Comments on: Like a Wool Sweater, Scottish Sheep Shrink As Climate Heats Up

By: Brian

Brian — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 23:20:26 +0000

I’m sure there’s a joke in here somewhere about Scotsmen, sheep and shrinkage!

By: Shaithis

Shaithis — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 17:18:19 +0000

Considering that this has been the coldest summer in recent memory, I imagine that those same sheep will be gigantic next year.

By: Jumblepudding

Jumblepudding — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 16:08:04 +0000

I believe that these sheep are operating under the misapprehension that they are birds. Notice they do not so much fly as plummet. Perhaps decreasing in size shall increase their aerodynamic potential.

By: Trevor J Wallace

Trevor J Wallace — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 15:34:03 +0000

Why is it the naysayers are so quick to call those of us worried about our planets “idiots” (and that’s fairly mild compared to some of the language I’ve heard and had cast in my direction)? Everyday the evidence of global warming mounts and everyday “denialists” are converted to the truth. And before anyone brings up the cliche, “you can fool some of the people…”, there are no fools here. Except the ones calling us idiots. Oops, I just name-called, didn’t I?

And kudos to Morgan-LynnGriggs Lamberth. We do indeed rely on facts and evidence – far more than the ones denying our impact on the globe.

By: ME

ME — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 14:53:11 +0000

I honestly couldn’t believe what I was reading. Obviously the sheep are affected by their environment. If warmer climates have caused an increase of food on the island, shouldn’t the sheep population increase in general, making the 5% decrease in size more of a horizontal adjustment and less of an evolutionary drop? All this article is really saying is that the sheep are doing well, unless they have large natural predators. Maybe, to buffer the effects of global warming, which we know to be caused by humans, we should open up a Hirta island hunting season for small sheep to “naturally select” the bigger ones. I’ll write that proposal to the scottish government up asap.

By: shaking head

shaking head — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 03:43:43 +0000

all i can say is wow… i cant belive people still havent come to terms with the planet is warming.. and not only that.. humans (Us for any of you who werent sure) are causing global warming by releasing greenhouse gasses..

By: Morgan-LynnGriggs Lamberth

Morgan-LynnGriggs Lamberth — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 23:43:05 +0000

Gee, Obama-Biden are counting on green and energy projects to spur entrepreneurs to help counter climate change and thereby produce more jobs. I’m with them!
Climate change denialists don’t have the spirit of us skeptics who demand evidence rather than the argument from incredulity of the denialists.

By: colourful_thoughts

colourful_thoughts — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 17:17:06 +0000

so true nemski.

By: nemski

nemski — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:35:28 +0000

Boy, I was stopping by just to say nice headline.

What amazes me about the trolls is the amount of time they spend posting to blogs where their viewpoint is ignored.

By: edwren

edwren — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 07:57:02 +0000

Absolute nonsense.

By: Nick

Nick — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 06:29:07 +0000

Wow, when did the comment section turn into such a trollfest?

It’s easy to make all sorts of wild claims, but if you don’t have any reference material to back up this “common knowledge,” your opinion is scientifically invalid.

And if evolution only favored large animals, we’d all be huge by now, wouldn’t we? It’s not like tiny species evolved out of nowhere recently, they too have 100,000,000 years of evolution behind them. So being larger isn’t necessarily advantageous. It all depends on the conditions you live in, the source of natural selection.

There’s plenty of evidence that says gravity works as a force over distance, but no known physical property of the universe that we’ve discovered so far that explains it. We don’t need a direct causal link between man’s activities and what is happening on the planet – we are the dominant species, and like all dominant species we affect the environments we live in. We just happen to be a semi-cohesive global whole reversing millions of years of carbon sequestration. Carbon is known to warm the air, and has done so in direct proportion to the amount humanity has put into it. Quid pro quo.

By: Don Glenn

Don Glenn — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 05:19:13 +0000

Not only smaller sweaters but also smaller wool caps to protect the tiny brains of the global warming nuts.

By: Anatomy Science Fair Projects

Anatomy Science Fair Projects — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 02:43:16 +0000

This story has been heating up discussion boards. It is very interesting that the sheep seem to be shrinking, but the cause of the size change most likely is not directly related to global warming. Rather it is more likely that food supply and the conditions of the local ecosystem make it more advantageous to be smaller in stature. The shrinking effect is a common phenomenon for populations of animals that have been isolated on an island. Other examples include a group pygmy mammoths that were found on an island off the coast of California, and several pygmy horse populations found on islands in Northern Europe.

By: Christina Viering

Christina Viering — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 02:38:14 +0000

Does this mean smaller sweaters?

By: Don Glenn

Don Glenn — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 01:51:00 +0000

Ewe people should know better. Are all your articles so stupid? So in a 1000 years these sheep will be the size of rats?