Guest post by Thomas Fuller
I wrote earlier that a series of symbolic images have been stamped on the professional communications sent out by those most interested in very active measures to combat global warming. I mentioned several, and I hope to take some time to analyze the status of the keynote issues that have been highlighted by environmental groups, politicians, and one or two webloggers.
Let’s start with polar bears. Pictures of polar bears standing on ice floes have been used to highlight concerns about melting Arctic ice. Arctic ice is melting, being well below the average for the past 30 years, and a parlor game has developed where we all monitor the growth or decrease of Arctic ice like we were watching a horse race at Hialeah.
That’s because I think instinctively we all recognize that it’s a good proxy for the state of global warming. Climate change theory predicted that the Arctic would warm faster than the rest of the planet, and that melting Arctic ice is not a ‘good’ sign.
But using polar bears to illustrate the dangers posed by global warming to the Arctic was nothing short of disastrous. Polar bears can swim for extended distances, and they perch on ice floes to rest or wait for an unwary seal to pop up.
But the mistake was deliberate, because it tapped into environmental concerns about the polar bears’ threatened status. There were somewhat casual estimates that the population of polar bears had declined to about 5,000 in the 1960s, and using them as a picture of what global warming put in danger guaranteed the willing and active support of many environmentalists who had already invested time, concern and money to support the polar bears revival.
But it meant that arguments against the polar bears’ approaching doom could be confused with arguments about the status of polar ice. And in fact, such arguments quickly appeared.
The polar bear has recovered strongly from the 1960s, and there are now about 25,000 of them. They congregate in subgroups geographically, and the status of those subgroups is not uniform–some are growing, some are declining some are staying the same.
But the bears are robust enough that the indigenous tribes of the North say that they have completely recovered, and want hunting restrictions lifted. Indeed, about 1,000 polar bears a year are killed by hunting, according to The Polar Bear Specialist Group.
And simple arithmetic showed that polar bears survived warmer periods than today that almost certainly included eras when Arctic ice was completely gone.
So the issue is ultimately an unfortunate distraction. The Arctic is warming. Polar bears are doing okay. And the point is?
However, the marketing gurus running campaigns for environmental causes knew that they couldn’t sell an activist agenda with a picture of a thermometer. And the more savvy amongst them also knew that accurate measurements of Arctic temperatures and ice cover dated back only to 1979 when satellites were watched. So a little distraction couldn’t hurt–at least not them.
The world is heading into a La Nina after a fairly heavy El Nino phase. Arctic ice may have bottomed out and be heading for a real recovery. Moderate global warming, on the other hand, may keep ice levels depressed. All we can say for certain is that the climate is changing.
But that’s what it does–with or without our help.
Thomas Fuller http://www.redbubble.com/people/hfuller
It’s always interesting to ask an environmentalist how they think polar bears normally die.
After a long puzzled silence, I sometimes suggest that perhaps they die in nusing homes surrounded by their loved ones.
This tends to extend the silence a while longer.
The polar bear icon has been abused, that is why there exists things like this counter iconography.
http://i34.tinypic.com/2qk8e38.jpg
A little comic relief!
“Arctic ice is melting, being well below the average for the past 30 years,”
So what? I’m getting older and I’m way below average for the past 30 years too.
Neither one means a rats damn and neither one is a real average.
Who decided what was “average” in the first place.
There’s not one single polar bear in a zoo anywhere that has an iceberg….
http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/icrutem3_hadsst2_0-360E_70-90N_na.png
I still can not recognize neither the “catastrophic warming” in Arctic, nor connection with CO2. I can see just cyclical pattern and that the 30-year warm period already ended.
“Arctic temperatures and ice cover dated back only to 1979″…
And only a few years earlier the “consensus”/opinion was that could be fast approaching a new ice age.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=w6mPG4eYjHEC&pg=PA776&dq=ice+age&hl=en&ei=B86GTLSgHtO7jAfgrKCbCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCgQ6AEwADgK#v=onepage&q=ice%20age&f=false
I actually think, contrary to the author’s opinion, that melting arctic ice IS a good sign. Why? The earth would do better with a warmer climate! How do I come to that conclusion? Past warming periods were better for human civilization that cold periods. Anybody here pining away for the Little Ice Age? Nope. Nobody in their right mind would be. How about a bit of warming, then, to counter crop failures, dry conditions (those that say a warmer globe would produce less rain haven’t looked at a globe with its preponderance of water recently), and a host of other problems associated with cold conditions. I can’t think of anything more catastrophic than another natural or human-induced ice age, whether it be little or the real thing.
I think it’s called Disneyfication: using ‘cute’ animals in your propaganda.
Well, one does have to make a choice between being effective in one’s arguments and being accurate, now doesn’t one?
BTW, thanks for the comment about polar bears dying in rest homes surrounded by their family, best laugh of the week so far.
kagiso, I’m surprised that doesn’t get you a screaming fit in return. :p
No. It’s a proxy for the state of global warming ALARMISM. Big difference.
Thomas,
This post should have been twice as long. There are at least two other images you should have commented on — the “photoshopped” one of the bear on a slab-type iceberg (same berg used elsewhere, with penguins) more common to the southern ocean;
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/12/new-bear-species-discovered-ursus-bogus/
and, the one used by Al Gore, actually miss-used by A.G, showing the bear and cub on an ice flow. The latter one can be found here:
http://www.whoi.edu/beaufortgyre/dispatch2004/dispatch02.html
Scroll down, bottom right. Gore misrepresented this photo taken by Amanda Byrd, and apparently unknowingly, attributed it to someone else.
The second issue you could address (give your knowledge of the media) is the strange coincidence of major magazines to use the same animal in a give time frame for impact. One year we see pandas, then penguins, then polar bears. Someplace I’ve read that the editors of magazines fly off to some exotic location each year to decide on the “cuddly animal” for the next year’s promotion of their agenda and fund raising campaigns. I wonder if they then send out the word to photographers to submit appropriate material? Maybe you have heard of this strategy?
Polar bears are not extinct. We still see hunting permits. Do the bears succomb to a Malthusian doctrine?
…and, just maybe, we “instinctively recognize” Antartica is a good proxy for global cooling. Mexican standoff?
In general I find it extremely short-sighted to imply that humans are on this planet to ensure that no species go extinct. If the dinosaurs still lived, and our cities were walled to keep them out, would we be trying to save them from extinction? The history of Earth is one of life *and death*, if you leave the death part out you miss out on humans entirely, to say nothing of a number of other species. The history of extinctions should be an important warning that we must continue to be what humans are (namely the most adaptable species on the planet) in order to survive what this planet is capable of doling out. It’s sad when species die out, but ultimately there’s nothing we can really do about it.
“…But the mistake was deliberate..”
Isn’t there another word that describes such a phenomena?
The whole polar bear fixation is easy to explain – they make great stuffed animal toys that are cute and cuddly and very appealing to teenage girls, who’s emotional state happens to perfectly mimic that of most enviro’s.
“Oh, he’s so cute! Let’s destroy the world’s economy because he’s just so CUTE!!!!”
There seems to be a gremlin in the system today. All the “givens” are coming up as “give.” I’ll clean the keyboard.
The two so-called sub-populations that are in decline only existed because of the garbage from nearby towns. They were becoming a nuisance so people started managing there wast better. The bears have since been drifting off. The idea of sub-population is a bit misleading in an animal that regular wanders over a 1000 kilometers. The low point number during the 60s was probably more like 25,000. The number today is more likely 50,000. The Bear Specialty Group is a bit more professional then some of the others, but the parent organizations lefty so they are always suspect.
I’m at work now, which has nothing to do with Carnivore biology, but later tonight, I will try to scare up some references, and also to read the Bear Specialty Groups latest report. I have not been tracking developments the last few years as well as I normally do.
I was once on a committee deciding green party publicity and when they wanted a suggested icon for an endangered species – I suggested Cod. After a pause a few realised I wasn’t joking and some even recognised that in Scotland Cod is an endangered species and one which has a direct impact on most families who at least occasionally eat Cod.
But it didn’t take them long to decide that the Green party wasn’t there to save economically important fish stocks in Scotland, I don’t remember what they finally chose, but whether it was a polar bear or some other cute and cuddling foreign animal, the lesson I learnt was that the Greens weren’t there to protect the jobs of Scottish fishermen, nor ensure my kids and their kids and their kids kids can eat fish suppers which don’t contain some exotic fish caught in some exotic location and then shipped half the way around the world.
I’m not sure it is true that the Arctic is warming. If you go to http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php and look at the last five years, they all appear to be normal or below. The melt season in 2010 has been especially cool. The larger than average ice melts appear to be due to soot. More here: http://meteorologicalmusings.blogspot.com/2009/12/climategate-update-iv-melting-ice.html and here http://meteorologicalmusings.blogspot.com/2010/07/more-on-soot-causing-arctic-ice-melt.html
kagiso says:
September 9, 2010 at 7:11 am
It’s always interesting to ask an environmentalist how they think polar bears normally die.
Interesting, but I like to ask them where did polar bears live and what did they eat 25,000 years ago. Ice extended down to the Great Lakes. No seals in the Arctic. For some amount of time polar bears (or what became polar bears) lived in southern Canada, the Aleutians, Denmark etc and ate anything that was catchable. They followed the ice north. The idea that they always lived in the Arctic and ate seals is not logical.
I was not paying attention. The article talks about the Polar Bear Specialist Group. A very different animal. I forgot about them. They are pure propagandists. Check out this …
http://pbsg.npolar.no/en/news/archive/2010/Nunavut-norisk.html
Post normal science indeed!
Polar bears are a figment of people’s imagination since they went extinct several times since they were evolved 120,000 to 200,000 years ago.
It has been much hotter at least 3 times than it is today during that period. Did they tread water for hundreds of years.
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/temperature/temperature.html#65Myr
Pay no attention to those large white animals in the zoo.
“But it meant that arguments against the polar bears’ approaching doom could be confused with arguments about the status of polar ice”.
This wasn’t a point of confusion – it was the AGW point: the ice would disappear and the polar bear would die. There wasn’t anyother reason for the doom.
And by the way, the changes of icons fit the goal-post moving tactics of AGW hypothesizers over a fairly long time. When global warming didn’t progress to a tipping point, the arctic didn’t become a good sailing sea and children were still able to see snow – scads of it, they changed the name from global warming to climate change. So guess what is happening, a series of excellently supported studies have come out proving climate change is the norm and that the climate today is somewhere in the middle of the range. So now, AGW supporters are coming out of the woodwork after casting about to save something and remarking “Oh, this is nothing new. No one disputes the Holocene max, everyone knows the MWP occurred and the LIA too. Hey who’s arguing this old stuff? But, the difference is now we have 40% more CO2!! Don’t you guys get it?” If you want to hang in there, GW at least will happen – even if if we freeze to death for the next eon.
I’ve begged someone to concoct an experiment to measure the effect of CO2. Maybe we should have a post calling for the world scientists to dream up an experiment that most will be happy with. Stating you already know the physics and then coming up with a range of effects from 0.1 to 10C per doubling isn’t good enough.
And while I’m at it. Surely, if AGW is inexorable ( incomplete .mod.)