back to article Take action on climate change or the panda gets it

Giant pandas could starve to death as climate change wreaks havoc on their only food source, bamboo. Qinling panda Better eat that bamboo, might not be around next century. Credit: MSU Everyone's favourite kind of bear is already living in shrinking habitats as human encroachment narrows their living space, but now people …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I hate pandas, they should be let to die out and other less annoying animals should be saved instead.

    1. Code Monkey
      Trollface

      Hate's a strong word but pandas should meet us halfway. Eat a more varied diet*, have sex once in a while**.

      * a reminder: I'm talking about pandas, not my esteemed fellow commentards

      ** ditto

      1. Lord Voldemortgage

        Pandas are cuddly, monochrome, and cute

        But essentially useless (not sure what they taste like - I may be prepared to revise that statement if they are particularly tasty).

        So all we have to do is breed a similarly shaped animal to have that colouration and we'll be just as happy.

        1. GitMeMyShootinIrons
          Mushroom

          Mmmmm....BBQ-Panda

          "But essentially useless (not sure what they taste like - I may be prepared to revise that statement if they are particularly tasty)."

          Was black and white, now black and charred. Serve with noodles.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      If IPCC got it wrong

      We are starting to hear a lot of tales about GLOBAL COOLING. It's clear that the Church of the Holy warming has attracted a serious number of heretics. We may need the panda to thrive, so we can all wear panda fur coats!

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hmm...

    Charismatic Megaforna (pandas, dolphins, whales, etc. etc) seem to get a disproportionate amount of money spent on them than the other, less cute animals. Chris Packam was talking about this the other day and seems to be of the opinion that Pandas are a dead end and it's unlikely that they'll survive, the money may well be better spent elsewhere on things not as cute.

    It's sad, but if they've got no chance of surviving even with millions upon millions being spent on them, it may be wiser to spend the money elsewhere.

    1. Geoff Campbell Silver badge
      Boffin

      Re: Hmm...

      Interesting point - it seems that the higher up the food chain an endangered species sits, the more likely it is to capture public attention. The irony being, of course, that organisms at the bottom of the food chain are very much more important to the running of various ecosystems, and in some cases will result in much, much more profound and far-reaching changing should they become extinct.

      Funny ol' thing, life.

      GJC

  3. The Axe
    Boffin

    Cost of AGW

    The whole problem with the climate change mantra is that it is all set up to demand the highest level of taxes and social change. Why not do something simpler, or cheaper. If the Bamboo will die out due to climate change (human caused or not) why not work out why it only flowers every 30 years and make it flower more often. Why not also breed (the natural method of genetic engineering) Bamboo varieties which can cope with the climate change.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Cost of AGW

      "Why not also breed (the natural method of genetic engineering) Bamboo varieties which can cope with the climate change."

      Because the Pandas won't eat different varieties of Bamboo. Even if they did it takes several generations to breed this sort of genetic variance and these crops have a 30 year life-cycle. That's not to mention that if it could be done, it would have most likely have been done, I daresay the people working on Panda conservation have actually thought of this.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Cost of AGW

        ...and if you're going to be gengineering, why not adjust the pandas? Raise them in simulated college dorms surrounded with cheap booze and panda porn, or something.

      2. Pierre Castille
        Boffin

        Re: Cost of AGW

        When bamboo flowers it then dies. This is a real problem because all the bamboo flowers at the same time so every 30 - 50 years you end up with a swathe of dead bamboo - and no sustenance for the local pandas. This means that pandas are forced to move to look for bamboo that has not flowered. If there are no access routes to these yummy bamboo locations its certain starvation for the pandas.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Cost of AGW

          Apart from educating pandas; why not spend a little time on bamboo too? It is awesomely useful stuff.

          1. Veldan
            Thumb Down

            Re: Cost of AGW

            If China really wanted to save the pandas they could stop hoarding them.

            They have incredibly strict and and harsh rules about pandas going overseas to other countries (they're only being loaned, must pay, can't keep them for life, etc, etc).

            These other countries could then plant the bamboo required and offer global backup if and when the climate shifts the wrong way within China itself...

      3. Ron 6

        Re: Cost of AGW

        This brings up so many issues...

        For bamboo:

        1) How long has that type of bamboo existed? 1000 years? 10000 years? Longer?

        2) Is the range for that bamboo growing or shrinking and what controls that range?

        3) Has anyone attempted to create a new variety of bamboo that pandas will eat? Or does the change to the bamboo violate the intent of the conservationists?

        For pandas:

        1) How long have the pandas dependent on this variety of bamboo been around?

        2) Were the pandas ever independent of that variety of bamboo?

        3) Has anyone even attempted to breed a variety of panda that will eat more than one variety of bamboo?

        It appears that the starting point for this issue is whether you start from the idea that you have to maintain the status quo (the bamboo and pandas as-is) or to evolve the species (bamboo and/or pandas) to ensure their future survival.

    2. James Micallef Silver badge

      Re: Cost of AGW

      Or why not stop chopping down more and more bamboo forests and building villages in / passing higways through the gaps?

      There's LOTS more that the Chinese can do if they really want to save what is, after all, one of their national symbols. The question is, how much economic growth and economically 'usable' land are tehy willing to give up for it?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Cost of AGW

        I always wondered: As bamboo is a grass, why do you have bamboo forests and not meadows?

  4. Chad H.

    Another climate story? Okay this is getting out of hand now. At the risk of sounding like a "where's the IT angle" wingers, the reg really seems to be like a dog with a bone.

    Oh what a pitty it's Monday and the Ars Technica staff are still too tired to write.

    1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

      There are a shedload (not an invisible one) of other stories on the front-page..

      C.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Facepalm

    Eh, we can just get the bears to switch their diet to arabica coffee....

    Wait a second.....

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So what, let them die.

    Every time I hear the word climate change it just makes me laugh,

    the climate is always changing, it's cyclic.

    To all the idiots out there who talk about climate change

    and think we are to blame ask yourself this, have you heard

    of and do you believe there have been ice ages before ?

    If the answer is yes, how do you suppose the earth came

    out of an ice age into a warm period and then into another ice age?

    Do you think mankind had anything to do with it?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Err...

      Are you pressing enter at the end of each line you type, then accusing other people of being idiots? Ironically, I think you are.

    2. NomNomNom
      Trollface

      Every time I hear the word arson it just makes me laugh,

      things are always catching on fire, it's cyclic.

      To all the idiots out there who talk about fires

      and think we are to blame ask yourself this, have you heard

      of and do you believe there have been fires before?

      If the answer is yes, how do you suppose forests fires started

      tens of millions of years ago?

      Do you think mankind had anything to do with it?

  7. mememine69

    Help my house could be on fire...............maybe?

    *Occupywallstreet does not even mention CO2 in its list of demands because of the bank-funded carbon trading stock markets run by corporations.

    *In all of the debates Obama hadn’t planned to mention climate change once.

    *Obama has not mentioned the crisis in the last two State of the Unions addresses.

    *Julian Assange is of course a climate change denier.

    *Canada killed Y2Kyoto with a freely elected climate change denying prime minister and nobody cared, especially the millions of scientists warning us of unstoppable warming (a comet hit).

    SCIENCE needs to step up to the plate and clearly state a climate crisis “WILL” happen, not just could happen. How can millions in the global scientific community just sit on their hands as CO2 mitigation to save the planet from a comet hit of an emergency simply vanishes?

    1. SkippyBing

      SCIENCE needs to step up to the plate and clearly state a climate crisis “WILL” happen

      Wouldn't that make it a religion? They seem to be much bigger on the whole blanket statements from authority.

    2. Sean Timarco Baggaley
      WTF?

      Re: Help my house could be on fire...............maybe?

      "SCIENCE needs to step up to the plate..."

      "SCIENCE" is not a corporation. It is not an individual. It has no id, no self, no ego. It is a process, not an entity.

      Asking for "SCIENCE" to make a stand is like demanding the sky takes you out for lunch.

      1. Some Beggar

        Re: Help my house could be on fire...............maybe?

        I quite like the idea of a personalized SCIENCE who'll defend us all from wickedness. I'm picturing a chap in a classic hands-on-hips superhero pose with a conical flask logo on his chest and a pair of silvered protective goggles. And a hair net. And weilding a Pipette of Justice. With his dweebish lab-coated assistant. And their faithful mutant lab rat, George.

  8. Andy3

    More panic-mongering

    Ho-hum - another day, another scare story from the swivel-eyed 'the sky is falling' warmist brigade. I've lost count of the number of lies and half-truths they've tried to get away with over the years, from islands disappearing under the sea (demonstrably not true) and those 'glaciers that would be no more within 30 years', which they later admitted was utter fiction.

    Ignore them.

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