Climate change is overhyped, says IUCN

Lawrence Solomon
9 Nov 2009

One of the world's top environmental organizations, the UN-affiliated International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), has publicly stated that global warming is being overhyped. The Geneva-based organization made the surprising comments with regard to the often-heard claim that global warming is the chief threat to the extinction of species.

In fact, climate change is "far from the number-one threat" to the survival of most species, said Jean Christophe Vie, deputy head of the IUCN species program. Vie considers hunting, overfishing, and human destruction of habitat as more important, and more urgent, threats that should not take a back seat to climate change. "There are so many other immediate threats that, by the time climate change really kicks in, many species will not exist anymore." The IUCN compiles the authoritative international Redlist of endangered species.

IUCN's comments, reported Friday in Times Online, were made in defence of a paper in Science by two University of Oxford researchers that found climate change models yield invalid results because they don't reflect the real world. "The evidence of climate change-driven extinctions have really been overplayed," concluded Professor Kathy Willis, the paper's lead author who is also director of the Oxford Long-Term Ecology Laboratory.

IUCN, established in 1948 as the world's first global environmental organization, is the world's oldest and largest global environmental network. It is comprised of more than 1,000 government and NGO member organizations and almost 11,000 volunteer scientists in more than 160 countries. IUCN has official observer status at the United Nations General Assembly.

 

Lawrence Solomon
11 Nov 2009, 18:14

Climate change is still overhyped, says IUCN

Calmel,

Thank you for asking about the views of the Oxford researchers. In addition to their clear-eyed critique of climate change models, which appears on the University of Oxford website (http://www.ox.ac.uk/media/news_stories/2009/091106_2.html), their views are presented in the same November 6, 2009 article in the Times Online that I referred to. The article, in case you missed it, is entitled “Experts say that fears surrounding climate change are overblown.”

Here is an excerpt from that article: “The evidence of climate change-driven extinctions have really been overplayed,” said Professor Kathy Willis, a long-term ecologist at the University of Oxford and lead author of the article.

Professor Willis warned that alarmist reports were leading to ill-founded biodiversity policies in government and some major conservation groups. She said that climate change has become a “buzz word” that is taking priority while, in practice, changes in human use of land have a greater impact on the survival of species. “I’m certainly not a climate change denier, far from it, but we have to have sound policies for managing our ecosystems,” she said.

The article goes on to quote the IUCN’s deputy director. If you will read this quote carefully, you will see that the IUCN agrees with the Oxford researchers: The International Union for the Conservation of Nature backed the article, saying that climate change is “far from the number-one threat” to the survival of most species. “There are so many other immediate threats that, by the time climate change really kicks in, many species will not exist any more,” said Jean Christophe Vie, deputy head of the IUCN species program, which is responsible for compiling the international Redlist of endangered species.

You seem to think “overhyped” mischaracterizes the IUCN’s views of claims about risks to species. Would you have preferred “overblown” or “really been overplayed” or “alarmist,” which the Times Online used to describe the views of the Oxford and IUCN experts?

Finally, let me commend you for finding the polar bear example and for your recognition of cherry picking. The polar bear is the one species that the IUCN singled out as vulnerable due to climate change – a fine example of cherry picking indeed.

Anonymous
11 Nov 2009, 16:51

Climate change cherry picking

Mr Salomon, the IUCN did not say global warming is overhyped. Your title is incorrect. They said it at present is not the number one contributor to species decline. And why do you not give us the information about the Oxford researchers?

In 2006 the IUCN Director General said about biodiversity loss - "To succeed on a global scale, we need new alliances across all sectors of society. Biodiversity cannot be saved by environmentalists alone – it must become the responsibility of everyone with the power and resources to act,”. He then goes on to mention -

Melting Icecaps …
Polar bears (Ursus maritimus) are fast becoming one of the most high-profile casualties of global warming. But the impact of climate change is increasingly felt by all polar species including plants, as summer sea ice is expected to decrease by 50-100% over the next 50-100 years.

So, who is right here? The IUCN or you? The IUCN have had their words taken out of context and as usual you leave us in a "she'll be right" quandry, with no proactive direction, no measured arguments and no future responsibilty. You cannot call yourself an environmentalist.

calmel