One side effect of the politicization of climate change is that there is resistance to address or even recognize problems associated with it. This is unfortunate, because the harm for these problems will be costly and widespread. One example of such a problem is the apparent impact of the changing climate on bat migration.
One example is that bats which migrate from Mexico to Texas are arriving ever earlier for the summer and some do not migrate back for the winter. For those who care about bats, the problem for them is that the bats might not be able to get enough food, thus causing a decline in their population. This provides yet another moral reason to address climate change. Even those who do not care about bats have a good reason to be concerned about their plight, if only for selfish reasons.
Although bats have a Halloween reputation as scary monsters, they are quite beneficial to humans (at least when not infected with rabies). Bats seek and devour a huge quantity of insect pests that would otherwise devour key commercial crops, such as soybeans and potatoes. While an exact measure of the economic value of bats is not possible, it is estimated that the value of bats to the United States economy is about $23 billion dollars—making bats an incredible valuable resource.
If bat behavior is altered by climate change, especially if this reduces their population, the impact on United States agriculture could be devastating, especially if the changing climate also increases the population of crop damaging insects. As such, this provides yet another practical reason to address climate change. There is also a moral reason here as well. While agriculture would not be destroyed by the decline in the bat population, the loss of this free service would almost certainly lead to a reduction in available food and increase the costs of food. This would be an added burden on the many Americans who already have difficulty in affording enough food for themselves and their families. It would also be harmful to the farmers and those who work the farms.
One reasonable reply to the moral and practical concerns is to point out that pesticide companies and seed companies will see an opportunity to profit from this situation. They will create and sell new pesticides to kill the pests that the bats now eat for free. They will also develop and sell new patented plants that will resist these pests. Then, as the insects adapt, they will create and sell newer pesticides and seeds. As such, it could be argued that the decline of bats would be good for these companies—they can make a profit. The bats, after all, do the job for free and merely save the farmers money—they are practically socialists.
While this would be a boon for the seed and pesticide companies, it would still have the effect of increasing the price of food—the farmers would need to pay for what was once a free service. There are also the obvious concerns about the environmental and health impact of new pesticides and their widespread use. Those who are wary of genetically modified foods (I am not) would also be concerned about the engineered seeds. As such, it is preferable for everyone (other than the companies that would profit from the decline of the bats) to take efforts to address climate change and keep those socialist bats working for America.
TJB says
November 30, 2018 at 12:38 pmIt’s fine to hug bats, but there is no viable plan to address climate change.
Also, going around saying “we’ve got to do something” does not constitute a plan.
CoffeeTime says
December 3, 2018 at 3:08 amThese types of arguments remind me of this essay, which took me forever to find again. It’s a fun parable about selective standards:
Scott Alexander: Beware Isolated Demands for Rigour
http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/14/beware-isolated-demands-for-rigor/
TJB says
December 3, 2018 at 3:43 amAwesome.
The old man stamped his boot in the red dirt, kicking up a tiny cloud of dust. “There’s a new sheriff in town,” he told them.
“No, I’m pretty sure that’s impossible,” says Parmenides. “There’s no such thing as change, only the appearance thereof.”
“Well then,” says the old man, “I reckon you won’t mind the false illusion of your surroundings appearing to change into a jail cell.” And he took out his six-shooter and held it steady.
“Hold on,” said Thales. “We don’t want any trouble here. All is water, so all we did was steal a little bit of water from people. We can give you some water back, and everything will be even, right?” He gestured to a watering trough for horses on the side of the street, which was full of the stuff.
“Just so long as you don’t mind being sprayed with some very hard water from my squirt gun,” the old man answered, and the six-shooter was pointed at the Milesian now.
“Ha!” said Zeno of Elea. “You don’t scare us. In order to hit Thales, your bullet would have to get halfway to him, then half of the remaining distance, and so on. But that would require an infinite number of steps, therefore it is impossible.”
“Sorry,” said the old man, “I couldn’t hear you because it’s logically impossible for the sound waves encoding your speech to reach my ears.”
“We’re not even the same people as the guys who stole those cattle!” said Heraclitus. “Personal identity is an illusion!”
“Then you won’t mind coming to the courthouse with me,” replied the old man “to help the judge imprison some other people who look just like you.”
The last of them, the tall one, said nothing. He just raised his revolver in a fluid motion and shot at the old man.
The old man saw it coming and jumped out of the way. The air was briefly full of bullets. Bang! Thales went down! Bang bang! Heraclitus! Bang bang! Parmenides and Zeno. Bang bang bang! The old man was hit in the arm, but still standing. Bang bang bang bang…
It was just the old man and the tall one now. The tall one picked up his gun and fired. Nothing happened. Out of bullets.
The old man smiled wryly, his six-shooter still in his hand.
“I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking – did he fire six shots, or only five? Well, you’ve got to ask yourself a question – do you feel lucky? Well, do you, punk?”
The tall one didn’t budge. “Man is the measure of all things,” said Protagoras. “If I believe you fired six shots, then by my personal epistemic standards, you fired six shots.”
The old man didn’t say anything.
“You see,” the Sophist continued. “Out of all of them, I alone was truly consistent. They all came up with clever theories, then abandoned them whenever it conflicted with their self-interest. I was more honest. I just said at the beginning that my self-interest determined truth, and so never suffered any temptation to depart from my position.”
The old man took off the bandana covering his face. “Man may be the measure of all things. But I’ve taken your measure, Protagoras, and found it wanting.”
“Socrates?!” the Sophist gasped.
“The only truly consistent people are the dead, Protagoras,” he said – and squeezed the trigger.
WTP says
December 3, 2018 at 6:46 pm“The only truly consistent people are the dead, Protagoras,” he said – and squeezed the trigger
You do understand that’s not really true either, correct? I mean rigorously speaking, of course. Though in general to selective standards, (somewhat) obviously selectivity cannot be avoided completely. It’s akin to trying to find a unbiased source of information. No such animal truly exists. OK, maybe an animal, lacking deep reasoning and thus not having consumed the flesh of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, they can be trusted to be rather consistent. No such man, though. Those who claim such God-like perspective and consistency should not be trusted. See Emerson’s foolish consistency, the hobgoblin of little minds,adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
However if we are going to establish rules for a society to live by, some degree of consistency is very important such that the rules can readily be understood without having to drag everyone into a court room after the fact and have a judge sort it out, possibly with the help of twelve, or six, or whatever angry men…or women…or whatever. Which is why the stiffest rules need to be kept to a minimum to keep the complexity down. But try explaining that to those who see themselves as wise and thus think that they should be making all the rules. It’s a fool’s errand.
DH says
December 3, 2018 at 7:45 pmInteresting discussion on this topic. My comments are a little less philosophical, but salient nonetheless.
I have to say right off the bat (no pun intended … well, maybe a little …), that the information on this phenomenon is a little confusing. I was not able to access the article you linked, as I don’t have a subscription – but I was able to access some other scholarly articles, from which I will derive my understanding.
I guess my first comment is that you really can’t assign a “moral” argument here based on bats dying off – I’d prefer to stick to the utilitarian. Bats are helpful to farmers by killing off insects, so more bats=fewer insects = fewer pesticides = cheaper production = better for humans. That’s utilitarian, isn’t it?
“If bat behavior is altered by climate change, especially if this reduces their population, the impact on United States agriculture could be devastating, especially if the changing climate also increases the population of crop damaging insects.”
The information I have read, although somewhat confusing, would indicate that this is not the case. There is no concern that bats won’t get enough food – in fact, quite the opposite.
According to The Wildlife Society (wildlife(dot)org/climate-and-landscape-changes-shifting-texas-bats-migration/), it is true that the bat migration has been trending earlier over the last 22 years, such that over that time the peak migration is a full two weeks earlier than it used to be. However, to blame this solely on “Global Warming”, and to suggest that the bats are not getting enough to eat is incorrect.
The advance in migration is presumably due to a list of potential factors, all of which are being studied. Science is tricky that way – and going back to your comment about the “politicization of Global Warming”, to jump to conclusions based on suggestions like this is entirely politically motivated.
So what are the factors? Well, the expansion of agriculture over the landscape is one. Much more land is arable, farms have expanded, more food is being produced. It’s possible that the growing season has been lengthened due to global warming, but I’d put that in the category of a “tradeoff” at best. The utilitarian in me would put more value in producing food to feed the world than in protecting a species of bat, but if we can do both I suppose that’d be a good thing.
Anyway, insects will definitely respond to changes in climate – they may emerge faster in the spring or occur in higher abundance over the winter – meaning that there are more, not less, resources to feed the bats. This is a possible incentive for the bats to return early – kind of like a resort offering an “all you can eat buffet” two weeks before the season peak.
Biologists Philip Stepanian and Charlotte Wainright, who have been studying these bats, are quoted in the Wildlife Society article thus:
” Studies have shown that bats keep pace with insects during migration, but we also know that insects adapt more readily to seasonal shifts,” Stepanian said. “If the pests start beating the bats to Texas, farmers could feel the impact.”
So it’s not starving bats, it’s not a reduction in bat populations, it’s a possible impact on farmers.
Stepanian and Wainright also mention the corn earworm and fall armyworm, both of which are critical to the bat’s diet, and both are pests whose greater persistence could have consequences for local crop yields.
Stepanian also offers a different point of view as well –
“a change in bat migration patterns could change their ability to reproduce. Female bats typically produce one child at a time, and rely on the the corn-earworm moth to feed them. If climate change alters the moth’s life cycle, bats will have to find another source of food.”
Well, that’s a lot of “ifs”. Certainly far too many to blithely draw the conclusion that bats are going to die off, we’re going to have to rely on insecticides, and chemical companies are going to profit and farmers are going to suffer.
So far, the only issue is that bats are coming to Texas two weeks early, because the weather is more tolerable and there’s a lot of food to be had. That’s called adaptation.
Also, there is an issue with insect populations growing faster than bats. We know from the biological history of the world that this can result in all sorts of things – perhaps an increase in the bat population due to increased reproduction, increased migration, or migration from other parts of the world. Predators tend to migrate to areas where there is prey.
Maybe even a new predator will show up in Texas – maybe barn swallows or other insect eating birds. Or maybe man. Maybe there will be some increased use of insecticides.
So the rest of this is just speculation – IFclimate change affects the moth’s life cycle (it hasn’t yet), then bats will have to find another source of food. Or maybe their migratory patterns will change back. Or again. Or maybe they’ll find another source of food. Why do they depend on these worms in the first place? Is it because there are plenty of them? They’re tasty? Or is it because they can’t survive on others?
All of this is about local adaptation, long-term adaptation, evolution, survival of the fittest. The migratory patterns of free-tail bats is altered by changes in the food chain, and it will continue to adapt to future changes.
I don’t think that your paraphrase of the situation is accurate, and the inaccuracy leads you to draw a moral and utilitarian conclusion that is also not true. Maybe not false, either – but the scientists who are studying this have concluded that there are many factors involved, and will not draw a conclusion until the issue is further researched.
So I would say that the politicization of global warming works both ways – and for those who fervently wish it to be true, it’s easy to draw some seemingly devastating conclusions from what are, for the moment, just a collection of observations.
CoffeeTime says
December 3, 2018 at 8:33 pmDH, Mike’s link tis through Nature, for no reason I understand, but the article is from Scientific American https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/bats-are-migrating-earlier-and-it-could-wreak-havoc-on-farming/
So it’s a reporter’s account of the actual new paper. It ends with a disclaimer that they are not asserting that climate change is the cause.
The Rothamsted researchers are not certain that climate change alone is prompting the Bracken Cave bat colony to migrate earlier. Scientists have found a direct link between seasonal temperatures and bird migration, but bats are also influenced by factors such as changes in wind speed and direction. And there are other complications. “Bats are mysterious little animals that move mostly at night and are difficult to observe and track,” Stepanian says. “We have this conceptual picture of what might be happening, but really tying it to the cause is the next step.”
DH says
December 3, 2018 at 8:44 pmthanks for the link. What’s interesting is that in the Scientific American article, and in the two articles I read, this guy Philip Strapanian is quoted as an authority.
In the S.A. article, Strapanian says that “overwintering (at bracken cave) is another sign that warmer temperatures alter the bats’ annual rhythms”. In the other article, he is quoted as saying that they are staying essentially because there’s more food.
I guess there are a couple of takeaways here. One is that because the articles seem to conflict with one another on important points, that it’s likely that the authors are cherry picking quotes in order to serve their own editorial bias. The other, of course, is that without exception, every scientist uses the words “could” or “might” – and all say that further research is required.
The ones drawing the conclusions are, well, we know who they are.