Wildlife Woes: Evolution in Progress

At least once a week, the major nightly news broadcasts a story on global warming. Last week it was a wildlife spotlight that showcased the plight of "thin whales"; gray whales that are slowly losing blubber mass as a "direct result" of global warming. The argument is that gray whales and a select few additional species are unable to adapt to the rapid cimate change caused by humans in the last few years. Although humans have been blasting out noxious emissions for over a century, scientists are just now trying to connect industry to evolution. There are, of course, a number of flaws in their logic. Thousands of species (if not more) have died out through the history of life because of simple maladaptive Darwinian principles. The world is changing, and it is time to admit it. Evangelicals and biblicists are mocked for their desperately ignorant insistance that today's world is exactly as created by God from the beginning of time. Come on, people. The world has been changing for eons-the "dawn of creation" marked the dawn of change, and our earth has undergone massive and continual alterations ever since. Yes, this occured even before the industrial revolution. Yes, this occured even before man roamed the earth. Our modern age is, like the paleolithic and neolithic times, merely a transitory phase in the evolution of life. It is not only expected but biologically NECESSARY that some species struggle, become endangered, and then disappear altogether. This is a primordial fact of life. If global warming were putting such a strain on nature, we would be seeing EVERY species rapidly decline in health and number. Thinning whales are hardly a cause for alarm.
The Discovery Channel article (see link at bottom of page) says that the whales are now "facing a new crisis" after recovering in the mid 1990's and graduating from the endangered species list. Are you kidding me? And now, less than ten years after the species' proliferation and burgeoning health, global warming swoops in to kill them outright? How is this possible? Perhaps global warming was in remission in the mid 1990's, and allowed the godly gray whales to thrive out of some divine environmental clemency. Or perhaps, more logically, global warming is just the current (and terrifying) scapegoat for all of the world's problems. Wildlife issues have always existed, but never have so many been blamed on one cataclysmic myth. It seems global warming has become an ecological shortcut to thinking.