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:
Kirk W. Hanneman (05:42:24) :
“Why are “environmentalists” always so loathe to accept when they have accomplished their goals?”
Simple. Environmental change is only a means to their goal – Global Governance.
Buffapple (05:28:35) :
“The university’s official news source says that “Post’s team calls for the establishment of a pan-Arctic series of integrated baseline studies to monitor the physical drivers of climate change and the biological responses to them over the long term.””
Isn’t it convenient that his latest study shows the pressing need for these studies before all those critters go extinct. But there’s a solution – more government grants to sustain this critical work!
Of course, it would be pessimistic for me to think that the availability of billions of grant money to find global warming could corrupt the work of noble (or Nobel) scientists.
http://winteryknight.wordpress.com/2009/06/28/polar-bear-expert-suppressed-for-telling-inconvenient-truth/
.Polar bear expert suppressed for telling inconvenient truth
michel (01:35:11) :
In the incredibly holier-than-thou review of “Eats, Shoots & Leaves,” at http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/06/28/040628crbo_books1 it says:
Wouldn’t that last line read better if it ended with “than are Americans?” Ah well, at the New Yorker it’s New York first, the rest of the world a distant second. Rather odd given the number of immigrants who built New York.
My existence as a software engineer demands I note:
Nonsense – if I’m quoting a piece of a program or a command that needs to be entered exactly, I’m not going to let stray comma or period into the quoted string. Hmm, does WordPress understand me if I write “http://wermnh.com.” (I didn’t use a ‘?’ because that it often used at the end of URLs.)
In today’s international world, either people have to lighten up about punctuation (yeah, right!!!!!) or have the decency to verify your target’s nationality before blasting the writing. Possessive apostrophes excepted, of course. 🙂
Oh yeah, PBs. u cant save the PolarBears unless u get punctutasion, right!
Nogw (07:16:45) :
> Another probable scenario: In 25 years there will be polar bears living in New York.
OMG – They’ve already reached http://www.bronxzoo.com ! The Ice Age Cometh!
In late July this year we visited the Svalbard Science Museum in Longyearbyen, Spitzbergen where the indigenous polar bear population is estimated at 3,000 versus only about 1,000 in 1970. Banned hunting of the bears since 1973 was identified as the reason for this large population increase.
The recent arctic ice cap reductions have placed the polar bear population there under stress but their numbers have not significantly changed. Clearly hunting is far more dangerous to polar bears than natural seasonal fluctuations of the polar ice cap.
The global warming alarmists use completely speculative projections of future polar ice cap declines to support their outrageous claims about decreasing polar bear numbers.
As WUWT has shown 2008 and 2009 summer polar ice extent is increasing over year 2007 results so recent trends don’t support future declining ice speculations.
Our trip brought us to within 652 miles of the geographic north pole before we reached the polar ice cap. This same trip last year at this time was able to proceed about 80 miles further north toward the north pole clearly supporting more polar ice in the summer of 2009 than 2008.
Hunting is no longer allowed? You’d better tell these folks:
http://www.adventurenw.com/polar.shtml
Read the related item over at Icecap on what Mr Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the UN has to say. This mans competency should be called into question. Icecap title is Arctic ice proves to be slippery stuff
It always amazes me that individuals who print lies can be sued for libel.
Why is that those who print Climate Science lies never get sued??
Perhaps we could send a crack regiment of airbourne social workers to assist the polar bears and cater for their emotional needs?
This AAM must be very upsetting for them, most likely suffering from PTSD (pre traumatic stress disorder).
Not to worry folks Al Gore must be working on new design life jackets for the drowning bears to use, wlthough trying to fit one onto a hungry bear might prove difficult, just the job for our crack team of social workers, I would pay good money to see that!
“Polar bears face extinction in less than 70 years because of global warming, scientists have warned.”
Why is it that all AGW alarmist stories contain the phrase “scientists have warned” or “scientists have predicted” which conveys the impression that this is the opinion of all science speaking with one voice? Then it’s only when we read the small print that, if we are alert, we realise this should have read “a scientist has warned”.
Is it me, or is there some bias here? I mean, if Roy Spencer wrote a paper saying that his studies have shown that cumulus nimbus clouds cancel global warming, and this is reported in the MSM (you have to suspend belief on this), would the opening sentence read “scientists now predict carbon dioxide not a problem” or would it read “a single scientist has controversely predicted that carbon dioxide is not a problem, a statement that has been roundly criticized by leading climate scientists”?
BTW, the only way polar bear populations will fall is if Al Gore takes them out with a helicopter gunship in order to make observations fit predictions: “Polar bear populations have crashed, just like scientists predicted . . Daily Telegraph special report”.
If people are really interested in finding out what Post et. al. says, there is a much more complete account than the few lines in the Daily Telegraph. It is a press release from Penn State University, and therefore conveys what the authors want to tell the public.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-09/ps-dbr090409.php
The polar bear is only a tiny fraction of the ecological changes discussed in the article. The level of detail and the complexity of the impacts is a reflection of the number and breadth of the authors who contributed to it.
“”People have thought of the Arctic as a relatively simple ecosystem that is easily understood, but in fact it is very complex,” explains Post. “Not all populations within a given species respond similarly to warming because physical and landscape features that interact with climate can vary tremendously from site to site. I think response heterogeneity is going to be one of the keys to specie’s persistence, community integrity, and ecosystem function as the Arctic continues to warm.
In addition to Eric Post at Penn State University, the team he led was comprised of biologists, ecologists, geographers, botanists, anthropologists, and fish and wildlife experts from the University of Alberta and the Canadian Wildlife Service in Canada; Aarhus University and the University of Copenhagen in Denmark; the University of Helsinki in Finland; the Arctic Ecology Research Group in France; the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources in Greenland; the University Centre on Svalbard, the University of Tromsø, and the Centre for Saami Studies in Norway; the University of Aberdeen and the University of Stirling in Scotland; Lund University and the Abisko Scientific Research Station in Sweden; the University of Sheffield in the UK; and the Institute of Arctic Biology and the U.S. Geological Service at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, the Environment and Natural Resources Institute of the University of Alaska-Anchorage, and the University of Washington in the United States.
Support was provided by Aarhus University, The Danish Polar Center, and the U.S. National Science Foundation.”
I think it is silly to point to the evolution of the Polar Bear from the Grizzly Bear over time as some kind of proof that rapid climate change over the period of a century won’t harm the Polar Bear. The temperature increase in the Arctic will be double the average expected global temperature increase. Species have died off as a result of climate change.
Since evolution is a chance event, it is also possible that some Polar Bears will develop strategies to survive in the new Arctic Climate, despite the fact that their physical makeup was developed to help them survive in an Arctic environment that is 6C cooler than the one they will face if Global Warming continues. The predictions, that they will die off due to habit change, don’t factor this possibility in its projections, but it is wrong to ridicule them because of this. I don’t know that anyone can figure out how to do this.
I expect that this post will could be ridiculed for looking at this question sensibly and scientifically, since many posters here ridicule sceince.
The 1973 International Agreement for the Conservation of Polar Bears and their Habitat was signed by the U.S., Russia, Greenland/Denmark, Canada and Norway which provided protections against hunting of polar bears in the Svalbard Archipelago.
These restrictions have been further expanded since then and now include full protection from hunting as well as any coaxing, pursuit or disturbing polar bears in any manner that may endanger people or bears .
OT. How does a nuclear powered submarine or ice-breaker keep it’s reactor cool?
Global Warming causes cooling which kills more Polar Bears by reducing thier food supply through increasing cold & ice conditions.
If the Arctic were warming, the bears would be very happy, with plenty to eat.
But, it’s not, only temporary.
Yes, Polar Bears, like any other kind of bear, will eat anything. Including researchers who are stupid enough to wander around armed only with cameras.
Save the Polar Bear, send more researchers.
If you want to have fun, Google the phrase “thought to be extinct”.
GK (07:21:22) :
**** The AGW religion, is the modern incarnation of this kind of thought ****
Fortunately, these “religions” never last more than 75 years…BTW Lenin is dead, as all commisars of that time, however there are some reincarnations around.
Many people with “good feelings” are prone to adhere to this kind of religions, as they supposedly seek equality among all human beings, ignoring that any equality means enthropy, equilibrium, death. Movement it is only possible where there is a difference, of potential or whatever. Life is possible only as a negentropic development, eros versus tanathos.
Those people criticizing the Telegraph for running this story should know that the Telegraph frequently runs articles that are critical of the AGW theories. Also, it has for many years, in its Sunday edition, published the Christopher Booker column which is strongly anti-warmist (and which regularly directs readers to this site).
Off Topic but very relevant to last weeks discussion on wheat and the change in climate change policy by the National Association of Wheat Growers (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/09/04/national-wheat-growers-association-reverses-policy-on-climate-change-opposes-epa-regulation/),
is the news today of the death of Norman Borlaug, whose “invention of high-yielding disease-resistant wheat varieties spawned the ‘Green Revolution,’ making famine a thing of the past in parts of the developing world.”
http://www.agriculture.com/ag/story.jhtml?storyid=/templatedata/ag/story/data/1252862299233.xml#continue
His passing reminds me once again that we stand on the shoulders of giants.
Robert Wood (06:08:01) : Described by the BBC as “tens of thousand”
It was estimated at 2,000,000
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1213056/Up-million-march-US-Capitol-protest-Obamas-spending-tea-party-demonstration.html
But it’s not just the BBC saying “tens of thousand”. Almost all outlets, even FOX, is saying the same thing.
Nogw (07:15:34) :
Most probable scenario: Within 5 years Global Warmers will be extinct.
Now there’s a prediction that has merit!
“OT. How does a nuclear powered submarine or ice-breaker keep it’s reactor cool?”
RayBan Aviators, latest iPhone and good tailoring, the usual really.
‘Dan Evans (10:49:53) :
If you want to have fun, Google the phrase “thought to be extinct”.’
And “roughly size of Manhattan’ in association with just about any disaster one can name or political propaganda like in this new article:
http://www.bostonherald.com/business/general/view/20090908chinese_solar_plant_the_size_of_manhattan_gets_go-ahead/
Two points above seem notable.
Firstly the mention of the article about 2 German ship using the Northeast passage, smething that the UK MSM have now apparently picked up on and augmented for their own purposes.
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2009/09/turd-eaters.html
The second is the point that Prof. Posts article covers more than just Polar bears. Now whether the paper and its content is valid in toto or not we see the MSM is once again latching onto some token image, previously misrepresented, and mindlessly regurgitating the same old mindless rubbish.
Why do these people get paid? And, given the financial state of many newspaper groups, by whom are they paid?
I read somewhere that more Inuit people die from polar bear attacks than heart attacks.
Must be the home-grown fresh organic vegetables.
GK (07:21:22) : “A Lie Told Often Enough Becomes The Truth” -Vladimir Lenin
You can fool most of the people some of the time. And you can fool some of the people most of the time. But you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.
~Abraham Lincoln