jakell » Sat Apr 30, 2016 7:52 am wrote:Iamwhomiam » Sat Apr 30, 2016 3:47 am wrote:BH wrote,"If you believe it is not possible to adapt to climate change that's fine.
Its going on in the natural world whether you feel that way or not."
Yes, animals and insects are trying to adapt, but after their forced migrations to new locales, they find no food and starve to death. This is the fate of like birds and sea mammals alike that are unable to adapt quickly enough to changing conditions.
Insects are moving northward as our climate continues warming, threatening our hardwood and softwood forests. Hemlocks, as abundant as they in NY, are dying off below and into the Catskills because the trees cannot adapt, develop resistance to, such infestations because the trees are unable to adapt quickly enough The Emerald Ash Borer has nearly reached Canada.
That's how well adaption is going on in the natural world. The coral don't seem to be adapting well, either. Shellfish shells are weakened by acidification of the waters they live in.
Perhaps you'll be kind enough to tell us about successful adaptions going on in the natural world as I know of none.
A basic misunderstanding of what I was talking about concerning adaptation.
Only we are supremely adapatable as individuals and as a species, the rest of the animal kingdom is not, adaptability is our strength.
Animals will only adapt via natural selection, and that involves dying. Hopefully a species will have enough variation within it so that cousins can move into the niche vacated by its less successful individuals. If the species does not have enough variation it will die off and another species will move into that niche.
It's tough, it's not pretty but it has worked for millions of years.
Sorry for having addressed you as Jackell, jakell.
What you describe here is evolution, not rapid adaption.
Edited to add:
Many species most certainly will become extinct due to their inability to adapt. I've pointed out a few that are endangered because they cannot quickly enough develop migrating insects. Also, birds migrating north are finding no food because of the difference in seasonal growth of their food sources, which in turn hampers mating. The emaciated corpses of seals have been washing up on shores of the west coast because their food source has also migrated away from the seals traditional feeding areas. Because they cannot adapt to changing conditions due to climate change, they die.
Sure, we're creative, and dexterous - even ingenious, but we will not be able to adapt any more than they, and we with little provocation are combative. Rats in a cage with little food. It's not going to be pretty.
Have you ever read Alvin Toffler's "Future Shock" or Desmond Morris' "The Naked Ape"?