Tundra for Dummies

Look, Fred: no trees!

Old-timey television host Art Linkletter had a program called "Kids Say the Darnedest Things" (Bill Cosby resurrected the concept in the '90s). The show featured clips of kids making unbelievable claims and saying truly stupid (but cute as heck) stuff. When those same kids grow up, however, unbelievable claims and truly stupid stuff aren't cute any more. Take, for instance, Leaf Group's Frederick S. Blackmon, whom we found attempting to explain "What Causes a Tundra to Form?" on their Sciencing.com niche site (it used to be at eHow.com; why doesn't that surprise us?)

Blackmon spent much of his time at eHow misinforming people about topics related to oil exploration and fracking, but this time he stre-e-e-etched a bit. Unfortunately, he also stretched the facts. Frederick opened by explaining that

"The tundra is one of the coldest regions on the planet, with an average temperature of 16 degrees Fahrenheit. Several key factors help geologists and environmentalists determine the conditions of a tundra. The Koppen system classifies a tundra as Dfc..."

...and then explained what the D, f, and c stand for – as if every eighth-grader knows a-a-a-ll about the Koppen climate classification (which not one person on the Antisocial Network staff had ever heard of). Strangely, though tundra's wikipedia entry opens with the phrase "...tundra is a type of biome where the tree growth is hindered by low temperatures and short growing seasons," neither the word "growing" nor the word "tree" appeared in Blackmon's content. That's even though the word "tundra" derives from the word for "treeless" in a Siberian dialect. Dumbass.

No, Freddy was clearly out of his depth here, which we say because of his moronic claim that "A tundra forms because the area takes in more carbon dioxide than it produces." If this idiot had said nothing else, we would have recognized his stupidity – heck, that daffynition also applies to the Amazon rain forest! No, Frederick, that's not true: tundra forms because it's friggin' cold! It forms because the growing season is too short for trees to grow! It forms because the ground is permanently frozen – you know, "permafrost"! Heck, even though Blackmon stated that "There are tundras in northern Europe, Russia, parts of Alaska, and northern Canada--all near the Arctic Circle..."

He's only half right. He not only forgets the tundra south of the Antarctic Circle, he also forgets alpine tundra, which can be found worldwide (although it doesn't normally feature permafrost. Speaking of which, permafrost is not, contrary to Frederick's belief, a phenomenon that plants undergo as opposed to decomposing.

Nope, Blackmon obviously had no idea what he was talking about. He makes up a bullshit reason for the existence of Tundra, makes a ridiculous claim about permafrost, and fails to identify the worldwide distribution of alpine tundra – yet Leaf Group allows this crap to stand. It makes us wonder, just who should get the Dumbass of the Day award here?

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