Reposted from Polar Bear Science
January 27, 2020 on Attenborough’s Arctic Betrayal: New video reveals that terrorizing young children about climate began with polar bears
My newest video released today summarizes the strong polar bear component to the terrorization of the world’s children about climate change, which began for many youngsters in 2006 with the BBC and Sir David Attenborough’s commentaries about the dire future of polar bears – and continues to this day. Kids get their climate change information from watching Attenborough documentaries at home and in school because they are trusted sources of information, but on the topic of Arctic victims of climate change, that trust has been betrayed.
Many children and young adults worldwide, including 16 year old Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunburg, have been presented with such emotionally-charged and deceptive information about the Arctic through Attenborough’s productions that many have lost hope for the future. These despondent kids, as well as their parents and teachers, need reminding that while summer sea ice has indeed declined over the last few decades, polar bears, walrus, and other Arctic species are thriving (Aars 2018; Boveng 2016; Crockford 2017, 2018, 2019a, b; Kovacs 2016; Lowry 2015; MacCracken et al. 2017; Obbard et al. 2016; Rode et al. 2014, 2018).
Here is the video (13 minutes):
The press release issued by the Global Warming Policy Forum states:
It is the responsibility of teachers and parents to reassure these worried youngsters that polar bears and walrus are not suffering because of sea ice loss blamed on climate change. Children need to be told the truth: that whatever scary stories some biologists come up with about what might happen in the future, Arctic species have demonstrated that they are much more resilient to changes in sea ice than Attenborough’s films suggest.
The GWPF is sending copies of this video to all head teachers of UK schools together with a letter, telling them that they are responsible for the mental health of their pupils and that they have a responsibility to provide their pupils with accurate information about the state of wildlife in the Arctic.
The letter sent to head teachers will include a list of verifiable facts, with references, listed here.
Below is my timeline, with references, and below the references is a list of previous videos on this topic.
2006: In the BBC TV special, ‘The Truth About Climate Change: Part 1’ (available to teachers throughout Europe on DVD by 2008), polar bear researcher Nick Lunn is on screen and provides misleading information that suggests bears are being harmed by lack of sea ice in Western Hudson Bay. He tells broadcaster David Attenborough that females have been starving and their cubs dying because of reduced summer sea ice, in spite of documented evidence that similar phenomena happened in the 1980s and early 1990s before ice loss was an issue.
As I explain in my book, The Polar Bear Catastrophe That Never Happened, the only way that Lunn got away with this slight-of-hand (e.g. Stirling, Lunn and Iacozza 1999) – which he and colleagues Ian Stirling and Andrew Derocher are still doing – was by deliberately ignoring data collected in the 60s and 70s. Inclusion of those early years of data (e.g. Derocher and Stirling 1992) show weight loss and cub survival dropped inexplicably in the 80s and early 90s (before reduced ice was an issue) compared to the 60s and 70s, and then dropped again in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when it was claimed climate change was to blame.
Derocher and Stirling 1992, Fig. 2 lower panel shows weight of adult female polar bears with cubs in autumn from 1965-1990.
2009 aside: After successfully getting polar bears listed as ‘threatened’ on the US Endangered Species List (which was international news in 2008), in 2009 polar bear scientists again exaggerated their evidence that bears were being harmed by lack of sea ice. Conservation organizations like PBI and WWF interpreted the 2009 IUCN PBSG report as saying that many regions of the Arctic now showed population declines. In reality, the report showed that only two populations surveyed that had shown a documented decline while four were either stable or increasing; several other populations were assumed to have declined because September ice extent had declined (e.g. Chukchi Sea) and the global population size had not changed (Obbard et al. 2010).
2011: In the climate change episode of his BBC Frozen Planet series called ‘On Thin Ice’, Sir David Attenborough repeated the above NGO misinformation from 2009 that polar bear numbers had been falling “in many regions” and told viewers that polar bear mothers and cubs were starving, even while showing fat healthy bears (below). This was shown in the UK and Europe early in the year, in December in the USA and was available worldwide on DVD by 2012.
2011: Greta Thunberg was about 8 years old in 2011 and says that’s about the time she began to be shown films of starving polar bears and other environmental calamities at school. These films caused her such distress that by early 2014 (at age 11) she had stopped eating and going to school. Below from the BBC (23 April 2019):
It was probably the BBC’s ‘On Thin Ice’ episode that Greta was shown but there were undoubtedly others, like the 2006 Attenborough-narrated BBC special from 2006. We cannot be certain exactly what films Greta was shown by her teachers (and it’s unlikely she knows herself) but the release date of the “On Thin Ice’ episode suggests it played a significant role even if it was not the only influence.
However, it seems Attenborough’s words about starving polar bears stuck with Greta more than the images of the fat bears that appeared in the film because published images of starving bears were rare over that 2011-2013 time period (see below): only one widely publicized incident falls within that period (and even then, only in the last six months of it) although there were at least two afterwards. In other words, I doubt Greta saw images of starving polar bears in 2011 or 2012 but she certainly heard about them in Attenborough’s films – which the 2013 incident would have reinforced.
2015 aside: Summer sea ice had declined even further in the Arctic by this time, to about 42% less than was present in 1979. However, the estimate of global polar bear numbers rose slightly, from the ca. 24,500 cited by the USGS in 2005 to 26,000 (range 22,000-31,000) using similar methods. There had been no catastrophic decline in polar bear numbers as had been predicted.
2015: BBC Earth episode ‘The Hunt’ – about adapting to seasonal ice changes – features a Svalbard skinny bear hunting a bearded seal.
2017: BBC’s ‘Blue Planet II’ shows walrus mothers and calves on melting ice floes and so-called ‘desperate’ polar bears hunting them.
2019: Greta is enraged at political inaction on climate change and makes a speech to the UN in late September.
2019: BBC’s ‘Seven Worlds, One Planet: Asia’ (shown in November in the UK, scheduled for release in North America in January 2020) shows huge beach haulouts and several ‘hungry’ polar bears driving walrus over the cliff, all falsely blamed on climate change. Another episode of the series (‘North America’) shows fat polar bears hunting beluga from shore, which is falsely claimed to have never happened before (Smith and Sjare 1990) amid suggestions the bears are doing it because they are desperately hungry.
2019: In mid-December, seven-and-eight-year olds in Toronto are shown Greta’s speech to ‘inspire’ them to act on climate change and some are traumatized by it. Such actions by teachers give undeserved credence to Thunburg’s jaundiced view of the world and pass it along to younsters ill-prepared to assess its validity. As a consequence, the misinformation about polar bears that Greta received as a child from Attenborough’s films is causing many more young children to be terrified about the future of the world.
Second-last day of 2019: Greta is invited to be guest editor of a special New Years Eve BBC Radio 4 broadcast on climate change featuring Sir David Attenborough, in spite of long-standing accusations of BBC bias on this topic (Booker 2011), including very recent complaints: read here – listen here. For the first time, Greta is face to face with Attenborough (via Skype), the one person most responsible for providing the fake news about dying polar bears that so disturbed her back in 2011. In her interview, she acknowledged his role, saying,
“…thank you for that, because that was what made me decide to do something about it.”
Conclusion: By early 2019, the misinformation fed to Attenborough by biologists had been exposed and most rational people realized that polar bears were doing fine despite declining summer sea ice. Hollow tales about a bleak future for polar bears had lost their power to impress the public and the use of starving bears to emotionally manipulate viewers backfired once people discovered that starvation is the leading natural cause of death for this species.
As a consequence, a number of climate change activists and their promoters declared the polar bear immaterial to their cause. The false starving polar bear meme had come back to bite them and it was time to move on. In May 2019, the New York Times proclaimed that “These Days, It’s Not About the Polar Bears” (showing a picture of fat Belushya Guba bears). and by October, the Guardian announced a formal policy decision to eschew polar bear images when promoting their climate change emergency narrative. Activist biologists and their supporters were still frantically trying to keep the polar bear relevant but were rapidly losing ground: they over-sold their case and lost.
There is no indication Greta has ever questioned or thought critically about her initial impressions on the status of polar bears that she got from the films she saw in school when she was a very young child. Apparently, she believes every word Attenborough utters now, as she did then, as if he was some kind of messiah rather than the uncritical conduit for biased messages he truly is. Sir David Attenborough never questioned his sources and neither has Greta. Both are out of touch with reality on what is happening in the Arctic and it has tarnished their outlook on life: Attenborough, at 93, is no better informed than Greta, at 17. What a waste.
References
Aars, J. 2018. Population changes in polar bears: protected, but quickly losing habitat. Fram Forum Newsletter 2018. Fram Centre, Tromso. Download pdf here (32 mb).
Booker, C. 2011. The BBC and Climate Change: A Triple Betrayal. Global Warming Policy Foundation Report #5. London. Pdf here.
Boveng, P. 2016. Pusa hispida ssp. hispida. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2016: e.T61382318A61382321. http://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-1.RLTS.T61382318A61382321.en.
Crockford, S.J. 2017. Testing the hypothesis that routine sea ice coverage of 3-5 mkm2 results in a greater than 30% decline in population size of polar bears (Ursus maritimus). PeerJ Preprints 19 January 2017. Doi: 10.7287/peerj.preprints.2737v1 Open access. https://peerj.com/preprints/2737/
Crockford, S.J. 2018. State of the Polar Bear Report 2017. Global Warming Policy Foundation Report #29. London. pdf.
Crockford, S.J. 2019a. State of the Polar Bear Report 2018. Global Warming Policy Foundation Report 32, London.
Crockford, S.J. 2019b. The Polar Bear Catastrophe That Never Happened. Global Warming Policy Foundation, London. Available in paperback and ebook formats.
Derocher, A.E. and Stirling, I. 1992. The population dynamics of polar bears in western Hudson Bay. pg. 1150-1159 in D. R. McCullough and R. H. Barrett, eds. Wildlife 2001: Populations. Elsevier Sci. Publ., London, U.K.
Abstract. Reproductive output of polar bears in western Hudson Bay declined through the 1980’s from higher levels in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Age of first reproduction increased slightly and the rate of litter production declined from 0.45 to 0.35 litters/female/year over the study, indicating that the reproductive interval had increased. Recruitment of cubs to autumn decreased from 0.71 to 0.53 cubs/female/year. Cub mortality increased from the early to late 1980’s. Litter size did not show any significant trend or significant annual variation due to an increase in loss of the whole litter. Mean body weights of females with cubs in the spring and autumn declined significantly. Weights of cubs in the spring did not decline, although weights of both female and male cubs declined over the study. The population is approximately 60% female, possibly due to the sex-biased harvest. Although estimates of population size are not available from the whole period over which we have weight and reproductive data, the changes in reproduction, weight, and cub mortality are consistent with the predictions of a densitydependent response to increasing population size. [my bold]
Kovacs, K.M. 2016. Erignathus barbatus . The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2016: e.T8010A45225428. http://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-1.RLTS.T8010A45225428.en.
Lowry, L. 2015. Odobenus rosmarus ssp. divergens. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2015: e.T61963499A45228901. http://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2015-4.RLTS.T61963499A45228901.en.
MacCracken, J.G., Beatty, W.S., Garlich-Miller, J.L., Kissling, M.L and Snyder, J.A. 2017. Final Species Status Assessment for the Pacific Walrus (Odobenus rosmarus divergens), May 2017 (Version 1.0). US Fish & Wildlife Service, Anchorage, AK. Pdf here (8.6 mb).
Obbard, M.E., Cattet, M.R.I., Howe, E.J., Middel, K.R., Newton, E.J., Kolenosky, G.B., Abraham, K.F. and Greenwood, C.J. 2016. Trends in body condition in polar bears (Ursus maritimus) from the Southern Hudson Bay subpopulation in relation to changes in sea ice. Arctic Science 2:15-32. 10.1139/AS-2015-0027 http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/AS-2015-0027#.VvFtlXpUq50
Obbard, M.E., Theimann, G.W., Peacock, E. and DeBryn, T.D. (eds.) 2010. Polar Bears: Proceedings of the 15th meeting of the Polar Bear Specialists Group IUCN/SSC, 29 June-3 July, 2009, Copenhagen, Denmark. Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge UK, IUCN. http://pbsg.npolar.no/en/meetings/
Rode, K.D., Regehr, E.V., Douglas, D., Durner, G., Derocher, A.E., Thiemann, G.W., and Budge, S. 2014. Variation in the response of an Arctic top predator experiencing habitat loss: feeding and reproductive ecology of two polar bear populations. Global Change Biology 20(1):76-88. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.12339/abstract
Rode, K. D., R. R. Wilson, D. C. Douglas, V. Muhlenbruch, T.C. Atwood, E. V. Regehr, E.S. Richardson, N.W. Pilfold, A.E. Derocher, G.M Durner, I. Stirling, S.C. Amstrup, M. S. Martin, A.M. Pagano, and K. Simac. 2018. Spring fasting behavior in a marine apex predator provides an index of ecosystem productivity. Global Change Biology http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.13933/full
Smith, T.G. and Sjare, B. 1990. Predation of belugas and narwhals by polar bears in nearshore areas of the Canadian High Arctic. Arctic 43(2):99-102. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14430/arctic1597
Stirling, I., Lunn, N.J. and Iacozza, J. 1999. Long-term trends in the population ecology of polar bears in Western Hudson Bay in relation to climate change. Arctic 52:294-306.
http://arctic.synergiesprairies.ca/arctic/index.php/arctic/article/view/935/960
Previous GWPF videos on the Arctic, polar bears and walrus
“Healthy Polar Bears, Less Than Healthy Science” — a 2014 interview
with Dr Susan Crockford. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eg7R2GYvQz8
“The Walrus Fuss – Walrus haulouts are nothing new” — On the 2014
story that a large walrus haulout was a sign of climate change.
“A Brief History of Arctic Angst” — 2016. Dr David Whitehouse gives
an overview of Arctic sea ice alarmism in the climate debate.
“Polar Bear Scare Unmasked: The Saga of a Toppled Global Warming
Icon”. – 2017. Dr Susan Crockford argues that the use of the polar
bear as a symbol of climate change has no basis in facts.
“GWPFTV – Susan Crockford – The Death of a Climate Icon.” — Susan
Crockford explains why the polar bear no longer serves as an icon of
climate change. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCzwFalI8OQ
“State of the Polar Bear Report 2017” — Overview of the the GWPF’s
State of the Polar Bear Report.
“Dr Susan Crockford — White Lie: The Cruel Abuse of a Starving Polar
Bear” — 2018. A response to the images of a starving polar bear used
by campaigning organisations to advance their agenda.
“Netflix, Attenborough and cliff-falling walruses: the making of a
false climate icon” — A response to the WWF/Netflix campaigning
documentary which falsely claimed that walrus populations were
suffering from global warming.
“The truth about Attenborough’s falling walruses” — 2019. An update
to the story of the false claims in the WWF/Netflix documentary.
“Susan Crockford: No climate emergency for polar bears” — 2019. Dr
Susan Crockford argues that polar bears are not as vulnerable to sea
ice loss as campaigners claim.
“Susan Crockford | The Polar Bear Catastrophe That Never Happened” –
2019. A lecture by Susan Crockford on polar bear science and her
experience of challenging orthodoxy in academia.
“Falling Walrus: Attenborough Tacitly Admits Netflix Deception” –
2019. How the BBC’s Seven Worlds One Planet episode on walrus and
polar bear reveals that the WWF/Netflix Our planet eposide misled
viewers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5Ji6ME3Vlo
David Utterbollocks should have been put out to grass years ago.
Emrys Jones
He should have been, instead, my belief is he used his connections in the BBC, as former controller of BB2, to have David Bellamy ousted from the corporation so his personal path to naturalist stardom went unhindered.
I had never thought of the two being connected before. It’s a good point.
Two Davids, one is a tv presenter who became celebrity naturalist, while the other was trained botanist and later university professor naturalist who became celebrity.
He certainly abused his power at BBC2 to make life “difficult” for Bellamy. The BBC is rife with unbridled corruption and a hiding place for child abusers (Savile and Harris to name two).
Bellamy was a conservationist. Attenborough long ago morphed into a full-on environmentalist. This can happen if one spends too long cocooned from common sense.
Emrys Jones says:
David Utterbollocks should have been put out to grass years ago.
Relieved you said grass & not stud…..
If Polar bears were in danger of extinction, why are there 500 a year culled by issuing licences to kill?
And why has the population increased dramatically, in spite of the annual cull (plus poaching by natives)?
Not good.
The “Disneyfication” of wild animals continues apace.
People have died because of this, but nobody will ever be charged.
I wish they would Disneyfy themselves and like Disney’s fabricated portrayal of lemmings, run off the cliff en masse.
Thunberg turned 17 earlier this year. Still no wiser, I’m sure.
Well, Attenborough may have tacitly admitted deception over the walrus incident, but it did not stop TVNZ showing that film about 2 weeks ago with no comment or correction. The lies continue, an Attenborough’s legacy will be of lies and deception over walruses, polar bears, and maybe many other things. If even one child comes to harm through becoming depressed about things which are not happening, he should be held personally responsible, as should the MSM which enables him to publicise his nonsense. He thus loses the support of those he wishes to convince about the value of animal life and welfare – the hypocrite.
It’s worse than that. There were polar bears approaching, so the walruses were desparate to escape. They put a drone over the path back to the beach which frightened the walruses so they wouldn’t use it. Utterbollocks and his team have a lot of blood on their hands. The only question is: did he know what was going on, or was he safe on the ship whilst his team got on with it.
Well, Attenborough may have tacitly admitted deception over the walrus incident, but it did not stop TVNZ showing that film about 2 weeks ago with no comment or correction. The lies continue, and Attenborough’s legacy will be of lies and deception over walruses, polar bears, and maybe many other things. If even one child comes to harm through becoming depressed about things which are not happening, he should be held personally responsible, as should the MSM which enables him to publicise his nonsense. He thus loses the support of those he wishes to convince about the value of animal life and welfare – the hypocrite.
My next door neighbour is Depute Head of a Primary School. I will try to find out if she sees this letter, or find out if the Head just bins it.
On December 23, 2019 I emailed the following letter to the President of the Alberta Teachers Association (ATA) with a copy to the Minister of Education. To date, I have received only a computer-generated receipt from the Ministry and nothing from the ATA.
In summary, I am putting these climate propagandists and scare-mongers on notice – they cannot claim they were not clearly advised of their egregious misconduct. Specifically:
“This letter serves to put you, the ATA and its members on notice that promotion of the climate scare is false propaganda that is causing harm to our children.”
This false climate propaganda is being trumpeted in schools all over the Western world – I suggest each of you has a responsibility to try to stop this child abuse.
Regards, Allan
__________________________________
PLEASE CONFIRM RECEIPT BY RETURN EMAIL
December 23, 2019
Jason C Schilling
President, Alberta Teachers Association
Cc: Hon. Adriana LaGrange
Minister of Education
Subject: The Alberta Teachers Association (ATA) and the False Crisis of Global Warming Alarmism
Hello Mr. Schilling,
I have a daughter in Grade 6 in a Calgary Public School, and I am very happy with her school and its capable and dedicated teachers.
I should also advise you that this letter has been reviewed by some of the most competent scientists in the world.
The following presentation by Michelle Stirling is a well-informed rebuttal of Tzeporah Berman’s climate speech to the Alberta Teachers Association (ATA):
https://blog.friendsofscience.org/2018/12/18/were-smarter-than-this-michelle-stirlings-rebuttal-to-tzeporah-bermans-speech-to-the-alberta-teachers-association/
The science and politics of global warming alarmism is an area of my expertise, and I probably know more about this subject than anyone in the ATA. I have an accomplished career on six continents and have made outstanding contributions to the well-being of Calgary, Alberta and Canada.
Based on my two engineering degrees and my decades of analysis of this topic since ~1985, I conclude that global warming alarmism is a false crisis. One of my recent publications is included below.
I am concerned that school children are being propagandized and some are suffering from extreme anxiety due to fears of runaway global warming.
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/were-going-to-die-toronto-mother-says-young-daughter-terrified-by-school-presentation-on-climate-change
It is simply child abuse to support this false propaganda. I am shocked to learn that climate activist Steve Lee “has already spoken at dozens of student assemblies at high schools in Edmonton, Calgary and across Canada”.
https://edmontonjournal.com/business/local-business/david-staples-oil-and-gas-and-cattle-industries-under-fire-at-canadian-schools
It is truly wrong for Alberta teachers to encourage our children to take a radical position on this false crisis. It is even more wrong to encourage the irrational fear that is destroying the feelings of safety and security of our children.
This letter serves to put you, the ATA and its members on notice that promotion of the climate scare is false propaganda that is causing harm to our children.
Yours truly, Allan MacRae
B.A.Sc.(Eng.), M.Eng.
Reference:
CO2, GLOBAL WARMING, CLIMATE AND ENERGY
by Allan M.R. MacRae, B.A.Sc., M.Eng., June 13, 2019
https://thsresearch.files.wordpress.com/2019/06/co2-global-warming-climate-and-energy-june2019-final.pdf
Excel: https://thsresearch.files.wordpress.com/2019/06/co2-global-warming-climate-and-energy-june2019-final-3-1.xlsx
Emailed today – 3Feb2020.
PLEASE CONFIRM RECEIPT BY RETURN EMAIL
I HAVE RECEIVED ONLY A COMPUTER-GENERATED RECEIPT FOR MY 23DEC2019 EMAIL FROM THE MINISTER OF EDUCATION AND NOTHING FROM THE ATA
Jason C Schilling
President, Alberta Teachers Association
Cc: Hon. Adriana LaGrange
Minister of Education
Subject: The Alberta Teachers Association (ATA) and the False Crisis of Global Warming Alarmism – Part 2
Hello Mr. Schilling,
My friend Dr Susan Crockford, Canada’s leading expert on polar bears, has published the following treatise on how children have been traumatized by false propaganda depicting polar bear starvation, allegedly caused by humanmade global warming.
ATTENBOROUGH’S ARCTIC BETRAYAL: NEW VIDEO REVEALS THAT TERRORIZING YOUNG CHILDREN ABOUT CLIMATE BEGAN WITH POLAR BEARS
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/02/03/attenboroughs-arctic-betrayal-new-video-reveals-that-terrorizing-young-children-about-climate-began-with-polar-bears/
Dr Crockford is far more competent to opine on this subject that anyone at the ATA. She states that polar bear and walrus populations are thriving.
This letter further serves to put you, the ATA and its members on notice that promotion of the climate scare is false propaganda that is causing harm to our children.
Yours truly, Allan MacRae
B.A.Sc.(Eng.), M.Eng.
MacRae
Nothing wrong with trying to change minds with your letters …
But how can you expect to change a climate alarmist’s mind with real science when his, or her, apocalyptic climate change beliefs were never based on real science in the first place.
It would be easier to teach your cat to sing, than to change a leftist mind about climate change.
The brainwashed fanatic Climate Jugend will defend their Fuhrers until the end. If you want to change the system you first have to get progressives out of education.
Allan
Did you hear on CBC today that Saskatchewan is trying to de-platform our favourite ex-Greenpeace leader Dr Moore who was hired to speak at a sustainability conference?
It might be worth a letter to the mayor.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/climate-skeptic-speak-at-sustainability-conference-regina-1.5448458
Thank you Crispin – I just emailed Patrick to see if/how I can help.
I included my latest paper:
THE CATASTROPHIC ANTHROPOGENIC GLOBAL WARMING (CAGW) AND THE HUMANMADE CLIMATE CHANGE CRISES ARE PROVED FALSE
By Allan M.R. MacRae, B.A.Sc.(Eng.), M.Eng., January 10, 2020
https://thsresearch.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/the-catastrophic-anthropogenic-global-warming-cagw-and-the-humanmade-climate-change-crises-are-proved-false.pdf
Will Soon, Darwin Risdon and I emailed the Mayor of Regina urging that Patrick Moore be allowed to speak.
They want to be lied to.
Cognitive Dissonance and dicomfort avoidance is at play here.
Their blissful ignorance on polar bear reality costs them nothing. And it allows them to feel morally superior and while pursuing virtue signaling notoriety. That they are deceiving others is the moral hazard and being used a by a corrupt GreenSlime still costs them nothng as long as the media is so complicit that it remains silent and uncritical.
No one is immune from cognitive dissonance. I recognize it in myself when I see it in my support for President Trump and he does something cringe worthy, usually in a tweet. I just have to realize he’s the far better choice of an even worse choice from the Democrats.
Have to agree. Still perhaps someone could remind the president of his Miranda rights, starting with, “You have the right to remain silent.”
Have to agree. Still, perhaps someone could remind the president of his Miranda rights, starting with, “You have the right to remain silent.”
90% of polar bears are being bleached by Siberian penguins falling off of coral reefs in Patagonia.
You’re a focused guy, David S., and I am sure you are 97% closer to the truth that Attenborough/Thunberg.
Attenborough’s aged simple-mindedness is no excuse. He should still have the capacity to check what others are writing for him to read. Or was it a one-off?
I suspect the Child Abuse by fearmongering started a lot sooner than Attenborough.
Check out You Tubes 1960s The Ice Caps are melting by Tiny Tim.
Particularly the children’s faces.
Children are easily gulled,so are the natural target of Con Artists,that so many adults remain exceedingly gullible ..points to the success of government run educational institutions.
A Republic requires educated,sceptical ,free thinking citizens to succeed.
Democracy goes with the mob,so lurches from one stampede to the next.
Kleptocracy requires gullible citizens to continue.
As a cynical aside,Ontario Canada the teachers unions are striking..again.They need to be very careful or even Ontarians will come to realize;They do not need the teachers.If the result is to be illiterate,innumerate unthinking junior citizens.
Who needs schooling for that?
Cut out the middle men, to produce a “product” unable to function in a technological society,does not take 12 years and massive public extortion.
I had the lovely experience of a Grade 12 Graduate,unable to use a tape measure..Yet “graduated with honours”.
Is the whole “Public School” Public Indoctrination” System not Child Abuse?
Forced to watch Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” and usually forced to pretend agreement with it’s premise.
Maybe cavorting with the wild bears would be less damaging to the average students mental health?
The Ice Caps are melting by Tiny Tim
Santa himself: “Christmas 2013 might be cancelled!
https://youtu.be/wr2LCTdIzd4
and the famous 10 : 10 No Pressure
….the day the science died.
I read this posting, and I admire Dr. Susan Crockford for her good work and courage, but the truth is it led to flashbacks for me. I worked in Alaska in the Alaska Range in 1967, a summer job while in college. Two of us stayed at a guides grizzly bear hunting camp, a canvas tent on a wood floor. Giant grizzly bears everywhere. It is hard to imagine how attention-demanding it is to be twenty feet from an angry, aggressive, enraged, grizzly bear (I used the term “attention-demanding” instead of terrified because I am a gold exploration geologist and we are not terrified). This is how I washed my face: put the 44 mag next to the wash basin in front of the tent, lather up hands, look around, wash face and quickly rinse eyes, grab the 44 and look around expecting to see a charge! Sure, I hope the polar bears survive and fill their role in the dynamic balance of nature, but jeez, you have no idea what big bears are really like.
When my late older brother was sent to Kodiak Island by the USMC for amphibious assault training (ca. 1965-66) he bought a Ruger single-six .44 magnum, just in case his M14 couldn’t put down a Kodiak Bear… At least that’s what I remember him telling me back in the 70’s.
An M-14 firing the NATO standard 5.56mm round (.223 caliber) would just make a big male grizzly mad.
The M14 is 7.62 mm, basically same round as the M1, .30-06. The Marines were forced to switch to the 5.56 mm M16 during his 1967 deployment to RVN. Being a squad leader, he usually opted to carry a pump shotgun or M79 grenade launcher and .45 ACP.
Still does not stand up to the LA1A SLR and 7.62 round, an originally Belgian design. I was good with that to about 600m (Pushing it).
7.62 is .308 Still a 30 caliber round but different chamber pressures
It’s packs a helluva lot more punch than .30 caliber M1 Carbine rounds.
I watched “The Revenant” ( https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1663202/ ). Does that count?
I might like to see that movie, but can no longer provide a nickel of support for anything that hypocrite jackass DiCaprio is involved in.
Did see “The Edge” though. Does that count?
Thanks for your continued work to provide documentary information and scientific interpretation of the polar bear issue. I especially appreciate the following words from this post:
“Apparently, she believes every word Attenborough utters now, as she did then, as if he was some kind of messiah rather than the uncritical conduit for biased messages he truly is. Sir David Attenborough never questioned his sources and neither has Greta. Both are out of touch with reality on what is happening in the Arctic and it has tarnished their outlook on life: Attenborough, at 93, is no better informed than Greta, at 17. What a waste.”
The psychological damage done by the CAGW crowd is shameful. My sister-in-law is depressed by it. This is not right. I fear what is happening in our elementary and secondary schools.
You need to become familiar with the left’s “March through the institutions”, education being the earliest and most important objective. Then you can understand the near complete victory this climate hysteria is for them. Thoughtful people ARE waking up and gobbling red pills, but there are fewer and fewer thoughtful people, and far less in non-European heritage immigrant populations invading the West.
I’m sorry “Sir” David. Too late. You destroyed your legacy as a purveyor of facts about nature long ago. And I emphasis YOU because YOU were responsible for the content of your programs.
On more cheerful note, it has been suggested that we are heading for a Maunder Minimum kind of collapse in solar activity. As things stand at the moment in the past two years the current solar minimum is in step following the last one.
(comparison of SC23/24 minima is here: http://www.vukcevic.co.uk/SN23-24min.htm )
If the retracing is continued for another 6 months, the SC24 min by then will be well over, indicating an unlikely Grand Minimum, at least not yet.
Thank you Vuk.
Remember the extreme cold in 2009?
The PDO went negative and the world cooled from about 2008-2014, and then the PDO went positive again culminating in the ~2017 El Nino.
The PDO correlates well with global average temperature. Major volcanoes El Chichon (1982) and Pinatubo (1991+) disrupt the relationship.
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/jisao-pdo/from:1979/plot/uah6/scale:4
The PDO correlates even better with detrended global average temperature – detrending is used here only to demonstrate the correlation.. As stated above, major volcanoes El Chichon (1982) and Pinatubo (1991+) disrupt the relationship. The effect of volcanoes can be compensated using the Sato optical air index and then the correlation is almost perfect. As expected, the PDO leads temperature.
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/jisao-pdo/from:1979/plot/uah6/scale:4/detrend:1.0
The PDO data has not been updated since Sept2018.
http://research.jisao.washington.edu/pdo/PDO.latest.txt
My email to Nate Mantua:
The PDO data has not been updated since Sept2018. Why?
http://research.jisao.washington.edu/pdo/
http://research.jisao.washington.edu/pdo/PDO.latest.txt
Return email from Nate:
I left my job at UW in 2013, and they’ve decided not to maintain that page. Here’s a link for the latest values…
https://oceanview.pfeg.noaa.gov/erddap/tabledap/cciea_OC_PDO.htmlTable?time,PDO
I am not sure I get the point of this website. I thought that its purpose is to expose Climate Change ad its fake science as a hoax on the world by the UN?
How about more articles that expose the lies
Here is a good one.
Maybe the little brat Greta should have been here (Wyoming) for the winter of 1983-1984, with multiple feet of snow and -40F weather. My sister and I counted the dead antelope each evening coming home from work. They would get to a fence and be too week to cross. (Remove the fence, they die two days later. If they are that weak, they die. It was the deep snow and cold that killed them. The fence was just where they died.) Hundreds died. This repeated many times, with the cold and heavy snow always killing more antelope and mule deer than warmer winters. So Greta wants to “save the polar bear” and kill the antelope and Bambi. Maybe someone should explain reality to the ignorant little brat. (Maybe show a video of the bear ripping a screaming seal to pieces…..)
Whoever took those pictures of sick, skinny polar bears were lucky that they could get close enough to take a picture. If they encountered healthy polar bears (particularly a mother with cubs), the photographers had better keep their distance, if they don’t want to become dinner!
All animals, including humans, eventually become weaker with old age, and eventually die. Predatory animals such as polar bears can become weaker with age, less able to compete for food with younger, stronger animals, so the dying, skinny polar bears that were photographed could have been older animals near the end of their natural life span. This is probably true of other predatory animals that live in forests, but the older animals in forests try to hide to avoid being attacked by scavengers, and are not usually found by human beings. Since polar bears are usually out in the open (not in forests), it is easier to find an old, sick polar bear than an old, sick grizzly bear, wolf, mountain lion, or other predator.
It is also strange how some people equate less sea ice with problems for polar bears. The sea ice comes back every winter, and most of the Arctic Ocean and Hudson Bay are ice-covered to the coasts in winter, when the polar bears are hibernating. Polar bears mostly feed on seals and walruses when they come ashore in spring to mate, and seals and walruses (mammals!) need open water near the coast to be able to breathe on their way to the breeding ground, and in order to come ashore (they stay farther south, under open water, in winter).
In an unusually warm spring, the sea ice near the coast melts earlier, and the polar bears (hungry after fasting all winter) can feed a little earlier, which is probably to their benefit. In an unusually cold spring, the polar bears have to wait longer for the coastal ice to melt and for their prey to arrive, and will likely have lower body weight than in a warmer spring. In an extreme case, if the sea ice never melted, the seals and walruses would be forced to breed farther south, and the polar bears would have to migrate to find them!
So why do polar bears need sea ice?
“Whoever took those pictures of sick, skinny polar bears were lucky that they could get close enough to take a picture.”
Well, I like my chances getting away with the one with the very obvious broken foot…geeze, wonder why its starving?
(But I get your point).
They don’t, of course. Nor do they “need” the bitter cold. They are adapted to SURVIVE the bitter cold, but hardly “require” it (or the sea ice) to do so.
As always, it is extreme cold that would threaten them much more than the lack thereof. Cold kills, not warmth.
“slight-of-hand”
Should be “sleight-of-hand”
Bloomberg ran several ads on yesterday’s Super Bowl, one of which featured the polar bear. Incredible.
Activists have only a limited number of propaganda choices. WWF ran through theirs and is back with the polar bears, too. I guess they wait a few years for the young and empty-headed to get old enough to buy the lie…
+100, Craig!
I’ll believe it when I see it.
David Attenborough’s next BBC series Green Planet will be less ‘pious’ about climate change after viewers slammed past shows for being too ‘holier-than-thou’, confirms creative director
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7961225/David-Attenboroughs-BBC-series-Green-Planet-pious-climate-change.html
I saw adverts for the latest BBC “Series” that is to be aired soon in the US recently, but I will not watch it – I’m not interested in watching their propaganda.
Attenborough is a disgrace to decent civilisation. He has done more during his recent lifetime to falsify the ecological state of the world than any individual throughout ancient and modern history. He continues, with his unique ability to lie about the state of the planet and get away with it, but more seriously with the help of the BBC supported by much of the mainstream media, he has managed to put a huge financial break on the progress of world economies. Unless he and the BBCs endless desire to lie about the state of the planet ceases, he will bring the world to its knees. We should continue to hit Attenborough and the BBC hard on every occasion we can, and hope that the whole pack of cards will collapse before they do more serious damage to the world’s civilisation.
Something is missing.
The advisory to ATA is good, although a bit soft or week.
The greater issue is the missing advisory about what the teachers could show the children and young ones in the classroom.
Most ordinary teachers do not necessarily know a whole lot about the polar bears, at least not enough to create a catching 45 minutes. No idea if there already exists a children’s film about the happy life of polar bears and their increasing families. If there is such a film, it should be suggested to ATA.
With a name like Carl Friis-Hansen you may be familiar with
https://www.google.com/search?gs_ssp=eJzj4tLP1TfIMk4zqig2YPQSLEjNK87Mz1MoTs44vC0nJ7UIAJ9fCz4&q=pension+sch%C3%B6ller&oq=pension+&aqs=chrome.
Karl Lauf before a 100 ys already knew about globe trotting Global-Trotteln, Big game hunters and the exotic Indian widow burnings for tourist folklore.
Children should be terrorized by Polar Bears… They eat as many children as they can catch… 😎
I’ve been looking into remote Alaska real estate as a possible redoubt from the potential political violence surrounding the 2020 election, and the inevitable debt-driven economic reset SHTF. I’ve looked into the statistics of bear attacks, and there are surprisingly rare.
http://www.epi.alaska.gov/bulletins/docs/rr2019_02.pdf
I have children 7 to 14. I suspect they will not be eaten any more than they will be hit by cars here.
Tom Schaefer, anyway don’t stroll from an Alaskan home without a dog, an Alaskan Bear Revolver and the means to light a fire whenever / wherever needed.
Forgotten: there’s a ban on campfires.
https://www.google.com/search?client=ms-android-huawei&sxsrf=ACYBGNREFUXgi1RHdN_OFor3RBqHQJJcHw%3A1581787358502&ei=3ihIXsOeHvuHk74P342UkAQ&q=Alaska+Bear+Revolver&oq=Alaska+Bear+Revolver&gs_l=mobile-gws-wiz-serp.
https://www.google.com/search?q=campfire+ban+alaska&oq=Alaska+camp+fires+&aqs=chrome.
Once you have planted an emotionally charged belief in a person, confirmation bias will keep that belief safe from actual facts. Surround yourself with people who believe the same things, and you can become truly comfortable – like a virtual safe room.
Children are extremely susceptible to accepting emotionally charged ideas from adults, it’s in their DNA. Once you plant the idea, you merely have to keep repeating the same story line over and over to keep it strong. Liberals seem to know this instinctively, and that is why they now control all public forms of education including almost all public and private colleges and universities.
It isn’t until one has sufficient real-world experience that one is likely able to begin questioning their beliefs, and something has to trigger this self-reflection.
As for Polar Bears (or Kodiak, or Grizzly, or Brown) I have one reaction to seeing one close up in the wild – complete terror. Luckily I am never helpless – I was raised by true outdoors people who understood nature is red-in-the-tooth. I prefer the Polar bears stay on the ice…you might see them coming.
I am sure it’s a case of “follow the money” for Attenbourgh.
Last April, I was passing through London and secured a copy of a 4 page wraparound from the Daily Mail promoting Sir David Attenborough/ WWF and centred on the forthcoming ‘Our Planet’ movie.
It encouraged children to donate some 3 GBP per week to the WWF.
The hook in the 4 pages was photos of the threatened Asian Tiger and the Polar Bear and a call to adopt or sponsor same.
I had no quarrel with the former but I regarded the latter as little better than child extortion.
In Britain, presumably a considerable number of children have raided their piggy banks believing the plight of Polar Bears is dire.
You forgot the bears eating beluga whale BS, it took me ten minutes to prove that was a crock of shit.
Just looking at NSIDC data.
Looks like for 2nd Feb extent, 2020 is above all years back to 2004, except 2008 and 2009.
How can an alleged professional biological scientist maintain a straight face while spouting such childish sentimental tosh, implying that every death of a wild animal is a tragedy and an avoidable one. He moves quickly from the “tragic” death of starving polar bears to the equally tragic death of their natural prey, walruses. Of course children are swayed, but how can any half-educated adult have any other reaction than to either laugh or cry at such stupidity or cynical manipulation.
have these clowns ever heard of the predator prey cycle???
Is the failed polar bear game now being played with wildfires?
https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/02/02/tbgyozfire/
ROFLMAO. No way they can resist not being preachy.
“ROFLMAO. No way they can resist not being preachy.”
Yeah, well, they might not have a choice:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/neilmidgley/2014/06/03/bbc-news-division-to-cut-500-jobs/#1a6706d31f4e
Go woke, go broke…although like the CBC here in Canada, there will always be a taxpayer. Although there eventually might come along a Trump…
See also this article about his film “Climate change – the facts”:
“Attenborough’s climate film: more fiction than facts”
https://slowfox.wordpress.com/2019/08/27/attenboroughs-climate-film-more-fiction-than-facts/
Another programme https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-51458337
There’s real problems with animal hugging wild life concerned nature lovers:
https://www.google.com/search?client=ms-android-huawei&sxsrf=ACYBGNQAReuAHKYNhmdTZmN2ceNJYX1Ylw:1581785334262&q=sky+lanterns+animals+burning+krefeld+zoo&spell=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwilntbHgdTnAhVpkIsKHVLdDoUQBSgAegQICxAC&biw=360&bih=518