Dr. Susan Crockford, Zoologist, of www.polarbearscience.com advises us of this:
“We are now the polar bear” says Mann today (below) [a few weeks ago it was Patricia Romero Lankao of the federally financed National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado saying “The polar bear is us” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/24/climate-change-dangers_n_5019412.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular]
Scientists Speak Out: The New IPCC Report
The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a U.N. group, warns that man-made climate change is already causing destruction around the globe. And it will only get worse unless we act quickly.
Leading climate and polar bear scientists share their thoughts on the report and the path forward:
Dr. Michael Mann, Distinguished Professor and Director, Earth System Science Center
What the latest report shows is that climate change is adversely impacting us now, wherever we live. It isn’t just the Arctic and the polar bear anymore. We are now the polar bear. If we are to avert increasingly dangerous and potentially irreversible changes in our climate, we need to act now. We must transition from our reliance on fossil fuels to alternative, renewable sources of energy that do not threaten the health of our planet.[bold in original]
Dr. Steven Amstrup, Chief Scientist, Polar Bears International
In 2007, I projected that global warming was likely to eliminate two-thirds of the world’s polar bears by the middle of this century. After making that point in a recent public lecture, a college student in the audience asked what would happen to the rest of the polar bears if we fail to act in time to head off that ‘mid-century polar bear crisis.’ My answer:
At that point, no one will be thinking about polar bears, because coping with and adapting to ongoing human crises will consume all of society’s resources.
The recent report by Working Group II of the IPCC adds emphasis in spades to my response. The hundreds of scientists whose independent research composes the IPCC concluded that:
- Climate change already is negatively affecting every part of the globe
- The frequency and severity of extreme weather will continue to increase as long as greenhouse gas levels rise
- Along with steep and rapid reductions in emissions, we will need to develop plans for coping with a constantly changing world with ever new and more difficult challenges
The good news, however, is that while the panel concluded the world cannot afford inaction, it emphasized we still have time to stop the worst effects of warming. If we do, we also are likely to save polar bears.
Dr. Gavin Schmidt, Deputy Chief, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
The IPCC report is an enormous achievement and great resource for the scientific community and the public alike. But more than that, it provides a clear summary of where we are and what can be done. How we should act in the face of this information is complex and should be discussed at all levels. I hope only that those discussions are fully informed about what the science is showing—and that these discussions lead to meaningful action.
Dr. Ian Stirling, Research Scientist Emeritus, Canadian Wildlife Service
The recent report from the IPCC is stunning and should be a major stimulus for governments around the world to develop a global plan to reduce greenhouse gases … soon. One of the most important messages is that there is still time, but not that much of it, if the world is to restrain warming within manageable bounds.
The situation in the Arctic, though, is more dire and changing rapidly. The climate is warming there more rapidly than elsewhere on the planet, with the result that the sea ice is now disappearing even more quickly than once predicted by several different models. That is bad news, not just for polar bears, but for the whole Arctic marine ecosystem.
Why climate warming is so critical for polar bears is a simple concept and easily understood, even by children. Polar bears need ice to be able to hunt their primary prey: marine mammals, primarily seals. No ice means no ice bear. That isn’t complicated to understand.
http://www.polarbearsinternational.org/news-room/pbi-blog/scientists-speak-out-new-ipcc-report
“We are the polar bear now” sounds better than “We are the Santa Ana sucker now” I guess. http://www.pe.com/local-news/topics/topics-environment-headlines/20140414-santa-ana-river-invasive-red-algae-clouds-fish-habitat.ece
I simply do not get it.
Steven Amstrup says “I predicted in 2007 that 2/3rd’s of the world’s polar bears would be gone by mid century …” and no one stops to ask him how his prediction is working out?
As I’ve said repeatedly, one doesn’t need physics to understand climate change. Simple arithmatic will do. As in we are 1/6 th of the way there and at 0/3 rd’s with regard to polar bear population decline. Guess those pesky bears are all waiting until 2049 to die.
Polar Bear Population Facts
Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) – Scare Site
http://www.nrdc.org/wildlife/cites/polar-bear/files/polar-bear-OV.pdf
There are 20,000-25,000 polar bears in existence, 15,000 live in Canada.
32,350 Polar bear specimens (polar bears dead or alive, and their parts and derivatives) were traded internationally for all purposes between 2001 and 2010.
1. That’s well over 3,000 polar bear specimens per year traded internationally.
2. Of the 600 polar bears killed in Canada each year, the parts of more than half of them are traded internationally.
3. From 2007 to 2012, there was a 375% increase in the number of polar bear skins sold.
International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) – Conservation / CAGW Promotion Site
http://www.ifaw.org/sites/default/files/default/cites/IFAW_brief-sheet-final-POLAR-BEARx.pdf
Canada acknowledges that it allows 3.75 percent of its bears to be killed every year, but the maximum rate of population growth for polar bears is between 4-6 percent per year. In healthy, growing populations, an annual hunt quota of 3.75 percent would slow, and possibly even stop, that growth.
World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) – Conservation / CAGW Promotion Site
http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/where_we_work/arctic/wildlife/polar_bear/population/
Several polar bear populations were decimated by unsustainable hunting by European, Russian and American hunters and trappers from the 1600s right through to the mid-1970’s.
Although most populations have returned to healthy numbers, there are differences between the populations. Some are stable, some seem to be increasing, and some are decreasing due to various pressures.
As of 2013, 5 of 19 populations were in decline. (Therefore, 14 were increasing or stable.)
Polar Bears International – Conservation / CAGW Promotion Site
http://www.polarbearsinternational.org/about-polar-bears/what-scientists-say/are-polar-bear-populations-booming
One Russian extrapolation presented in 1956 suggested a number of 5,000 to 8,000, but that figure was never accepted by scientists. The fact is that in the 1960s we had no idea how many polar bears there were. … We do know (and I have published papers on this) that some polar bear populations grew after quotas were imposed in Canada, aerial hunting ceased in Alaska, and trapping and hunting were banned in Svalbard. All of these events occurred in the late 60s or early 70s, and we know some populations responded—as you would expect. (How would I expect? Why not just say it?) … But the most important point is that whatever happened in the past is really irrelevant. (If this is the most important point, then what less important points are also irrelevant?)
International Business Times (IBT) – Anti-CAGW Promotion Site
http://www.ibtimes.com/polar-bear-population-higher-20th-century-something-fishy-about-extinction-fears-821075
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that the polar bear population is currently at 20,000 to 25,000 bears, up from as low as 5,000-10,000 bears in the 1950s and 1960s. (Similar to Russian extrapolation presented in 1956.) A 2002 U.S. Geological Survey of wildlife in the Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain noted that the polar bear populations ‘may now be near historic highs'”
If the world is actually feeling threatened that polar bears might cease to exist at some future point of time, why are they still being subjected to legal hunting?
Legal hunting really is the crux of the issue. There are no statistics on the numbers that die each year due to global warming. Are there zero? One? More? How does that compare to “over 3,000 polar bear specimens per year traded internationally” and “From 2007 to 2012, there was a 375% increase in the number of polar bear skins sold”?
I think Stirling, Derocher, et al are busy studying trees (individual bears) without realizing they are in a forest. Bears (all bears, all predators) move hundreds of kilometres over fairly short time frames. The bears don’t recognize “groups” drawn on a map. They move across imaginary borders all the time, looking for food, moving with the ice and and other natural drivers. Some monitored bears have moved thousands of kilometres, who knows why? And, yes, hunting by humans has been shown to have the single biggest effect on Polar Bear populations. Currently, the question is: How much damage is tranquillizing and collaring bears to monitor them doing. The Inuit want it to stop. And in some places, it has been stopped and hence the “new” counting method. I think the researchers believe what they say, but to use the old engineering phrase: “When you are up to your a$$ in alligators, it’s hard to remember you came to survey the swamp.” I suspect that they are so into the details of region by region and individual bear studies, they can’t put things into an overall multi-decadal, multi-century perspective. And then of course, without alarmism, where would the funding for all the helicopter fuel needed to do the research come from? 😉
What makes these martinettes think that the polar bears want them to be the polar bear. Without the benefit of higher powered rifles, we humans are little more than bear kibble for a polar bear. Maybe we should sponsor a fundraiser for these people so that we can send them to the Arctic so they can hug and pet the polar bear right before they are eviscerated and eaten.
Oh my, lions and tigers and bears! I have a knack for attracting CAGW believers to engage in lengthy often heated and emotional discussions about the state of the earth and climate science. One thing that I noticed over the years are bullet point like meme’s or sound bite statements. For example: “But the polar bears are dying from the melting arctic?” or “There are more storms of greater violence and frequency just like the models predicted!” and “There has been a continued up-trending of global troposphere temperatures since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.” to “Then how come 97% of scientists agree that CAGW is happening?” as well as ” The Models are right on and there has been NO PAUSE in AGW. I am not talking with you anymore.” then there is “The oceans are rising, the ice at the poles is melting!” followed by “The oceans are becoming more acidic from CO2 absorption making carboxylic acid and bleaching the coral reefs to death!” and more…. Now we are accosted with dire emotionality facts be damned that CO2 is a poison and anyone questioning these meme’s are denialist contrarian anti-science conspiracy enthusiasts, and this is now entrenched in the k-12 education system to shape future thinking and behavior!?!? Orwellian on steroids! My thought and question is: Are we being deliberately steered by a small but influential group of people to accept policy that is grounded in fraud? If this is the case then as I see it pushing back with facts to counter the fraud becomes imperative lest we surrender our thinking minds and very souls to some all powerful global authoritarian control paradigm. There is a movement / organization called “Transitions” in my town filled with many good people and the leadership is purely CAGW fanatics, I have been invited to speak at their meetings. This should be fun. The premise is that communities need to transition away from fossil fuels and create alternative social constructions and limit economic growth etc. Sound familiar?
‘Chorus’ might be a better word to describe this lot because they all sing the same tune! They lament what might be without evidence or should I say evidence to the contrary!
I have a teenage daughter studying “AP Environmental Studies” in a US High School, and she is being pumped full of the “stuff” that george e. conant cites above in each and every class. They are finally getting to “Climate Change” and she is afraid that she will get an “F” if she comes in spouting anything that sniffs of skepticism. I told her that she is just going to have to learn it as the teacher dictates (the curriculum says that the glaciers will be gone by 2013–oops that is inconvenient) and then she will have to undergo “deprogramming” after the class is over.
The technique for quashing any reasoned challenge to the doctrine is that the teacher basically calls you stupid in front of all of your classmates and openly laughs at you. Imagine a teacher using that technique on someone who supported an unorthodox view of religion or sexuality? And yet it is politically correct to scoff at people who ask legitimate factual questions (“By the way Mr. Will, it is 2014. Are the glaciers all melted?”)
All in the name of science.
“Why climate warming is so critical for polar bears is a simple concept and easily understood, even by children. Polar bears need ice to be able to hunt their primary prey: marine mammals, primarily seals. No ice means no ice bear. That isn’t complicated to understand.”
Even by children who are no longer taught logic. If the ice disappears (recent couple of years suggests were not in a death spiral by any means), then the seals become shore seals, like they are outside the arctic and the bear has a linear hunting ground instead of a more difficult two dimensional one. This has happened in the Arctic before: driftwood and beach sand dunes on the now ice bound north coast of Greenland as one piece of strong evidence.
I wonder if the iron curtain coming down wasn’t a soc_ialist invasion of western universities and institutions, greenpeace, editorships, NGOs…. We WERE dealing with a nation of chess players. A bit fanciful perhaps, but a good plot for a Ludlum novel.
According to “Polar Bear Science” the polar bear population is increasing. The only real threat from climate change is if the climate scientists spend the money they’re getting from the taxpayers on polar bear hunting trips.
Inconveniently, archaeological digs show that PB populations surged in warm eras. Their ice adaptations enable them to survive cold ones, while other bear varieties can only flee south. (And where PB and Kodiak populations overlap, cross-breeding occurs. With, AFAIK and IIRC, fertile offspring. )
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It sounds like you have a daughter that can think and you can be proud of and you can be thankful (and proud of your parenting) that she comes to you with such things.
May I suggest that you tell her on the test to answer as the teacher expects to avoid the F to show she knows what was
taughtpropounded in the classroom. You help her to separate the science from the scatology. If she’s up to it, she can then say that she knows what the expected answer is but offer the other answer.Tom O says: @ur momisugly April 15, 2014 at 5:59 am
…..Yes, the more you look, the more the SCAM does show up. I wonder why it takes so long for the “average indoctrinated world citizen” to see this farce…..
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
What makes you think the average citizen hasn’t seen this farce for what it is?
First the MSNBC pollwas still open on April 9th, there were 12K votes and the vote was 82% NO! (9,976 votes) (Now it is still 12K and 81% NO!)
Then there was the bloggie awards. Skeptic blogs won seven out of thirty awards even though the rules were changed to get rid of the science and technology awards. Many of the awards were for catagories like “Best Fashion or Beauty Weblog” or “Best Parenting or Family Weblog” or “Best Pet or Animal Weblog” so Skeptics did quite well in the categories in which they possibly qualified. <a href="http://2014.bloggi.es/
Remember the ordinary citizen does not control the Mass Media. The Mass Media, trying to take advantage of the herd mentality of most humans, is censoring not only the articles but also the comments so the perception that the vast majority agree with the Warmist position is projected to the population but that is not what is really going on in the background and people have become wise to this.
If the skeptics were not such a major threat to the Warmist position we would be ignored not silenced and vilified.
We’ve been needing to “act now” for at least a couple of decades already. If the general public are still swallowing this crap, is it because they have short memories, or is it because the “act now” mantra has been passed on to another generation?
I do not think that “quorum” is the correct collective noun for drama queens.
I suggest the following;
A shrieking of drama queens
A panic of drama queens
A flapping of drama queens
….
“sea ice is now disappearing even more quickly than once predicted by several different models.”
Total sea ice is increasing, at least at the [poles]. So which models predicted that sea ice would increase even more than it has?
Reminder: polar bears are omnivores. They don’t eat ice. They don’t need ice. Just… ask them.
Is there any proof polar bears eat humans? Why I ask is that I know Grizzly bears do, and other bears who attack humans, but generally you won’t find humans on ice flows where the bears hunt. The males are known to eat young cubs. No fatherly love there. Pretty hard to find prey if it is dark during the polar winters.
Using this is as a metaphor, is like saying humans will have to hibernate too, like bears. Wish Mann would but that’s what .I would like to see, preferably alongside a mother bear with cubs.
If this woman thinks we are like polar bears, has she missed something from her biology and zoology research? We can adapt and run from a polar bear and are advised too.
@ur momisugly Jeff in Calgary says: “The CAGW crew has been using data from a new counting method to try to show that the population is currently decreasing.”
The new method is based on counting the number of polar bear legs and dividing by six.
🙂
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I did some checking but this is all I could find.
The National Park Rangers are advising hikers in Glacier National Park and other Rocky Mountain parks to be alert for bears and take extra precautions to avoid an encounter.
They advise park visitors to wear little bells on their clothes so they make noise when hiking. The bell noise allows bears to hear them coming from a distance and not be startled by a hiker accidentally sneaking up on them. This might cause a bear to charge.
Visitors should also carry a pepper spray can just in case a bear is encountered. Spraying the pepper into the air will irritate the bear’s sensitive nose and it will run away.
It is also a good idea to keep an eye out for fresh bear scat so you have an idea if bears are in the area. People should be able to recognize the difference between black bear and grizzly bear scat.
Black bear droppings are smaller and often contain berries, leaves, and possibly bits of fur. Grizzly bear droppings tend to contain small bells and smell of pepper.
No mention of polar bears.
re: polar bears consuming humans, a story from the Bering Sea:
“At midday, when the sun had risen a little above the horizon, a large party went out to the spot and found the bear finishing his feast upon the other hunter and soon dispatched him. Cases similar to this occur occasionally all along the coast where the bear is found in winter.”
From this post: http://polarbearscience.com/2014/01/06/polar-bears-in-winter-starving-bears-and-attacks-on-humans/
And regarding human-polar bear “conflicts,” from this post: http://polarbearscience.com/2013/11/17/human-polar-bear-conflicts-stirling-1974-vs-amstrup-2013/
Ian Stirling, 1974:
“Dr. Stirling felt that complete cessation of hunting, such as exists in Norway, may increase bear-man conflicts. Dr. Reimers replied that the careful harvesting of polar bears was probably desirable, but the total ban now in effect was largely an emotional and political decision rather than a biological one. Last year four bears were killed in self-defense.”
(1974 PBSG meeting “Norway – progress reported by [Thor] Larsen”; Anonymous 1976:11).
Stephen Amstrup, 2013:
“We have predicted in no uncertain times [sic – terms?] that as bears become hungrier as the sea ice absence period is longer, more and more of these animals are going to be venturing into communities, venturing into villages, raiding food caches, getting into garbage, and even attacking people. So we predict these kinds of events are going to be more frequent and more severe because of climate change.”
(The Guardian, November 4, 2013).
Thanks for the polar bear info. Maybe they don’t hibernate in winter like other bears? I find that strange, especially in the Arctic when sunlight is reduced. Sounds stupid, but why don’t these alarmists erected warning signs around where polar bears roam. “Keep out polar bears can kill you” (Unless you have a bleedin’ big gun with you). I wonder how Inuits fare with them? Another question eh? I saw a doco where a mother bear was coming out of hybernation from a snow drift, and a male eating a cub.
I have a funny email somewhere, that announced, “polar bear attacks man and he survives” It was a little cub pulling on his trouser leg in play.