The polar bear has become the symbol of the plight of animals in the face of global warming. A new report appears to reaffirm the plight of these incredible animals. A study in the Ecological Applications journal reports that the number of polar bears in eastern Alaska and western Canada has declined by 40%. Perhaps the most unnerving disclosure is that just two of 80 polar bear cubs that the international team tracked between 2003 and 2007 have survived.
The numbers are staggering. The bear population in the area shrank to about 900 in 2010, down from about 1,600 in 2004.
Polar bears serve as a tragic type of canary in a cage for climatologists charting the progress of global warming. The news is obviously not good for them or for us.
The bears rely on ice flows and seal populations to survive. The distance at which they are required to swim has now gotten longer and more painful according to scientists. In one case, a mother had to swim nine days and 426 miles — resulting in her loss of 22% of her body weight. Her cub died.
There was a bear stabilization between 2008-2010 due to unusual oceanographic conditions and other conditions. However, experts now predict that more than two-thirds of the world’s polar bear subpopulations could be extinct by 2050.
Source: LA Times
Just saw a video of a polar bear cub, rejected by mother, being raised by zoo. I’ve seen and read about polar bears doing this. Do other species also reject babies? Maybe reduction of bears in the wild is about rejection by mothers, hence fewer cubs raised in the wild? Perhaps we evil humans aren’t to blame. And with efforts to raise more in zoos the population will grow. The problem would be releasing them in an environment they haven’t been raised in. Crummy piece of writing, but thought it interesting.
Read how scientists have ignored their own data revealing that movement has grossly biased population estimate in Are Polar Bear Researchers Blinded by Belief, or Acting Dishonestly? http://landscapesandcycles.net/blind-polar-bear-researchers.html
The ultimate polar bear solution: send males and females to every zoo in the world. How many have actually seen one out of a zoo? Small doses of Viagra too keep those gals barefoot and pregnant. When the population numbers get out of control, take them back to where they came from. Stopping the Viagra, of course. It could be a seniors home for polar bears.
Thank you, Karen.
Sandi:
That was an awesome post. 🙂
Someone asked why the snowstorm over Buffalo. Water evaporates into the atmosphere and forms clouds. Clouds continue to collect water until conditions are such that release of that water becomes necessary. If the temperature is above freezing it will rain. If the temperature is below freezing it will either be freezing rain, sleet, or snow. Where the clouds are when release occurs depends on how the winds directed. That is a very simplistic reason Buffalo had snow. But accurate. Now scientists can give you a much longer, more scientific explanation. I learned mine in elementary school.
Governor Cuomo described conditions today, as he learned in grade school. “There is a lot of snow, snow will melt and there will be lots of water, lots of water means flooding.” Now scientists can go to town with their explanations. I rarely agree with Governor Cuomo, but today we’re on the same page.
There has been a lot of discussion recently about how we identify ourselves. I identify myself by my name.
Perhaps only people with a sense of humor should read this.
http://dailycaller.com/2014/11/20/media-misleads-on-polar-bear-numbers/
-Temporary decrease in population in one area from 2004-07 due to thick spring ice conditions (mirroring similar temporary decrease in 1970s)
-Polar bear population recovered by 2010
-Polar bear population globally has increased
Why so gullible in the face of constant, institutional, government-sponsored deceit on this topic?
That’s a serious question. The last week or so has seen much discussion (in some parts of the media) of the prideful admission by a government lackey, and Scientist!, of baked-in-the-cake deceit in the marketing of Obamacare. This on top of last years’ realization that, duh, no, you can’t necessarily keep your doctor and will not be getting $2500 back due to Obamacare. So WHY the unquestioning acceptance of global warming? Have you not heard of Climategate? Has it somehow escaped your notice that global warming advocates tell lies on a predictably regular basis? The scientitific “consensus” is manufactured by government/international governing establishment stooges. Its conclusions are just as suspect as conclusions purchased by Chevron or any other evil corporate polluter. The deep pocket of the public fisc dwarfs Chevron’s measly corporate billions. Global warming is designed to skim money away from the people and to the state, where it can be redirected to cronies and otherwise wasted in ways that return no benefit to the people who paid it out. At the very least question the authority that proclaims global warming as a cause of this or that other horror before putting it out there like it’s a real concern. Science has been coopted by the government and is no more trustworthy than any other crony. (See, e.g., Gruber the scientist from MIT.) Even less so when traveling in a pack.
Climate change is a reality. Climates always change. The Sahara Dessert is an example of climate change.
bob – do you have the recipe for the Sahara Dessert?
Paul – what about CA’s history of megadroughts spanning hundreds of years? The past 1,000 years is actually wetter than normal, when comparing geological time.
Karen – the best is that the calculation for dividing the water in the Colorado River is based on the wettest year in known history. Colorado has never had that much water since.
Maybe academia needs to follow Good Documentation Practices, because they clearly don’t now.
Paul – do you think Max knows that the hurricane seasons have been unusually quiet for the past decade or so? You wouldn’t think that, from headlines that scream that each and every hurricane must be caused by CC. But when you actually look at the data, hurricanes were both more numerous and more severe in the past.
When people keep changing their hypothesis so that every occurrence proves their theory, that’s not science. Warming proves anthropogenic Climate Change. Cooling does. Higher hurricane activity. Whoops. Lower hurricane activity. Temperatures in the ocean deeper than we can test MUST be hiding the missing energy. Just ignore the moved testing stations, peeling reflective paint, urbanization/heat island effect.
I need to get past the hype and find the actual data. And until the wrongdoing has been rectified, such as missing data or moved test points, I literally can draw no conclusion.
I don’t know what is going on in academia, because this would lead to one heck of a lawsuit in industry.
And, Max, I submitted almost 1,000 pages of reports submitted by peer-reviewed scientists.
The IPCC is biased, as it depends on grants, and the authors are inevitably mixed up with Climate Change profiteering.
It is a real search to try to find a purely unbiased opinion anywhere.
Climate Science is not above the reach of the average American to understand. It’s not neuroscience. You can easily learn the concepts enough to thoroughly read the reports and data.
From your comments, I gather you did not read it? Nor have you addressed the conflict of interest in the peer-reviewed publications? I only listed one very small question, because you seem unable to deal with even that. But I do have a list.
These questions should neither disturb nor offend you.
@Max-1
OK, here is a hypothetical question. What will you say if a few years down the road, the weight of scientific opinion has changed, and global warming is shown to be a lot more dependent on the Sun, and hardly influenced at all by human activity???
Will you continue in your current belief system???
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Max:
The reason why the evidence I present is from the questioning side is because I do not need to present evidence from the Climate Change Side.
Plus, I have very serious questions about proven, documented malfeasance that any reasonable, intellectually honest person should have.
If my concerns can be addressed, great. If not, then that will also affect my opinion.
Asking questions is a GOOD THING, and generally encouraged in science. When questions are forbidden, or answered with ad hominem attacks, that’s not science; it’s politics.
Max-1,
Yes, I believe global warming is the most important pressing issue that faces us today.