Current Event 2/4/2011

Western wolverines threatened by climate change

-pi

This article details the "plight" of the western wolverine, a species that could be extinct in the continental US by the end of the 21st century. According to Synte Peacock, a scientist from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, rising global temperatures could soon melt the snow that is critical to the wolverine's survival. This model is based on an extrapolation of existing data, projecting future temperatures and weather patterns. The Fish and Wildlife Service has decided that climate change's threat to the wolverine merits its addition to the endangered species list.

Who: The author is Nicholas Riccardi from the Greenspace blog. The article's main focus, though, is on the theories of NCAR's Synte Peacock, a climate scientist.

What: According to Peacock, the western wolverine is in danger from the rising temperatures that threaten the snow it depends on.

When: There was no particular date, but the article was posted February 3, 2011, and the article focused on the latter half of the century.

Where: The western wolverine is a boreal carnivore/scavenger of the forests of North America, the main locality of interest.

Why: The motive for the article seems to be the addition of the western wolverine to the endangered species list.

This article is not journalism, nor is it effective. It is flagrantly biased, and quotes only the pro-climate change view. It does not affect me to any degree, though it might affect a reader with less solidified opinions. Its bias is what makes it ineffective, and it is this bias coupled with its presentation as news that makes it not journalism. Technically, it may be journalism in the sense that it uses "facts" to back up its claims. However, it only quotes a scientist's climate model's extrapolation and seeks to base policy on it. No mention is made of the controversial nature of the climate debate.

The CBT of Revelation for Social Science asserts that truth is not relative, and is relevant to this article because of the article's controversy. Either climate change is real or it is not; if it is, either it is man-caused or natural. Truth is not relative, and both sides cannot be right.