Count the number of ifs, mays, and coulds in this story, then look the rebuttal and other supporting information. The Telegraph is repeating alarmism.
From the Telegraph By Kate Devlin, Medical Correspondent
Polar bears face extinction in less than 70 years because of global warming, scientists have warned.
Melting ice is causing their numbers to drop dramatically, they warn. Others also at risk include ivory gulls, Pacific walruses, ringed and hooded seals and narwhals, small whales with long, spiral tusks.
One of the problems is that other animals are moving north, encroaching on their territory, spurred by increasing temperatures, pushing out native species.
The animals are also struggling with the loss of sea ice.
“The Arctic as we know it may soon be a thing of the past,” said Eric Post, associate professor of biology at Penn State University, who led the latest study, published in the journal Science.
“Recent projections suggest polar bears could be extinct within 70 years.
“But we think this could be a very conservative estimate. The outlook is very bleak for them and other creatures such as ringed seals.”
He added: “The rate at which sea ice is disappearing is accelerating and these creatures rely on it for shelter, hunting and breeding. If this goes, so do they.”
Read the complete story in the Telegraph here
OK now for the other side of the story:
A few countering reports:
Christian Science Monitor, May 3rd, 2007 – Despite global warming, an ongoing study says polar bear populations are rising in the country’s eastern Arctic region.
Science Daily May 10th, 2008 – Federal Polar Bear Research Critically Flawed, Forecasting Expert Asserts
National Post March 6th, 2007 – Polar bear numbers up, but rescue continues
WUWT May 9th 2009 – The “precarious state of the U.S. polar bear population”
Dr. Mitchell Taylor, a biologist with Nunavut Territorial government in Canada wrote this letter (PDF) on April 6th, 2006 to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service:
Some excerpts:
At present, the polar bear is one of the best managed of the large arctic mammals. If all the arctic nations continue to abide by the terms and intent of the Polar Bear Agreement, the future of polar bears is secure.
…
Polar bears are believed to have evolved from grizzly bears during the Pleistocene era some 200-250,000 years ago (Amstrup 2003). Polar bears were well developed as a separate species by the Eemian interglacial approximately 125,000 years ago. This period was characterized by temperature fluctuations caused by entirely natural events on the same order as those predicted by contemporary climate change models. Polar bears obviously adapted to the changing environment, as evidenced by their presence today. That simple fact is well known and part of the information contained in the reference material cited throughout the petition, yet it is never mentioned. This fact alone is sufficient grounds to reject the petition. Clearly polar bears can adapt to climate change. They have evolved and persisted for thousands of years in a period characterized by fluctuating climate. No rational person could review this information and conclude that climate change pre-destined polar bears to extinction.
…
The petition admits that there is only evidence for deleterious effects from climate change for one polar bear population (Western Hudson Bay [WH]) at the southernmost extreme of polar bear range (Fig. 1). The petition argues that the likelihood of change in other areas is reason enough to find that polar bears should be regarded as a species at risk of imminent extinction. I hope the review considers the precedent set by accepting this argument. Climate change will affect all species to some extent, including humans. If the likelihood of change is regarded as sufficient cause to designate a species or population as “threatened,” then all species around the world are “threatened.”
Some data. With hunting no longer allowed, bear populations have increased 4-5 times:
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Alternating warm and cold climate, moving the ecological niches northwards and southwards is an evolutionary pressure. Think about it; where would we be if the climate were static. We wouldn’t even have evolved.
============================================
Gene Nemetz (00:06:11) :
I think the 2 million in Washington today had other things on their mind.
Described by the BBC as “tens of thousand”
The Telegraph certainly believes in recycling.
They recycle this rubbish every year.
Look at the University the research is from. Isn’t that the some one that Mann belongs to? Obviously their research is infallible then.
But they are all white and fluffy!!!
Talk about emotion driven drivel. Not a spec of real science anywhere to be seen. Everyone at the Telegraph associated with this story should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.
Various notes:
I’m normally quite tolerant of people crossing fields (studying climate pretty much requires cross-discipline skills), but I’m tempted to suggest this Medical Correspondent stick to medicine. However, it appears she has most relayed a Penn State press release. It’s a waste of words to suggest they should know better.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/6167819/Polar-bears-face-extinction-in-less-than-70-years-because-of-global-warming.html says:
I don’t like abusing people over typos (e.g. the recent 100 C temperature rise prediction that was obviously a cut and paste error with 10° C), however, publied is great candidate for a neologism and I salute whoever is at fault. Cheers!
A Penn State summary is at http://live.psu.edu/story/41357 – I don’t know if that is the source of the stories in the news media.
The Science article is at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/325/5946/1355 but I’m not a subscriber so I can’t read it. The abstract is less sensational than the press release:
While Eric Post is the lead author, there are two dozen who follow his name.
Most probable scenario: Within 5 years Global Warmers will be extinct.
Another probable scenario: In 25 years there will be polar bears living in New York.
My understanding is that, at least in parts of Alaska, the Polar Bears can be quite a nuisance, especially around municipal dump sites – where they seem to prefer to pick through and eat the garbage. Why don’t we just send a couple of floating ‘garbage barges’ up from NYC and let the bears eat to their hearts content. Takes care of the food and lack of ice floes.
We live in strange times. Our children our now taught in school that the normal state of our climate is static, so “change” is bad.
Here we have a biology professor, a PhD type who looks at data (?) and sees an increase in Polar Bear numbers and calls it a decrease and who looks at an increase in Arctic summer minimum ice are of 1 million – 1,000,000,000 square km and determines the ice is disappearing.
And he gets well paid for this work.
Quote: “A Lie Told Often Enough Becomes The Truth” -Vladimir Lenin
To understand the mindset of the AGW people, some of Lenin’s other quotes demostrate how they think and what they believe :
“Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.”
“It is true that liberty is precious; so precious that it must be carefully rationed.”
**** The AGW religion, is the modern incarnation of this kind of thought ****
Any journalist worth salt should roll out Chicken Little to parody this nonsense. Barry, where are you when we need you? Aren’t you the one that writes about things like toilets blowing up in the middle of the night and other such scary things we should worry about?
When is The Telegraph going to be extinct?
Uber-AGWarmite Guardian has this* up. Watch your step: watermelons abound.
Here at this website is displayed the exsanguination of the word “green” by the weasels of the AGW environmentalists.
…-
*”Polar bears in Norway increasing in numbers”
“Polar bears photographed by American wildlife photographer Steve Kaslowski during an expedition to Norway’s remote Svalbard archipelago last month. A marine mammal expert and spokesman from the WWF believes the bears captured on film in the series could be further evidence that the polar bear population in the region is increasing.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gallery/2009/sep/07/polar-bears-norway
Ric Werme (6:48:32) … Perhaps it should be “the Arctic as we know it [pluralis
majestatis??] may soon be a thing of the post” said Eric Past…And I hereby
declare “publied” the “Freudoneologismus”[German] of the week to begin with…HWGA…Interesting and entertaining times indeed!
A dumbed down media and academia seeking grant money is one thing but for tax funded government agencies to enable and facilitate this level of con job is a disgrace.
NOAA, NASA and other bureaucracies at many levels have the responsibility to not only maintain honest information but to deliberately correct and counter the distribution of blatant propaganda such as this.
How is it that we have come so far that all levels of official malfeasance are now acceptable methods of policy advancement?
At some point this massive AGW fraud will subside but what then with our own tax dollars and governments having played such a prominent role in the “crime”?
It will be impossible to shrug it off as a growing phase and lesson learned if those who perpetrated it remain in positions to commit more offenses.
Which they certainly will do.
Thinking ahead the task of rebuilding integrity in science and government will be a daunting task.
Three years ago, I was somewhat ambivalent about AGW. After all it had been warming and I had personally noted the delay of winter by about two weeks in Michigan. However, I was quite perturbed that all of the proposed solutions were very bad for the economy. Nuclear power, the only readily available solution, was not even being discussed. What really made me doubtful was all of the stories about how AGW was going to destroy all of the wildlife.
Given the vast variety of wildlife and ecological niches, it is simply impossible that every single study could find that a modest amount of warming would have nothing but negative effects on wildlife. Strangely, not a single cute fuzzy animal was going to benefit from shorter winters and extended growing seasons anywhere in the world. I personally witnessed possums moving into the Upper Peninsula, but the first hit I found in a search described how invasive southern species were replacing northern species. Not a word on if the northern species has increased their range into northern Canada. If there is such a study, I expect polar bears to be threatened by invasive Michigan squirrels.
There are a few stories on how some of natures creatures are benefiting from AGW. Plagues, pestilence, and thorny poisonous plants seem to be doing very well.
There is one good thing about this polar bear story. It has been completely discredited and provides a good example about how much fraud has been foisted on the public. I see that the Telegraph does not take comments.
“tallbloke (04:58:37) :
Aron (23:40:17) :
us who are always credited with destroying life but because of us many species have a chance of survival that they never had before.
Could you expand on this a little please.”
All the following species (and much more) were living in poor condition, or were prey or existed in very few numbers before domestication and industrialisation: all the various forms of dogs (count the varieties!), horses, cats, cows, domesticated birds (pigeons, ducks, chickens, roosters, turkeys, etc), sheep, goats, domesticated or trained reptiles, squirrels, rats, mice, hamsters, elephants (they would have disappeared from Asia if they weren’t domesticated), and much more.
Of course, many creatures only existed because of interaction with humans as they have evolved into their present form because of anthropogenic influence.
And the idea that polar bears will become extinct because of 1 degree temperature increase or a little loss of ice is plain faced ridiculous. They are capable of living anywhere if they can live in a stupid city zoo.
If the polar bear goes extinct, can’t we just make more? I mean afterall they evolved and mutated from brown bears, some 220000 years ago, when the Arctic Ocean was far more pleasant and warm place than it is today. Ever wonder what made the peat tundra surrounding the Arctic Ocean?
I have met a polar bear face to face, and be thankful they only like it where it’s cold.
In a sane world, we would have long moved on from the discredited CO2 theory of global warming. I mean how can a trace gas, necessary for all life on earth, be responsible for ruining the planets ecology … On it’s face it’s totally absurd.
Everything that is, shall not always be.
O/T – from “wire reports” and noted in the Columbus (OH) Dispatch this morning. I want to be there to see this !
Climate change could cause walrus stampedes
Thousands of walruses are congregating on Alaska’s northwest coast, a sign that their Arctic sea ice environment has been altered by climate change. Walruses for years came ashore intermittently during their fall southward migration, but not so early and not in such numbers.
“It’s a result of the sea ice retreating off the continental shelf,” said Chad Jay, a U.S. Geological Survey walrus researcher. Federal managers and researchers say the trend could lead to deadly stampedes and too much pressure on prey.
— From wire reports
In part the study opines thus.
The results show that spring begins considerably sooner than before. The blossoming and pollination period of plants starts as much as twenty days sooner in comparison to the situation ten years ago.
I know better than to take their statements at face value. Over the next week or so I’ll see what the surface stations show.
This first graph is daily data covering the onset of spring in the polar region of one of the stations. The plots will cover ten years by combining the first three years (1999-2001) of daily data and averaging them and then the last three years (2007-2009) and averaging them.
http://i599.photobucket.com/albums/tt74/MartinGAtkins/Eureka3.jpg
With this one it’s obvious that spring in the first three years ware not only earlier but much warmer at the outset. I might use a running average over subsequent plots and see if it makes a better visual.
Mike_s (02:09:26) :
Why did you go and say that after I ate the bear liver and onions?
Kate Devlin – medical correspondent?
Kate’s page states;
“Kate Devlin
Kate Devlin is the Medical Correspondent for The Telegraph newspaper and website. She writes on everything from swine flu to the challenges facing the NHS, and was previously Scottish Political Correspondent. ”
So this makes one an expert on Polar bears?
Meanwhile back at the Telegraph.
‘Ed’ says “nothing to do Kate?”
Kate, “nah!”
Ed, how about spinning the alarmist line???
Kate, “do what?”
Ed, “you know the usual BS, Hey I know! what about the Polar Bears??”
Kate, “but I don’t do polar bears”
Ed, “you do now kid, give Penn State a bell.”
Later.
Ed, “Good art work babe!”
Kate, “Didn’t know you cared ed!”
Ed, “You’ll go a long way at this paper Lady!”
Better stop there.
But really?
tallbloke (04:58:37) :
Here’s at least three species doing much better with mankind:
Blattella germanica
Canis latrans
Rattus rattus