Howling At Climate Change or, Maybe We Should Listen to the Wolves

Humans affect ecosystems. Why not climatological changes? Let the howling begin.

Maybe someone will quickly point to the difference between ecosystems and climate, suggesting the difference between apples and oranges. But, what if something learned in an ecosystem does indeed give support for the way humans may affect the overall climate?

Over the weekend, San Juan Sports post a video titled, How Wolves Change Rivers. Fascinating. I clicked around the Interwebs to learn the history behind the disappearance of the Gray Wolf in Yellowstone Park by 1926.

grey-wolf-shotMaybe you are like me and had no idea the Gray Wolf had been hunted so intently that by 1926 sustainable packs could not be found. One article suggested the eradication of the Gray Wolf was due in part to a lack of legislation protecting species indigenous to the new park. No matter what the cause, no one disputes the loss of the Gray Wolf to Yellowstone by 1926, at least that I could find.

The video conveys what this PBS piece reported from a study done by ecologists from Oregon State University. William Ripple and Robert Beschta studied the ecosystem as it pertained to Aspen trees only to uncover interesting findings with regard to the wolves and the ecosystem in Yellowstone. Gray Wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone in 1995.

In short, human beings killed off the Gray Wolf. The loss of the Gray Wolf impacted the ecosystem in Yellowstone Park. Over the first eleven years after the re-introduction of the wolf to Yellowstone, the period covered by the Ripple and Beschta study, amazing things emerged.

If humans were responsible for killing off the Gray Wolf in Yellowstone to harmful effects of the Yellowstone ecosystem, then why is it unreasonable that indiscriminate industrialization could have disastrous consequences to climate systems?

We may howl at the thought or we may listen to the wolves.

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About the Author
Husband to Patty. Daddy to Kimberly and Tommie. Grandpa Doc to Cohen, Max, Fox, and Marlee. Pastor to Snow Hill Baptist Church. Graduate of Oklahoma Baptist University and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Reading. Photography. Golf. Colorado. Jeeping. Friend. The views and opinions expressed here are my own and should not be construed as representing the corporate views of the church I pastor.

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