Monthly Archives: April 2015

Life, Social Science and Society

How humans and their dogs drove Neanderthals to extinction

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Well strictly speaking Neanderthals are humans too, so for “humans” read Homo Sapiens, that is us.

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I intended to write a post on taxation policy, but then I heard Phillip Adams’ segment Dogs: not the Neanderthals best friend, an interview with retired anthropologist Pat Shipman on her hypothesis that the domestication wolf-dogs gave us the critical edge to out-compete the Neanderthals. It reminded me of an article by Shipman in the New Scientist. If that’s paywalled there is an excellent exposition of her ideas by Steve Donoghue at Open Letters Monthly.

Anyway Sapiens vs Neanderthalensis won out over tax policy.

Shipman uses the example of Yellowstone National Park to demonstrate the effect a top predator can have on a whole ecosystem.

Though wolves were integral to that ecosystem for millennia, they were wiped out there by settlers by about 1920. The effects of removing the wolf were striking. Coyotes formed larger, more wolf-like packs, while elk populations soared, changing the vegetation close to rivers by eating young trees and shrubs. Pronghorn antelope populations dropped as more coyotes preyed on their offspring; beavers disappeared from the park and songbirds declined in number.

Then:

Reintroducing just 31 wolves in the mid-1950s transformed the ecosystem again. Wolves targeted their closest competitor, killing coyotes in confrontations over carcasses and consuming enough prey to hinder their survival. Coyotes avoided areas favoured by wolves and shifted to smaller prey. Coyote packs fragmented and their overall population declined sharply. More pronghorns survived; elk herds diminished; and riverine vegetation came back, encouraging the return of beavers and songbirds.

Neanderthals survived for about 250,000 years in an environment that presented challenges. Donoghue describes it thus:

Their populations had endured sweeping climate changes over the centuries, and they shared their landscape with animals as monstrous as anything the world had seen since the dinosaurs: massive cave bears, saber-toothed tigers, lions bigger than any in Africa today, cave hyenas, huge woolly mammoths, woolly rhinoceri, wolves, leopards, roving packs of dholes – a world as fearsome and strange as something out of a science fiction novel.

A few thousand years after Sapiens arrived some 45,000 years ago, apart from wolves all these large animals were gone, and the Neanderthals with them.

Shipman says that the common belief was that the Neanderthals moved south to avoid the advancing ice, and lingered until 27,000 years ago. However, she says that modern dating technology shows no southward movement and no trace of Neanderthals after 39,000 years ago.

Sapiens had two big advantages. One was projectile technology to enable killing at a distance. The other was possibly the assistance of the domesticated wolf-dog. Dogs assisted Sapiens in hunting and acted as guards.

It seems likely that Sapiens did not tolerate the presence of Neanderthals in ‘their’ territory. It seems likely also that with projectile weapons Sapiens would win any direct confrontation. If the Neanderthals crept up at night, the dogs would likely smell them and sound the alarm.

The effect of dogs was to increase the ecological niche in which Sapiens could operate. For the Neanderthals there was simply no good place to go, so they were squeezed into areas where they could not support themselves in the longer term. In this, climate change was still certainly a factor.

Shipman says we are “natural invaders, the mammalian equivalent of Burmese pythons, cane toads and Asian carp.”

Shipman stresses that her hypothesis “still requires elaboration and testing.” Nevertheless it is certainly food for thought.

Shipman’s book on the topic is The Invaders: How Humans and Their Dogs Drove Neanderthals to Extinction.

You might also be interested in Neanderthals r us and Sex with Neanderthals was good for us from 2011. Seems like yesterday.

Climate Policy & Planning

Emissions reduction the Abbott way

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The Abbott government’s just-released discussion paper on emissions reductions makes no mention of the global goal to limit warming to 2°C. In fact it appears to aspire to a world where 3.6°C is acceptable.

Comment includes Giles Parkinson at RenewEconomy and Lenore Taylor at The Guardian.

The Government is reviewing it’s post-2020 emissions targets in the context of negotiations for a new global climate agreement to be concluded at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties in Paris in late 2015 (30 November to 11 December). The paper calls for submissions by 24 April as to what our target should be, how it should be expressed, what the impact on Australia would be, and

“which further policies complementary to the Australian Government’s direct action approach should be considered to achieve Australia’s post-2020 target and why?”

The paper says that Australia’s target should be fair, ambitious, easy to understand and transparent. Also Australia’s target will be, it says, “consistent with continued strong economic growth, jobs growth and development in Australia.”

From The Guardian:

many observers are deeply alarmed that the discussion paper does not mention the 2C goal, but does mention a scenario that could result in almost 4C global warming.

Discussing Australia’s special “national circumstances”, the discussion paper says that “for the foreseeable future, Australia will continue to be a major supplier of crucial energy and raw materials to the rest of the world, especially Asian countries. At present, around 80% of the world’s primary energy needs are met through carbon-based fuels. By 2040, it is estimated that 74% will still be met by carbon-based sources because of growing demand in emerging economies.”

That scenario derives from the IEA world energy outlook 2014 whose “new policies scenario” was based on targets then adopted. The world has now moved on. RenewEconomy gives this table which reflects some of the recent targets announced:

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The Conversation has an interactive map to monitor countries’ contributions as they come in.

The discussion paper notes that Australia’s population is growing much faster than comparable countries, and that we have an economy more heavily dependent on coal. This sounds like a set-up for special pleading. The Climate Change Authority thoroughly examined our circumstances last year and argued for a reduction trajectory range of between 40 and 60% below 2000 levels by 2030.

Parkinson advises that the paper was prepared in the PM’s office, not the environment department, or the foreign affairs department which has carriage over international climate talks. Obviously the subject is too important to leave to people who know or care.