Climate Craziness of the Week – Why I'm a Pepsi* tea drinker now

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.