{touch up edits completed}
The following post reviews the first six paragraphs of an essay written by Mr. Jim Steele: "Blinded by Beliefs:TheStraightPoopOnEmperorPenguins." The essay grossly misrepresents scientific studies and observations; while unjustly slandering honorable trustworthy scientists. My intention is to outline it's many errors as rationally as possible, while presenting links to many authoritative sources that offer independent learning opportunities to help you decide.
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LandscapesAndCycles' childish opening shot intentionally trivializes the situation,
after all penguins have been acclimatized to those harsh weather conditions
and that environment, its food-web, and its seasonal rhythms
since time immemorial
and that environment, its food-web, and its seasonal rhythms
since time immemorial
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landscapesandcycles.net/resilient-emperor-penguin.html
Blinded by Beliefs: The Straight Poop on Emperor Penguins
July 1, 2014 {I've added the red highlights}
Adapted from the chapter The Emperor Penguin Has No Clothes in Landscapes & Cycles: An Environmentalist’s Journey to Climate Skepticism by Jim Steele
{The essay's text is in courier font)
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The essay starts out by constructing a phony, but dramatic, stage setting.
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¶1 "Two recent press releases concerning the Emperor Penguin’s fate illustrate contrasting forces that will either advance or suppress trustworthy conservation science."
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Think about what's been done with these words. They artfully imply that there's a struggle going on between a cadre of biased untrustworthy closed minded ('environmentalist'?) scientists and "trustworthy" scientists. It's pure innuendo with malicious intent, based on misrepresentation, misdirection and ignoring huge swaths of available information.
Making judgements based on media stories is dishonest. A serious discussion demands we go to first-hand sources instead of relying on political theater. Doing so reveals a community of individuals dedicated to learning and understanding. It is alive with constructive skepticism and honest debate. With the full scope of available evidence informing the collective state of understanding.
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Embodying that truism is a paper by lead author Dr. Michelle LaRue who reports new advances in reading the Emperor Penguin’s fecal stains on Antarctic sea ice that are visible in satellite pictures. Two years ago the fecal stain method identified several large, hitherto unknown colonies and nearly doubled our estimate of the world’s Emperor Penguins.1,2
That didn’t mean climate change had necessarily increased penguin numbers, but a larger more robust population meant Emperor Penguins were far more resilient to any form of change.
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"far more resilient to any form of change." Nonsense, the study makes no claims about resilience to "any form of change."
In fact, the LaRue et. al study was about a pioneering method utilizing high resolution satellite imagery to gather a more complete and accurate population count on a continent wide scale. Dr. LaRue does indeed acknowledge the many developing environmental threats facing penguins.
What the study means is that some population counts and assumptions need reassessment, but it says nothing about penguin resilience; or the threats they face because of their changing landscape. Nor does it have anything to say about the 70s population decline around Dumont d’Urville. Here's what the study actually says {my highlights}:
