Today’s MSM is woefully inept at catching mistakes. Worse, reporters are often woefully inadequate at getting facts straight in the first place. And, with instant electronic distribution, it is much like the imaginary Roman vomitorium; eat, regurgitate, rinse, and repeat.
Yesterday’s LA Times story on the Obama administration deciding not to use polar bears as a global warming tool that we covered on WUWT had this howler:
“…the precarious state of the U.S. polar bear population…”.
Polar bear populations may in fact may be larger than they were decades ago.
“In the 1950s the polar bear population up north was estimated at 5,000. Today it’s 20- to 25,000, a number that has either held steady over the last 20 years or has risen slightly. In Canada, the manager of wildlife resources for the Nunavut territory of Canada has found that the population there has increased by 25 percent.”
Even if the data from the 50’s is a “guess” it doesn’t take much brainpower to realize that if they are now protected, and hunted less, the population will increase. There’s precedence stories like this for many rebounding animal populations that are now protected.
In fact, there appears to be “no impact” on polar bears at all, according to this testimony before congress (PDF, from page 3)
“…Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), where both agencies issued “no jeopardy” biological opinions.”
It seems many other news outlets were content to pickup and regurgitate this story. A Google search on the phrase yields 283 results (as of 9AM today) and some big name media names are attached, like the Chicago Tribune.
To be fair, I missed the funny twist too. But sharp eyed WUWT reader Paul Coppin caught it and wrote:
I guess as a Canadian, I have to say “what U.S. polar bear population’? The couple dozen in US zoos?
Yep.
Journalism is dead.
Of course there’s polar bears in Alaska, which is what the article should have said rather than “U.S.”, but as we’ve seen they seem to be doing just fine in the great state of Alaska.
The level of ridiculae surrounding the polar bear “plight” was kicked off by that master of disaster Al Gore, with his swimming, drowning, polar bear animated characterization in “An Inconvenient Truth”. See it below about halfway in.
Gore later added to that distortion by making use of this photo:
Astute readers may recall seeing a photo flashed around the world earlier this year of polar bears “stranded” on an ice cube at sea. Please follow this link to the original photographer. See the bottom right photo.
A Canadian blogger, Carole Williams, tells the story behind this picture, which was taken in 2004 just off Alaska by a marine biologist on a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute project, Amanda Byrd. As the marine biologist (Byrd) points out, the bears were in no danger so close to the coast (they can swim 30 miles).
She just wanted a photograph more of the “wind-sculpted ice” than of the bears. Byrd writes:
“[You] have to keep in mind that the bears aren’t in danger at all. It was, if you will, their playground for 15 minutes. You know what I mean? This is a perfect picture for climate change, in a way, because you have the impression they are in the middle of the ocean and they are going to die with a coke in their hands. But they were not that far from the coast, and it was possible for them to swim.”
The image was copied from the ships computer (where Byrd had downloaded the camera flash memory stick to) by another member of the shipboard research crew and passed on to Environment Canada. Then it was eagerly adopted by many as an example of the fate that awaits the polar bears – including Al Gore, who used the picture as huge projected backdrop in one of his highly lucrative lectures.
Gore said:
“Their habitat is melting,” “beautiful animals, literally being forced off the planet.”
Audience: [gasp!]
Yes, it melts every summer.
Read all the details of the story behind the photo, here and here. It seems that a lawsuit is brewing and Canada has some pretty hefty copyright laws.
But you can also make a buck off polar bears. I had to chuckle, because now WUWT’s Google ads have put me square in the employ of “Big Bear”.
Gosh, I feel dirty, exploiting nature like that and all.
Well anyways, with all the hype over the polar bear plight, and the exploitation of the poor cuddly beasts to make a buck, perhaps we should suggest that all future newspaper articles make use of this stock photo:
After all the juxtaposing of the penguin and the polar bears is about as factual as
“…the precarious state of the U.S. polar bear population…”.
US polar bears?…That must be Alaska then.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vomitorium:
“A commonly held, but false, belief is that Ancient Romans designated spaces called vomitoria for the purpose of actual vomiting, as part of a binge and purge cycle.”
REPLY: Touche’. I’ve updated the post to reflect this. Here, unlike the MSM, mistakes get corrected quickly, thanks to the thousands of eyes like yours and instant publishing. – Anthony
It’s no accident that environmentalists worked hard to get the polar bear listed as endangered even though their numbers aren’t shrinking:
Both sides agree that conservationists finally have the poster species they have sought to use the Endangered Species Act as a lever to force federal limits on the greenhouse gases linked to global warming, and possibly to battle smokestack industry projects far from the Arctic.
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others,” said Kassie Siegel, an attorney with the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity. “And then there is the polar bear.”
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-polar3feb03,0,1292418,full.story
They needed a cute cuddly animal to be the poster animal for climate change and they decided the polar bear was that animal.
I’m glad that the Obama administration will continue the Bush administration policy preventing using the ESA from being used to limit CO2 emissions.
The Interior Department on Friday let stand a Bush administration policy barring the federal government from using the precarious state of the U.S. polar bear population as a reason to crack down on global warming, upsetting environmentalists and cheering oil and gas companies.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-polar-bear9-2009may09,0,4415244.story
Anthony
Priceless! The vast ignorance of the MSM never ceases to amaze me.
Bill
To use a graphic from the Bad Astronomer’s blog:
“The stupid, It burns!”
The mainstream media seems to have become so reliant on sensational headlines and scare stories that they are now incapable of just reporting the facts. If you want the facts, you have to go searching for them yourself.
An interesting look back at when BBC was still capable of reporting facts:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/56456.stm
One thing that we can all do to help introduce more facts to the MSM is to get Google News to add WUWT as a news source. I’ve noticed that realclimate.org is included, so it seems reasonable that WUWT be included as well. If you agree, please let Google know your thoughts here:
http://www.google.com/support/news/bin/request.py?extra.CustomerType=user&contact_type=recommend_user
This is what I call journalism. Good job.
It’s a pity that real journalist, eager to present a story from both sides are whistled back because the Editor has his “instructions”.
This story tells it all. How the public is screwed and objective journalism is suppressed in the USA in the year 2009!
(I would have quit on the job.)
http://heliogenic.blogspot.com/2009/05/those-tolerant-agw-believers.html
Polar bears eat ringed and bearded seals year ’round. With the seal’s habitat at risk, the ability of the polar bear to eat the seal cubs is diminished….keeping both species in balance.
Why don’t we see images of the poor baby seals being eaten by the deadly polar bear…evoking outrage from the very same animal lovers wanting to save the polar bears?
Has anybody thought of the problem of defining ‘US polar bears’ as opposed to Canadian and Russian polar bears as I understand the two populations in Alaska move around quite a bit and sometimes become inhabitants of the other countries.
Do we need a polar bear immigration service? 🙂
From link above yo “Polr Bears International” http://www.polarbearsinternational.org/ask-the-experts/population/
At the end of Dr Derochers rambling statement there is this observation.
“At the end of the day, the sea ice is disappearing. Take away the habitat and the species follows shortly thereafter (or before).”
Which can be interpreted as “Polar Bears dissipperance causes arctic sea ice to melt!”
No wonder the public is confused.
Interestingly when I followed the links to the original picture, the caption below it now reads that the polar bears are “90 miles off the coast”. That deserves a serious WUWT????
DoctorJJ (12:36:17) :
Yes. 90 miles off the coast and you get wave carved ice! Sheesh.
This is a re-post from the last thread, but I thought there was an important link for those who are looking for scientific resource info on polar bears
chris y (06:44:48) :
“Dr. Taylor and Dr. Dowsley published a nice overview of their opinion of the status of global polar bear populations and their alleged imminent extinction due to climate change.”
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/originals/demographic_and_ecological_polar_bear_perspectives.html
I’ve read this through recently. Well worth the time. The interesting part is that Dr. Taylor doesn’t try to fight the global warming theory, but uses the IPCC ice estimate for the analysis. Using AGW data, he still determines the polar bears are not in any forseeable danger of extinction.
Let’s see… Should I trust the PR efforts of WWF and Greenpeace or a researcher that has been studying polar bears for 30 years? Hmmm…
I’ve read that editors of magazines and groups with an eco-agenda get together and decide on a cute and cuddly target animal for the up-coming year’s activities. Thus, you see the same animal everywhere for a year and then they switch to a new one the following year. The impact is greater this way because people see the endangered (or not) cuddly one just about every waking hour. How can you not think it is about to starve, drown, boil, bake, or burst!
The Coke site is fine and I enjoy their polar bear adds. Coke popularized the red-green-jolly Santa Clause (didn’t invent him though) and likewise they have made one of the world’s most opportunistic and aggressive predators (read that as they will attack you) seem warm, fuzzy, and huggable.
I’d not seen the juxtaposing of the penguin and the polar bears with the latter barbequing the former. Although not having skinned it, I wonder if they dressed it out? How was that used? Just a funny or was it an ad for something?
How many times can I click on a link to an ad before they block me? I had one yesterday that took me to a site promoting the Copenhagen meeting in December. Did I feel dirty exploiting that? Not a chance!
This is sort of fun, in a funny sort of way. John
DoctorJJ
I have just checked (10:33 PM CET) the link to the original photo the caption read “Mother polar bear and cub on interesting ice sculpture carved by waves. photo © Amanda Byrd. For information on licensing this image, contact AlaskaStock.”
Where di you get to?
There is a strong link between hunting and the increase or decline of bear sub-population. If “removals” are less than 3% they tend to increase or be stable; if more than 4 % they tend to decline.
See: http://www.climatedata.info/Impacts/impacts.html and click on “Polar bears”
We’re being duped, folks. That bottom polar bear image is obviously Photoshopped. Examine the original closely, and you’ll see those bottles aren’t CocaCola. And are those Camels they’re smokin’ ?
http://www.clevedonrfc.co.uk/images/PolarBearParty.gif
Environmentalists are utilising Yellow Journalism to promote Green propaganda.
The Maldives, polar bears, penquins, you name it, all are being exploited to mislead the public on global warning. It is of no concern to these eco-warriors that facts are being misrepresented or lies are told, for them the end always justifies the means.
What is the point of saving the environment when it is the Greens ultimate plan is to criminalise dissent and to make slaves of us all.
Always this uni-species protection stuff. First they protect all the mountain lions. They multiply, need more food, and then they protect all the deer in town. So where do the mountain lions come for food? Town. Your dog, cat, neighbors kid, etc.
Nice kitty, kitty.
They should be watching Wild Kingdom where these things eat and get eaten, and not the Warm Fuzzy Polar Party Bear commercials drinking cokes.
Of course the Polar Bears pop. explodes when you protect it.
Wasn’t that what they wanted?
How can I get a higher res picture of the polar bear BBQ? I want to use it for my desktop background!
I’ve found a place where they sell polar bear skin rugs. http://www.bearskin-rugs.com/polar-bear-rugs-c-62.html Note the price appears to have fallen too… wonder why that is?
A cuddly Polar bear catching and eating a seal:
http://www.videosift.com/video/Polar-Bear-Catches-and-Eats-a-Seal
Went to Google to see what I could see by typing in, “the precarious state of the U.S. polar bear population.” Lo and behold I find that WUWT is the very first item cited — this very article!!
Man’s attempts to manage nature are pretty miserable. I can only have low expectations for the results. When the post was made recently here about Waxman and the hearing where Gore spoke and Mockton was locked out prompted the following image, enhanced by Waxman’s loony rant about the ice caps evaporating and the tundra being held down by the ice caps. Imagine the SSN Waxman ‘surfacing in the tundra’ to rescue polar bears…
http://i44.tinypic.com/2062dk0.jpg
Just to put the cute cuddly polar bears in perspective, this went around the internet a year or two ago:
Position: Alaska Surveyor
Salary: $200 per hour (tax-free)
Qualification: Must be fast on your feet
http://www.novahq.net/forum/showthread.php?t=42396