Science and Society

Maybe its not the bear that is endangered, but the people stuck with it on the land.

Now that quote from Dr. Zack is the quote of the Century.

Ned
I don't know where you got it from but the threat is neither new not unusual. In Canada they have been a problem for residents because like the rest of their species (grizzly bears) they are both agressive and nasty. On visits to North Bay and Timmins, my canadian friends told me some stories about them and I definately would not want one in my front yard.

“It is ironic that our efforts to understand how climate change is affecting wildlife were disrupted by the top Arctic predator displaced by climate." Ya think?! Looks like the polar bears are adapting just fine. It's the people who will be inconvenienced.

Note from Ned Potter--

Hello, Quietman. Actually, I've had my own encounter with a polar bear on the North Slope...and I remember, with amusement now, the Inupiat hunter who invited us to dinner, and lent me and my crew his pistol, lest we run into a bear again.

I think the WCS is telling this story because of the dwindling of sea ice. Ice or not, I wouldn't want to mess with the bears.

This is just more environmentalist propaganda. How exactly did the scientists know the bear was displaced by climate change? Did they interview him? Polar bears can swim for miles. Maybe he was there by choice, hunting and foraging. The "scientists" have no more evidence that he was stranded than they do that he was on vacation.

I'm just a bit skeptical of anything put out by the Wildlife Conservation Society and groups like them. This story talks about one lost bear, when actually, polar bears have adapted quite well to climate change - their numbers have increased, not decreased. Has anyone else noticed that the buzz word, just recently has changed from "global warming" to the more vague "climate change?"

This is just more environmentalist propaganda. How exactly did the scientists know the bear was displaced by climate change? -Lou Z. Anna

I'm not an 'environmentalist', but I just think that needless waste and pollution are stupid. For me, it's pragmatic. We can save money by not polluting, because we'll have to clean up less. I don't really get why the hard, hard, ignorant right insists that global warming is a 'hoax'. I don't believe either it is or isn't- I suspect that they have been told over and over on talk radio that it's a hoax being perpetrated on 'small-town, good ol' fashioned American folk by them horrible big city people' and just parrot it over and over because they've read a few poorly-researched anti-global warming books by the same radio and television hosts. The ironic part is, in believing that global climate change is a hoax, they've actually fallen victim to the hoax perpetrated by the media they claim are 'broadcasting the REAL truth'.

I'm happy about the dwindeling number of polar bears, or is it growing number of polar bears. As I recall the polar bear population has been growing in the last twenty years. Either way, I would rather save the cute seals that the polar bears eat.

Maybe the earth is correcting itself. Maybe that ice wasn't supposed to be there in the first place. Who says what the optimal temperature for the earth is? Maybe this is just natures way of controlling the polar bears. Maybe those scientists weren't supposed to be in the natural habitat of the polar bear.

Climate is my number one issue this election. It should be all of ours. I strongly oppose any "new" drilling. I believe we can go 100% green energy in 10 years, that is exactly what we should be doing. Oil man McCain is not going to do that so long as he thinks more drilling is what we should be doing right now.

Live And Let Live!

First (obamamama) Polar bears can quite far, and that is reality. So this article is a farce from square one - just like the picture of the "stranded" polar bear from a while back that got so much attention. Look it up.
Second - (Soldier) If you're not an 'environmentalist', just being pragmatic about it, and think its a good way to save money, then that's great. That's what recycling's all about, so I'm all for it. Needless waste and pollution is bad, and can and should be eliminated. But when environmental considerations cause excessive restrictions on economic development (and that is the key work - excessive) then I begin to have a problem with it. I guess you would consider me one of those "hard, ignorant, right" persons, because I although I believe in global warming, I don't believe its man-made - the science is far from "settled". In the middle of your comment you say "I don't believe either it is or isn't-", then you go on to excoriate anyone who believes it is a hoax??? That makes no sense. You should go do your own research instead of taking in the "real" truth from the mainstream media.

"But when environmental considerations cause excessive restrictions on economic development (and that is the key work - excessive) then I begin to have a problem with it.'

Unless you're going to live on another planet, the health of Earth's environment is foremost. Pre-historic people survived and thrived with few material things but a healthy environment. All the money in the world will not allow survival on an unfit planet.

I can't wait for this 'climate change' to excelerate so the earth can get back to normal. Before (long before) man showed up my state of Michigan was covered in a warm tropical sea, saltwater at that! So probably due to dinosaur ##### etc... and their excessive use of S.U.V.'s when a bicycle could have done the job the earth cooled down like it was supposed to in the 70's and here we are.

Soldier
It's not a hoax, just bad science.

Ned
Good story. Also good that you did not shoot it with a pistol. It would just get it mad.

"Pre-historic people survived and thrived with few material things but a healthy environment."

"Thriving" is NOT what you call a 30 year average life expectancy and death by such classic ways as being gored and trampled to death by the food you are trying to kill, starvation, and diseases like small pox, bubonic plague and malaria. But I guess I kind of see your point, at least they had clean air to breath. I bet nobody ever got cancer back in those days.

Missy M
Global Warming is the alarmist term, Climate Change is the actual scientific term and some scientists refer to it as climate shift rather than change as it is more descriptive, ie. we have "shifted" from record high sunspot activity to abnormally low sunspot activity.

Margaret Thatcher coined the phrase "global warming." I wouldn't think she would be considered an alarmist.

Margaret Thatcher the scientist or the politician?

cturple
If you get a chance please read the piece done by Dr. Roy Spencer of NASA on Climate Sensitivity.

Well, as for the poor polar bear, they were just saying that they are rarely in this area at this time of year and that the ice is unusually far out to sea. Both are facts that you can interpret how you will.

Quietman, what was the climate sensitivity article you mentioned? Did you read the pro and con articles in the AIP newsletter? I welcome the fact that people are publishing the legitimate scientific questions still remaining about such questions. That is what scientists are supposed to do, and it sure looks like nobody is being "silenced."

But that doesn't mean I am going to rush to believe the dissenting minority. One would have to have a bias against the AGW hypothesis to do that.

Quiet - the politician.

Do you have a title for the spencer article?

cturple & Jock
Global Warming: Has the Climate Sensitivity Holy Grail Been Found?
by Roy W. Spencer, Ph.D. updated 7:00 a.m. CDT, June 30, 2008

Re: Margaret Thatcher
I was being sarcastic.

PS
A series of papers by Camp & Tung do indicate a higher sensitivity to solar forcing than previously thought.

The ignorance of the WCS is appalling. Polar Bears can thrive on land just like they do at sea. Just ask the Canadian biologists if you doubt it. They, like Grizzlies, can also eat anything on land, including man, and do quite well. The WCS was the bunch that were complaining about the dwindling number of Pacific Walrus, never knowing that the reason for reduction was there were so many Polar Bears that find them a delicacy. The world should know that the PB were put on the ESL because 'scientists' looked at sea ice patterns given by satellite pictures, NOT from a head count. Just more fraud in the name of GW.

Quietman - I thought that name was familiar. It's interesting that a poster uses grants as a talking point against scientists. Dr. Spencer has a book that just came out this year promoting his case for "climate confusion." He is known to be a maverick on this issue, as is his fellow Alabaman, Dr. John Christy. Christy has somewhat come around on his position. Spencer still has books to sell, which is why he was pushing the infamous "list of 19,000" on the Glen Beck show. His credibility is questionable.

Jubal Early65 : What are your credentials?

cturple
Apparently not questionable to congress.

Just one more thing I disagree with congress on.

Savage Winters. sounds a little like the crappy netflix movie i watched this weekend.

cturple
Spencer is considered a maverick because he is employed by the same people pushing AGW (NASA). He is not alone among scientists who are skeptical but I thought that his explanation was more "readable" for us laymen (no offense). Within the science community there is a lot of shouting and name calling going on right now, somewhat unprofessional behavior, mostly by alarmists. They don't seem to realize that there is something going on at the north pole that they can't deal with and are in denial and pointing fingers at anyone who disagrees with them. The discussion with Patrick was refreshing because while he claims AGW he has an open mind and looks for the evidence which is turning out to be much more complicated than the IPCC would like it to be.

Quietman - I'm sorry - but any scientist that appears on a radio talk show and pushes that silly list of dead people and 100 year old astronomers is not credible, as far as I'm concerned. I don't have the expertise to judge the validity of his claims, and I'm not going to pretend to. I do know that with his book, he has a financial stake in promoting the concept of "confusion" over AGW. When his book hits the required lists of college textbooks, I'll take another look-see.

cturple
Re: "silly list of dead people and 100 year old astronomers"
Science is cumulative in nature. New does not mean correct, it only means different. New ideas are wrong as often as old ideas. That is why science requires great skepticism.

PS - If you check into the profits, its the AGW greens making all the profits. People are getting rich by using "green" to sell products that are not actually helping anyone except those making the sales. The major proponents of AGW can not afford to back down as it would mean financial loss and possibly job loss for them.

Quietman - AGW has been under scrutiny for decades. The accumulated evidence supports the conclusion that we are causing climate change. Of course there are people that will take advantage of it. It's the american way. What industry doesn't have its share of con-artists?

A polar bear's primary food source is seals. Right now, when polar bears need to be feeding on seals to fatten up for winter hibernation, many bears, such as the one pictured here, simply cannot swim far enough to reach the increasingly distant ice where the seals are located. Although polar bears are great swimmers, many incidents of them drowning from exhaustion trying to reach the ice and the seals have recently been documented (including videotapes). Granted, the earth warms up and cools down in cycles lasting tens of thousands of years, but it is the astonishing increase in the rate of global warming since the beginning of our industrial revolution that is causing the present crisis. This bears repeating (pun intended): it is the RATE of increase in the earth's temperature that is causing the rapid melting of the ice, the rise in ocean levels, and the declining heath (and deaths) of polar bears. The bears that are surviving are smaller and have less fat reserves than the previous generations of bears just a couple of decades ago. This results in fewer cubs being born, increased cub mortality and will, in a very short period of time, lead to an unsustainable number of bears and their extinction in the wild. (Note to right wing extremists/ostriches: Yes, global warming is real and the number of legitimate scientists who disagree can be counted on one hand. Think for yourselves for a change instead of mindlessly repeating right wing sound bites.)

Gary Hamilton
What you say is true except that it does not explain the change that occurred around 1975-76. This is much more than just AGW.