Bring Back the Dodo!

Climate Change Deniers consider re-evolution of extinct species.

The strange and irrational nature of the climate change denial argument was highlighted for me in a thread on the ironically named 'Real Science' blog.

In the discussion that followed a post about the survivability of Polar bears, one of the contributors, Tarpon, who has a blog of their own, Tarpon's Swamp, suggested that Polar Bears are just "white ‘brown bears’" and why "If polar bears disappeared, can’t we just get more brown bears to move north during the next inter-glacial?" - No seriously!

Typically of the clientèle that frequent this blog none thought to challenge this idea at all. Perhaps I should have but it seemed more fun not to. After all the concept that we could re-evolve extinct species if we felt the need to was such a novel and wondrously wacky one. So of course I decided to go along with it and suggested that we could put some birds on remote Islands to re-evolve the Dodo.

But this silliness does highlight a serious flaw in the deniers arguments. Even setting aside the irony that someone can dismiss AGW as a fraud by rejecting all the supporting peer reviewed science, and basic physics while completely putting faith in the Theory of Evolution to bring back extinct species - something any evolutionary biologist would find laughable, there is a glaring failure in logic of this basic type of thinking.

If AGW isn't happening then it isn't happening and any rational argument should be made using the available evidence to support this. The argument shouldn't be; AGW isn't happening but if it is then it isn't going to be much of a problem. This is a bit like saying a meteor isn't going to hit the earth next week but if it did, no problem we can always rebuild.

Clearly if AGW is happening as the scientists say, then all the changes and climate extremes it must bring is going to be a problem, but it seems that deniers in their irrationality need to deny every stage just in case they ever have to accept some part in the future.

This reminded me of a' Real Climate' post over a year ago that highlight this sort or erroneous thinking;
" (a) global warming isn’t happening,
(b) even if it is, its entirely natural and within the bounds of natural variability,
(c) well, even if its not natural, it is modest in nature and not a threat,
(d) even if anthropogenic warming should turn out to be pronounced as projected, it will sure be good for us, leading to abundant crops and a healthy environment, and
(e) well, it might actually be really bad, but hey, its unstoppable anyway."