Birds Know It And Do We Follow?

I am a selfish person.

When it comes to global warming, the canary in the coal mine isn't a canary at all. It's a purple finch.

Snow geese, like the ones shown here, are spending the winter more than 200 miles farther north than they used to in 1966. (Donald Metzner / Cornell Lab of Ornithology via AP)
As the temperature across the U.S. has gotten warmer, the purple finch has been spending its winters more than 400 miles farther north than it used to.

And it's not alone.

An Audubon Society study to be released Tuesday found that more than half of 305 birds species in North America, a hodgepodge that includes robins, gulls, chickadees and owls, are spending the winter about 35 miles farther north than they did 40 years ago.

The purple finch was the biggest northward mover. Its wintering grounds are now more along the latitude of Milwaukee, Wis., instead of Springfield, Mo.

Bird ranges can expand and shift for many reasons, among them urban sprawl, deforestation and the supplemental diet provided by backyard feeders. But researchers say the only explanation for why so many birds over such a broad area are wintering in more northern locales is global warming.

Over the 40 years covered by the study, the average January temperature in the United States climbed by about 5 degrees Fahrenheit. That warming was most pronounced in northern states, which have already recorded an influx of more southern species and could see some northern species retreat into Canada as ranges shift.

Study: Many North American species spending winters farther north


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The economic crisis could spark a resurgence in the Far Right, a close ally of Gordon Brown has suggested.

I am a selfish person.

As I explained to a mate of mine a few months ago it is already promised by an polititian. Wonder how long it will take to get into the Taxi service in Bristol? White Eastern Europeans do not have to worry about right now, but there might be a time in a few months time, when things go so bad for the majority of local posse that they will have to take action. Wonder where I stand in all this as a country-less person of dubious parentage?

Ed Balls, the Children's and Schools Secretary, said the downturn was likely to be the most serious for 100 years, and his comments appeared to raise the prospect of a return to the Far Right politics of the 1930s and the rise of Facism.

Ed Balls fears rise of fascism amid economic gloom (Photo: Julian Simmonds) His warning, in a speech to activists at the weekend, came after a trade union baron warned that far right parties were trying to hijack the campaign for "British jobs for British workers".

The row over foreign workers has gathered momentum in recent weeks and Mr Balls seemed to suggest the recession could trigger a return to the Far Right politics that prospered in the Great Depression of the 1930s.

He told Labour's Yorkshire conference: "The economy is going to define our politics in this region and in Britain in the next year, the next five years, the next 10 and even the next 15 years.

"I think that this is a financial crisis more extreme and more serious than that of the 1930s and we all remember how the politics of that era were shaped by the economy."

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