Face to Face with a Polar Bear

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.