and some very expensive short-duration batteries do not amount to a system that can generate reliable and affordable electricity. These same people also highlight the current (and likely future) deficiencies of electric vehicles. Any expression of doubt is simply rebutted by the single word: hydrogen.

But no one in her right mind, including the dumb blonde, thinks that using green hydrogen to generate electricity makes sense. Just think about it: you use electricity generated by wind and solar to make hydrogen so you can use to it to generate electricity. The hydrogen will need to be compressed before it can be transported which requires more energy. The loss of energy along that chain is vast. Just use the electricity generated in the first place, if you must.

But hang on, you say, hydrogen is a useful means of storing energy. Well, maybe, but you need to invest heavily in special infrastructure because as the smallest molecule, hydrogen is prone to escape and normal pipelines will corrode very quickly. It has been pointed out, for instance, by the House of Commons Committee of Science and Technology that smart meters in the UK (and here as well) are not compatible with hydrogen. So much for hydrogen as a source of home heating any time soon.

I should also mention that you will need loads of platinum and iridium if you want to get this hydrogen project going big-time, which by the way are in short supply around the world. You will also be pleased to know that 14 hydrogen-powered cars were purchased in the UK last year; the figure is probably lower again in Australia. This baby has a long way to go before it achieves adult status. But hydrogen as the central character in a fairy tale has a lot going for it now.