I used to love the Coca-Cola Polar bear TV ads at Christmastime. I marveled at the quality of the CGI animations when they first came out, like this one:
They were fun and entertaining to watch, even though not reality based because papa polar bear would just as soon rip the heads off the cubs as he would to have a Coke. But there was never a hint of any political message. Just good clean fun and lightly pushing a uniquely American product I enjoyed.
But recently this started showing up on WUWT, courtesy of Google Ads:
You might even see it show up below this entry. Coke and Christmas always went together. To find out Coke has surrendered their famous Christmas polar bear ads to a political cause is like the day I found out Santa Claus wasn’t real.
This is where it takes you:
But it gets worse, on that page is a link to the real group behind it:
Egads! It’s the scummy WWF, purveyors of the 9/11 video ad showing airplanes hitting New York City.
Message to the Coca-Cola Company.
I don’t need your political views to quench my thirst. I now choose Pepsi* Tea, a company that has the good sense to not try hanging their hat on questionable causes or tactless eco-political organizations.
Maybe WUWT readers can enlighten the Coca-Cola company via their contact page on just how well polar bears are doing these days. See below.
A few countering reports:
Global warming leads to too many polar bears
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:
Fig. 1. Circumpolar distribution of polar bear populations. The Western Hudson Bay population (WH), for which data on negative impacts of climate change exist, is highlighted. Polar bears of WH comprise approximately 4% of the world total population polar bears.
* From comments: Turns out that Pepsi is involved in a carbon fund, looks like tea for me now.
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Pepsi? Your kidding… support the Rainbow Warrior? (Jeff Gordon)
All other comments are withheld to meet with profanity rules…
I notice that your Google Adsense ads, including the graphical display ad, are BOTH pro AGW theory ads sporting polar bears.
1 (the text-based ad) is even a Coca Cola ad for the campaign you despise.
Personally, I was at the arrival of the Olympic flame ceremony in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada and I hated that coke put on a relentless 45 minute show featuring a 3 minute song essentially repeated over and over again.
“Open happiness” today when opening coke. Nothing opens happiness more than sweet liquid diabetes, tooth decay, obesity, cancer, and heart disease.
ABC posts a correction over misleading Polar Bear story. A small victory that still leaves much to be desired.
Polar bears
ABC News Online
On December 5, in an article about the melting of Hudson Bay sea ice in Canada, the ABC used the heading that climate change was “driving polar bears to cannibalism”. The story explained that the sea ice which the bears need to walk across when hunting, was not appearing until weeks later than usual. This means the bears had a shortage of food and there had been cases reported of the bears eating cubs for food. The ABC acknowledges that polar bears are not necessarily driven towards cannibalism because of climate change; this claim should have been attributed to conservationists. The heading has been changed to: “Climate change drives polar bears to cannibalism, conservationists say”.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/corrections/
You may recall that Dr. Taylor, with 30 years of experience studying polar bears was shut out of the polar bear meeting in the run up to Copenhagen. His sin?… he didn’t subscribe to the preordained agenda that polar bears were endangered by AGW. Now that’s real science… shut out one of the preeminent researchers in the field because he had some inconvenient facts and research that upset the final press release.
Does any of this sound familiar?
Polar Bears and Grizzlies also can and do interbreed on the rare occasions that they cross paths.
Anthony,
I love WUWT, keep up the good work. Speaking of work, with the build a bear thing and now this stupid coke thing, a simple person such as myself needs to start keeping track of businesses that will not be getting my dollar. Could you make a list for me, or point me in the direction of a list those businesses that are pushing AGW?
Drink water…all that other crap causes global fattening. Just don’t buy the tap water Coca Cola or Pepsi bottle and sell as something special.
You might also want to let Warren Buffet of Birkshire Hathaway know. BRKA owns a LARGE chunk of KO Coke …
I avoid both Coke and Pepsi most of the time, generally drinking plain water or water transformed with Barley in many imaginative ways ;-0 but sometimes there isn’t as much choice as I’d like…
REPLY: BTW check your email sent you something today, AOL may have eaten it. – Anthony
papa polar bear would just as soon rip the heads off the cubs as he would to have a Coke.
I am pretty sure Papa polar bear would rip off the head of the cubs and never have a coke.
Of course polar bear’s are genetically identical to grizzly bears which eat just about anything, so who knows.
There is only one polar bear that I really like, the Bundy Bear!
Behold the famous “drop bear” advertisment on YouTube:
Bundy ad
The only trouble is that the pre-mix Bundy is with Coke. However, despite that, the Bundy Bear survives in tropical Queensland.
You know, juxtaposed against the Build-a-Bear comment, I have to say this:
Anthony, and readers, this is what being a minority looks like. Disregard polls that show faltering belief in AGW for a moment, and think about this. Even Shell and Exxon, OIL COMPANIES, are in on this thing. Why are you surprised that drink companies and toy companies are too?
Part of being against the grain is not being surprised by the fact that no one else sees things the way you do. It takes a real amount of courage to be against the grain, but more courage still to forgive and forget with those who don’t see things the way you do. If you fancy yourself in possession of courage, then you will understand what I mean.
Courage is a rare trait, and it requires the understanding that others do not possess courage in the levels required to prevent being steamrolled in political movements. Ponder, if you will, how a large swath of Europe could possibly go from Nazi oppression to Soviet oppression, and not die fighting for their freedom. The ones who had the courage to resist did, in fact, die, and the rest went with the flow.
What I discussed above is an example of physical courage. Physical courage is the ability to put it all on the line, body and soul. Intellectual courage is the courage to question everything you are taught. Intellectual courage is the foundation of physical courage. It is not possible to expect intellectual courage in a proportion that it seems WUWT expects, or physical courage would be a more prominent factor in our society.
Again, if you fancy yourself courageous, then fight the science that dictates the action, not the action. Put this in perspective.
Coca-Cola were VERY active in sponsoring Copenhagen.
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=116310
http://coordillum.blogspot.com/2009/11/coca-cola-quisling-for-new-age.html
Coca-Cola is a Quisling for a new Age.
I agree that Coca-Cola has gone too far, but don’t be so quick to jump to Pepsi.
The CEO, one Indra K. Nooyi, became infamous for a speech she gave during a Columbia Business School in which she likened the US to the middle finger in the business world. She tried to clarify and when that failed offered a “sincere apology.”
A pox on both houses.
Drink beer..like Smith..better make it “local” though…….100 mile diet and all that!
I reviewed the Polar bear decision documents last spring. The decision was based entirely on the output of climate models. No field work was involved at all. Is there anyone here who fails to understand that there was no science involved either? Your tax dollars at work.
Yeah, the idea that one of the largest land-based preditors in the world might kill its mates shouldn’t be that surprising. They may actually do it every year. They may kill each other if the ice is two weeks early. You know, eating a bear for the long journey ahead. I’m not sure if I’d get an honest answer if I asked the conservationists.
As a complete tangent to this discussion, there was just a nice piece in Smithsonian mag. on the dirty secret behind lion evolution: other lions killing them. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/The-Truth-About-Lions.html?c=y&page=6
The panda is reportedly a carnivore with gut bacteria that digests wood, according to its genome, which was just completed: http://www.newstrackindia.com/newsdetails/138478 . Cannibalism may be normal among wild animals given the right conditions. It is certainly ironic that the WWF’s panda turns out to be not only an evolutionary dead end, but a carnivore that has lost its taste for meat:- an anachronism.
Now that it’s been brought up, I’ll try to keep an eye out for how many fuzzy animals actually kill/eat their own species. It would be nice to have a list.
Robert M (19:14:14) :
Steve Milloy at http://JunkScience.com has a good collection of carbon criminals, where you can follow links explaining the tactics used by various AGW rent-seekers. Nice “Wanted” posters, suitable for framing in my opinion. Once you start digging, you’ll have quite a list of companies interested in government sponsored anti-competitive behavior while fueling the effort to sink the USA. I’m following a self-imposed boycott and if enough others do the same, they might start to feel the pinch. I try to make it well known to salespeople why I’m not buying products from certain companies (GE for example). BTW, Jeff Immelt, I sure like my new Panasonic microwave.
What kind of animal could the Global Warming Climate Realists adopt as their own mascot?
Maybe the Abominable Snowman or Sasquatch?
All the other real, cute, furry animals are already taken.
Let’s see now…
“You know me, I’m Bigfoot. You’ve heard about me a few times, but there’s not really any evidence for my actual existence. I’d like to tell you something about Global Warming and Climate Change…”
Anyone care to take over this train of thought?
Trade marks are very strange things.
I think the the Coca Cola company inherited the polar bear when in 1943 they bought the marketing and other rights of the British Fanta soft drinks company whose logo it was.
The rest is history.
Kindest Regards
What hypocrisy! How much pollution (C02) is released into the atmosphere each year from people popping open an ice cold Coke? For goodness sake they have to manufacture mass volumes of the stuff for their product.
Which begs the question. If you drink enough Coke over a long period of time will it raise your internal body temperature?
Awwww. Aren’t they cute?
One of the female bear’s tasks is to keep the male bear from eating her cubs.
PS: Don’t eat the liver. It’s toxic. And always cook bear meat well to prevent getting the trichinosis many of them carry.
On second thought, not so cute, after all.
I just buy the store brand. Its every bit as good as the other crap. About the only time I do anything but this is when they are doing a loss leader. If they want to lose money, who am I to argue? For the most part though the store brand 2 liter bottle next to the terminal (I trade stocks for a living now that I have retired) nothing but water. Better for you and a lot cheaper; Still some cheap fizz finds its way there from time to time. If Pepsi and Coke were to vanish tomorrow I doubt I would notice. However, I do get pissed off at companies I own stock in pull this kind of grotesque bullshit. All the more reason to buy the house brand.
Dangit! I guess I’ll have to see how well
Captain Morgan’s® Silver Spiced Rumrum goes with Mountain Dew®. (I’ve tried drinking rum with Pepsi®, but a Cuba Libre just doesn’t taste quite right made that way.)If Pepsi® jumps on the AGW bandwagon, I guess I’ll have to try some of the knock-off brands to see which one works best.
Anyhow, it’s been a great year in the battle against the fraudulent “science” that is AGW. Thank you Anthony, Steve M., Jeff Id and the rest of the true geniuses for your hard work to save the world from the greatest threat to individual liberty since a certain European strongman decided to try to spread his particularly virulent brand of “Democratic Socialism”. Here’s hoping that the next year is even more successful.
Merry Christmas, Tiny Tim.
Everyone knows polar bears are rapidly become extinct. That’s why the UN should move the next climate meeting from Mexico to Churchill, Manitoba. It will demonstrate the devastating effects of climate change on the world’s most vulnerable species when tens of thousands of eco-fascists, politicians and warmists descend upon the town where polar bears were once as common as sparrows. Watch as the crowds freely move around Churchill with nary a care about their personal safety as the only polar bears they see will either be on posters or stuffed. Sort of like the last Dodo or Passenger Pigeon.
The Polar Bear listing is probably the most corrupt use of science to arise out of the whole AGW affair. At least the CO2=warming argument has a seed of truth in the physical properties of the gas.