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
And when the glaciers reform and start again their march south, the whole tempest in a teapot issue of global warming and the cute and cuddly polar bears will be a moot point. More relevant is what will happen to poor Canada?
I’m sure that Anthony has no problem with Thomas believing some effect due to AGW, or shall we say aGW… As do I
So why criticise him, He DID write the CLIMATEGATE : The Crutape Letters, advertised on this very website (with Mosher)
So I really think we are all against emotive, irrational, little evidence CAGW..
Maybe the earth will warm a degree due to AGW, no need to argue about that.
We would argue, against doom and gloom, guesses how that would translate to any observable even, let alone hazardous chnages in the weather/climate
Just check out the ‘abuse’ Thomas gets at Only in it for the Gold (tobis) or places like deltoid…..
Has anyone commenting here actually read the Time article?
“”” Steve Keohane says:
September 9, 2010 at 7:13 am
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! “””
Well Steve; that simply has to be a Great Auk Chick there getting barbecued; I hear that they taste just like chicken !
George
Well this save the polar bears craze has a negative feedback consequence. I hear tell that there has been a worldwide explosion of Steelhead Trout; due to the lack of availability of good Polar Bear hair for making the best, most productive steelhead Fly patterns. This lack of an adequate Steelhead harvest has lead to the present population explosion which is reaching epidemic proportions, and leading to the decline od certain salamander species; and some rare frogs too.
Joe Bastardi says:
September 9, 2010 at 9:33 am
I have a couple of graphic overlays for you:
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/TempGr/meanT_2010vs58-09.jpg
Showing where DMI 80N Arctic Temps are in relation to where they have been since 1958
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/seaice.anomaly.Ant_arctic.jpg
Showing the convergence and separation of the Arctic/Antarctic Sea Ice Anomalies over the last 31 years
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/seaice.area.ANT_arctic.jpg
Showing the Global Sea Ice Area changes for the whole Planet, and the Arctic Sea Ice Area melt (which began in 2005 NOT 2007) now moving back to normal.
Use them if you like.
Leon Brozyna says:
September 9, 2010 at 10:53 am
The USA is tied to Canadian production of oil & wheat, so if thier boat gets cracked in ice, we’ll have to grin, adapt, and Polar bear it. Before that, we have to take the sunglasses off of Pollie the Polar Bear, and wean her & cubs from Pepsi.
wws says:
September 9, 2010 at 7:52 am
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!!!!”
________________________________________________
AHHhh yes the bambi complex where the teenage welfare mommy holds her toddler up to pet the cute horsey in a roadside pasture… Only to discover that breeding stallions BITE. (happened twice that I know of first hand)
US Weather Bureau Report
The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consul Ifft, at Bergen, Norway. Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers, he declared, all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met with as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm. Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared. Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts, which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds.
I’m sorry, I neglected to mention that this report was from November 2, 1922 as reported by the AP and published in The Washington Post.
From http://mooseandsquirrel.ca/2010/09/09/08:16/fun-with-climate-alarmism/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Moose-and-Squirrel+%28MooseandSquirrel.ca%29
“REAL — Short answer, polar bears are just brown bears that moved north as the Arctic warmed, back about 250,000 years ago. Evolution dyed them white to help with the seal hunting. So if we killed them all off, couldn’t we just coax more brown bears north to fill the ecological seal eating niche. The over population of brown bears for the available food source is thought to be behind the original “go north, young brown bear” movement.”
Along these lines: Ethiopian JEWS!
I’m sure this flew by and most people missed it. In the 1980’s, during the drought in Ethipoia a remote tribe of about 1700 people was found. They had copies of the Torah. They had Hebrew writings. They performed Jewish rituals.
They were MOVED TO ISREAL as a “block”, after being assessed as “really Jews”.
Well, it gets better than that. Their genetic markers MATCHED classic Jewish lines.
Interestingly they support a concept of “epi-genetics”. I.e. the ability of advanced animals to make “changes” to their genome in response to long term enviromental effects.
It’s adventageous to have the dark skin in the “high UV exposure” areas.
Indications are much of the Isreal based Jewish population, dating back to the dispora was no more “dark” than say people from Peurto Rico. BUT the “African Line” in 2000 years became decidedly BLACK. When, how fast, etc., we don’t know.
So the claim about the “browns” going “white” with enviromental influences…I think it has merit. In point of fact, HOW CLOSE ARE Grizzlies, Polars and Browns genetically?
Anyone know that?
“George E. Smith says:
September 9, 2010 at 11:35 am
… that simply has to be a Great Auk Chick there getting barbecued; I hear that they taste just like chicken !”
Punchline from old joke about the man on trial for eating a spotted owl while lost and starving in the wilderness, wins aquittal and then in response to a post trial reporters question:
“Like chicken? No. Somewhere between Bald Eagle and California Condor.”
Fred says:
September 9, 2010 at 12:12 pm
Yes, but back then there was no Daily Planet to save.
EthicallyCivil says:
September 9, 2010 at 12:30 pm
Omigosh, no, we don’t eat Spotted Owls and Condors.
We are civilized now, and there’s plenty of Chicken Paregoric for everyone.
Correction: Only 30% of the genome in the Ethiopian Jews matches the more “European Jewish” genome. So dilution has to be accounted for. Thus the coloration factor may be only skin deep. (Sorry, bad metaphor)
Of course, it brings up the question of intermixing on brown, black, polar and grizzlies. Would they not all be BEARS? (As the Ehtiopians and European Jewish populations are HUMANS?) And how long would it take to re-establish a white coloration in a “winter” environment?
Max Hugoson
September 9, 2010 at 12:29 pm
“In point of fact, HOW CLOSE ARE Grizzlies, Polars and Browns genetically?”
Polar Bears are really a sub-species of Brown Bear. They are more closely related to the Kodiac Bear (U.a. middendorfii) then either is to the grizzly (U.a. horribillis).
There have been pictures of Grizzly attacks against man – and the resultant shots of the killed bear. Huge! Except when compared to Polar Bears. The later is about 3 times the size of a grizzly!
Endangered? Only seals and fools wanting to save them are endangered.
[3x the size? Of a grizzly? Please recheck informally the average weights of male and female polar, grizzly, Alaskan brown bears, Kodiak variety of the AK bears, and the “brown” bears common across the nation…] Robert
netdr says:
September 9, 2010 at 8:21 am
Pay no attention to those large white animals in the zoo.
That’s not white – that’s platinum blonde…
PhilJourdan says:
September 9, 2010 at 1:51 pm
There have been pictures of Grizzly attacks against man – and the resultant shots of the killed bear. Huge! Except when compared to Polar Bears. The later is about 3 times the size of a grizzly!
Endangered? Only seals and fools wanting to save them are endangered.
[3x the size? Of a grizzly? Please recheck informally the average weights of male and female polar, grizzly, Alaskan brown bears, Kodiak variety of the AK bears, and the “brown” bears common across the nation…] Robert
I always like this photo to indicate the size of a bear.
http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/jalopnik/2009/02/Polar-Bear-Bus.jpg
A coincidence, but I was reading this very 2006 issue of Time this afternoon in my dentist’s waiting room. Reading the article was surreal. The smugness of their certainty was totally impervious to any doubt. How have their predictions from 2006 panned out?
OT, but has anyone noticed a subtle change of tone at the BBC website? No mea culpa’s, but yesterday there was an article stating that wars in Africa were NOT being increased by climate change. Last week there was an story about a coral reef that had thrived in warm waters of the Tasman Sea9000 years ago, bang in the Holocene Climate Optimum. Straws in the wind perhaps?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11204686
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11153193
Since there are strong reasons to believe ice levels went similarly low in the 1920’s, this shouldn’t be any concern at all. The polar bear cliche hardly needs more ridiculing, especially here on WUWT. That species survive climate change is obvious from the fact that there are species and that climate has done nothing but change. The danger of your article is what you’ve so deftly inserted in your last sentence: “with or without our help”. With? Did you say “with”?
False marketing and sensationalism are constants in life, and on their own would not have generated the ruinous economic measures recommended by so many international and national bodies.
What worries me, Thomas, is that you have written another article preaching to the converted while subtly (this time) pushing your peculiar agenda: AGW is kinda real, and please don’t blame scientists for climate alarmism. This time you have at least conceded that someone is behind the marketers, when you refer vaguely to “those most interested in very active measures to combat global warming”.
Many scientists are very much to blame for the alarmism, and I hope you’re not one of those. I really hope you’re not a “moderate” who believes we should be coming together and communicating better…and that the price of your condescension is the trillions to be frittered on taxes, carbon trading and inefficient energy generation.
As with his previous articles, I find Thomas’ point here elusive.
Is he suggesting we must “combat global warming”, but use more sophisticated imagery and methods?
“…Climate change [now a meaningless term] theory predicted that the Arctic would warm faster than the rest of the planet, and that melting Arctic ice is not a ‘good’ sign…”.
“Climate change” theory also predicts a hot-spot over the tropics but thousands of radiosondes, and three decades of satellite measurements show unequivocally that it ain’t there.
Polar bear populations are not proxies for global warming (in the precise sense of that term), but neither is the extent or thickness of Arctic sea-ice.
The Arctic warming post 1980 is at the same rate as 1880 – 1940 when human CO2 emissions could not have been a major factor.
http://vademecum.brandenberger.eu/grafiken/klima/arktik_1880-2004.gif
The classic of this “symbolic imagery” has to be the Natural Resources Defense Council’s combining the struggles of the fragile polar bear with our presumed hatred for Sarah Palin. I received at least three 8×10 envelopes (not exactly “green” of them) stuffed with several pages of propaganda and of course, the return donation envelope. Across the front of this mailer in large print: “Sarah Palin may be gone, but her state’s attack on polar bears continues…” next to a picture of a polar bear apparently struggling aboard a small piece of sea ice.
Sleazy stuff.
Here are some images:
– Weather and ecosystem behavior fitting of mid October – in mid August (yes I know, California is not the world … )
– Large dangerous game starting to intrude boldly into not only suburban areas but even urban areas
– Increasing waves of famine
– Break down of governance structures and even infrastructure (we are so close to this)
– A catastrophic and sudden cessation of fecundity (note recent stats)
– A cadre of “Atomic Napoleons” who have no qualms about exterminating millions of people in a single day
– The end of a 10K year sweet spot
–
All they have to do is keep the disaster movie running another 30 years and the oldies will be gone, to be replaced by a generation of pre-programmed, ill-informed, intensely-green-educated earth-savers.
You know it is happening now..
Max Hugoson says:
September 9, 2010 at 12:29 pm
“[…]Well, it gets better than that. Their genetic markers MATCHED classic Jewish lines.
Interestingly they support a concept of “epi-genetics”. I.e. the ability of advanced animals to make “changes” to their genome in response to long term enviromental effects. ”
To be Jewish, your mother has to be Jewish. (Fatherhood is never that certain) So AFAIK the gene test Israel uses to decide whether a tribe belongs to the Jewish diaspora checks for mithochondrial genes; the mitochondria are exclusively inherited by the maternal line.
So it is very likely IMHO that the Ethiopean Jews had some genes from black Africans thrown in, helping them develop more melanin.
Epigenetics do work, but i doubt whether this is an example of it.
But while we’re at it, you and everybody else who has a working immune system is capable of running an ultrafast evolution in your body each time your immune system needs to fight off an infection. It’s called somatic hypermutation; in the lymph nodes your body will multiply certain leucocytes and increase the mutability of a section of their genome vastly; this gives rise to millions of variations of antibodies until one cell produces the right antibody for the infection at hand. As soon as such a match occurs, the somatic hypermutation mechanism is turned off and the winner gets to multiply.
SteveSadlov says:
September 9, 2010 at 3:54 pm
The “climate shifts” begin in California (& the Pacific Northwest).
This is where the changes in the Pacific Ocean make 1st contact, and so this is where it all begins.