Newsbusters reports: Teasing an upcoming story on Wednesday’s NBC Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams warned of “the habitat of the polar bears melting earlier and faster than ever” and promised “a jaw-dropping look at a way of life quickly disappearing.” [Listen to the audio ]
In the report that followed minutes later, chief environmental correspondent Anne Thompson kept up the global warming alarmism: “This 10-month-old polar bear cub practices his ice-breaking skills on the tundra….But Dr. Steve Amstrup, chief scientist of Polar Bears International, says the greenhouse gases we are putting into the atmosphere threaten the cub’s future.”
While Thompson noted that the arctic polar bear population “runs as high as 25,000,” a sound bite ran of Amstrup proclaiming:
“Liken it to the passengers on the Titanic. It didn’t matter how many people were on the Titanic or how well they were doing, when the Titanic slipped beneath the waves and they lost their habitat, that was it. Polar bears will also go away because of their dependence on the sea ice.”
Read more and see video of the NBC news story : http://newsbusters.org/blogs/kyle-drennen/2013/11/15/nbc-polar-bears-passengers-titanic-because-global-warming#ixzz2kjsnDNjS
Meanwhile, back in the real world, polar bear expert Dr. Susan Crockford takes on this nonsense. She writes:
Amstrup really wants people to believe that all the polar bears in the world will die some day, all at once, in some mega ice-loss catastrophe!
This is absolutely ridiculous, fear-mongering hyperbole — no models predict all bears will die, even given their worst-case scenerio, see yesterday’s post.
On top of that, we now know that many of the critical assumptions those models are based on are wrong, in part due to data collected by polar bear biologists themselves (see summary here and Monday’s post, “Eemian excuses: the warm was different then, polar bears were fine”).
More here: http://polarbearscience.com/2013/11/14/amstrup-compares-climate-change-to-a-titanic-for-polar-bears/
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Dr. Steve Amstrup … degree in … journalism maybe?
Polar bears of 100 to 300 thousand years ago were more grizzly-like than today, yet even now they can hunt, forage, survive, & indeed thrive on land in the summer with ease. Amstrup is a liar, & knows he is, just like his CACA spewing colleagues.
Oops, how wrong could I be … bachelor’s degree in forestry in 1972 …
Isn’t the 25,000 polar bears the estimate based on increasing population? Amstrup uses this number. And I believe there have been numerous reports from Inuit and towns in polar bear land that the numbers are increasing and one doesn’t want to go strolling when they are moving about.
Dr. Crockford’s blog link was an interesting read.
Hmmm … hid did ‘win’ the “Our Earth Bambi” Award in Düsseldorf in 2012 …
Bambi Award – or “The Bambi” – presented annually by Hubert Burda Media to recognise excellence in international media and television “with vision and creativity who affected and inspired the German public that year,” both domestic and foreign..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bambi_(prize)
— WINNER —
.
Thanks for posting this, Anthony. I unfortunately saw this report on NBC “news” the other night and immediately my BS meter was pegged. I had never heard of “Polar Bears International” and it turns out they are yet another Greenpeace-type eco advocacy organization:
http://www.polarbearsinternational.org/
I also think it is very irresponsible for them to continue to convey the “warm, cuddly” image of polar bears. They are in fact, noble but quite dangerous animals.
Guess who will get the headlines.
Old Doc Amstrup – at odds with a living, breathing individual living in an active polar bear area and who has actual ‘skin’ in the game:
– – – – – – – – – – – – –
Title: Rosy view of polar bear aerial survey questioned
. . Posted by Steve Davies on April 27, 2012
Opening excerpt:
Polar Bears International says recent media reports about increasing polar bear numbers in Western Hudson Bay present a highly misleading picture of the actual situation.
The stories “stem[] from a press release on a preliminary study of the Western Hudson Bay population that relied on a different methodology (aerial vs. capture-recapture) and larger geographic survey area than previous studies,” PBI said.
The aerial survey was conducted for the government of Nunavut in Canada. The Inuit population in Nunavut is concerned that the hunting quota in Western Hudson Bay will be lowered.
An article in the Toronto Globe & Mail said the survey “shows the bear population in a key part of northern Canada is far larger than many scientists thought, and might be growing.”
“The bear population is not in crisis as people believed,” Drikus Gissing, Nunavut’s director of wildlife management, told the Globe & Mail. “There is no doom and gloom.”
Full article: http://www.eswr.com/tag/amstrup/
Maybe one of you can contend with the effects of the earlier thaw and later freeze over the last 30 years in the area as reported on this program. This timing should be knowable and if it is, then can this shorter “winter” affect the diet of the bears?
I didn’t buy the nonsense about how we’re the sole cause of this discomfiture of bears any more than the rest of you, but is it really impossible that there could be something to the rest of it?
Obama is gearing up for some new regulations so we need to trot out the cute, cuddly polar bears again.
Wouldn’t that be nice.
Stop the polar bear menace before it’s too late!
j ferguson: “This timing should be knowable and if it is, then can this shorter “winter” affect the diet of the bears?”
All animal eat from what is in their environment. So hypothetically, if the environment changes, then it *can* effect the diet. Which is so acutely tautological that it’s meaningless.
Amstrup is well known for spreading misinformation on polar bear numbers, along with his sidekick Stirling. There is no lie too small or too large for these activists.
It’s well known polar bear numbers were as low as approx. 5,000 in the 1970’s before hunting restrictions were introduced. confirmed numbers are now at least 25,000 and according to the latest surveys could be as high as 32,000.
There was another post where this might be a better fit but I couldn’t find it.
http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/the-five/videos#/v/2839255396001/p/1040983441001
Polar bears survived an ice-free for a millennium or more during the early Holocene warm period.
Polar bear numbers are up 5 times since the 1950s and rising! I vaguely recall that Spring sea ice is more important to polar bears than late summer sea ice.
Why Less Summer Ice Increases Bear Populations
If you want the nitty gritty on the polar bear science go to Dr. Susan J. Crockford’s website She “is a zoologist with more than 35 years experience, including work on the Holocene history of Arctic animals.” She has a few few things to say about Dr. Steve Amstrup’s Titanic statement.
Leave the polar bears alone chaps, they are doing fine.
Jquip
If you really want to learn about polar bears from a reliable source then go to Susan Crockfords site polarbearscience. Pure facts, no spin, from a proper scientist.
It’s a pity there is no permanent link from this site.
Polar Bears Like ‘Passengers on the Titanic’
————————————-
Being a passenger on the Titanic must have been bad enough without having to share a berth with a polar bear.
Or maybe it’s…
Polar Bears Like ‘Passengers on the Titanic’ – meaning they like ’em for dinner.
And didn’t ice kill the Titanic? But it’s supposed to save the polar bears…
I never metaphor I didn’t like, but that’s a mixed metaphor!
What! Dr. Susan Crockford says:
She launches full attack again on Steven Amstrup and the Eemian survival of the polar bears.
http://polarbearscience.com/2013/11/12/eemian-excuses-the-warm-was-different-then-polar-bears-were-fine/
Why is it always the Titanic? Why not the Hindenburg… crashing into a daycare centre on ‘Bring-Your Kitten-To School” day?
Polar bears don’t only eat seals. They eat plenty other things.
Unlike those on the Titanic polar bears can swim more than 100km. In fact much, much more. One was found to give a loving piggy back to her ‘lillun’. Polar bears are more robust than previously thought! Sound the alarm.
Alarmist warmist climate scientists were just classified at the high end of critical on the endangered species list, whereas polar bears didn’t even make the list, as they are having an “unprecendented” rise in population.
Good old crazy people at the BBC. I thought they were in danger of going extinct; there was so little crazyness emanating from there compared to the Glorious days of Richard Black, the king of the crazy people. But it looks like they are still breeding in BBC HQ.
When the polar bears start to tip over, can the penguins be far behind? These stories seem to have the same infinite shelf-life as weight loss remedies and sex advice columns. Whoda’ thunk?
To help BBC out…
As the cold tightens its grip on the northern hemisphere, the wolves and polar bear find their habitat extends ever further south, soon marauding packs of these creatures will be roaming the streets of London itself, consuming any BBC employee too stupid to stay in out of the cold…
Do I need “sarc”?
Why might warming Arctic waters mean more polar bears? Ringed seals are the favourite food of polar bears. Ringed seals eat cod.