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Al Gore’s Little White Lie: Man-Made Global Warming Causing Polar Bears To Drown

Posted on November 11, 2007. Filed under: Blogroll, Climate, Economics, Links, Politics, Resources, Science, Taxes, Technology, Uncategorized, Video |

 Is man-made global warming causing polar bears to drown?

Actually no, but it sure makes the children concerned for the cute white polar bear in Al Gore’s  An Inconvenient Truth: animated footage .

Real polar bears unlike Hollywood animated polar bears simply turn around and go to the land (see story below).

Stop scarring little children with drowning polar bears and crashing sea animations.

Have you no shame?

John Stossel – The Global Warming Debate 10-20-07

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FI0U5JOtoo 

Inhofe Speech: Climate Alarmism’s Impact On Children

Truth About Stranded Polar Bears Image

 Gore’s Film an Oscar Favorite but Violates Academy Standards, Critics Say
“…One point of contention in Gore’s movie is animated footage of a polar bear struggling to find stable sea ice. Gore has argued that human-induced global warming is directly impacting polar bears’ habitat and sea ice in particular. Consequently, he suggests, polar bears are forced to swim longer distances and sometimes drown in the process.

“A new scientific study shows that for the first time they’re finding polar bears that have actually drowned swimming long distances – up to sixty miles – to find the ice,” Gore says in the movie. …”

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=/Culture/archive/200702/CUL20070222b.html

The Great Global Warming Swindle

http://en.sevenload.com/videos/ha4PoKY/The-Great-Global-Warming-Swindle

Gorey Truths
25 inconvenient truths for Al Gore. 

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YmFiZDAyMWFhMGIxNTgwNGIyMjVkZjQ4OGFiZjFlNjc=

Is Global Warming Killing the Polar Bears?

 “…In a quarter-century of aerial surveys of the Alaskan coastline before 2004, researchers from the U.S. Minerals Management Service said they typically spotted a lone polar bear swimming in the ocean far from ice about once every two years. Polar-bear drownings were so rare that they have never been documented in the surveys.

But in September 2004, when the polar ice cap had retreated a record 160 miles north of the northern coast of Alaska, researchers counted 10 polar bears swimming as far as 60 miles offshore. Polar bears can swim long distances but have evolved to mainly swim between sheets of ice, scientists say.

The researchers returned to the vicinity a few days after a fierce storm and found four dead bears floating in the water. “Extrapolation of survey data suggests that on the order of 40 bears may have been swimming and that many of those probably drowned as a result of rough seas caused by high winds,” the researchers say in a report set to be released today. …”

“…But weekly aerial surveys by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service show that, over the past five years, an unusually large number of bears have congregated along the beaches. Between the coastal town of Barrow, Alaska and the Canadian border, about 300 miles east, researchers counted as many as 200 bears on land, said Scott Schliebe, director of the Fish and Wildlife’s polar-bear project. Many bears could be seen gathered around whale carcasses near villages like Kaktovik, which lies in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge where the Bush administration is pushing for drilling.

Scientists measured the distances from where the bears were gathered to the nearest ice sheets at sea and found this correlation: The farther the ice was from shore, the larger the number of bears were found on land.

Scientists estimate there are 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears world-wide, including about 2,000 that frequent the Beaufort Sea off Alaska. The latest population study by federal officials, in 1997, suggested the Alaskan bear population wasn’t endangered. An update is expected by the end of next year. …”

http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB113452435089621905-vnekw47PQGtDyf3iv5XEN71_o5I_20061214.html

Potential effects of diminished sea ice on open-water swimming, mortality,

and distribution of polar bears during fall in the Alaskan Beaufort Sea

http://www.mms.gov/alaska/ess/Poster%20Presentations/MarineMammalConference-Dec2005.pdf

Canadian controversy: How do polar bears fare?

Despite global warming, an ongoing study says polar bear populations are rising in the country’s eastern Arctic region.

“…But global warming is not killing the polar bears of Canada’s eastern Arctic, according to one ongoing study. Scheduled for release next year, it says the number of polar bears in the Davis Strait area of Canada’s eastern Arctic – one of 19 polar bear populations worldwide – has grown to 2,100, up from 850 in the mid-1980s.

“There aren’t just a few more bears. There are a … lot more bears,” biologist Mitchell Taylor told the Nunatsiaq News of Iqaluit in the Arctic territory of Nunavut. Earlier, in a long telephone conversation, Dr. Taylor explained his conviction that threats to polar bears from global warming are exaggerated and that their numbers are increasing. He has studied the animals for the Nunavut government for two decades. …” 

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0503/p13s01-wogi.html

Global Warming Debunked

“…The Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that the polar bear population is currently at 20,000 to 25,000 bears, whereas in the 1950s and 1960s, estimates were as low as 5,000-10,000 bears. We currently have an estimated four or five times more polar bears than 50 years ago. …”

http://www.newsmax.com/brennan/global_warming_debunked/2007/10/30/45214.html

Polar bear subpopulations around the Arctic

“Polar bears often move over huge distances in their annual cycle. Because population estimates are very difficult to obtain in the Arctic, census data are patchy for some polar bear subpopulations. The current overall estimate is  20-25,000 wild polar bears. …” 

http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/where_we_work/europe/what_we_do/arctic/polar_bear/about_the_bears/populationstatus/index.cfm

Polar Bears on Thin Ice, Not Really! 

Conclusion. Are human activities causing a warming in the Arctic, affecting the sea ice extent, longevity and thickness? Contradictory data exists. What seems clear is that polar bears have survived for thousands of years, including both colder and warmer periods. There may be threats to the future survival of the polar bear, but global warming is not primary among them.

http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba/ba551/

RANGE-WIDE STATUS REVIEW OF THE POLAR BEAR (Ursus maritimus)

 “…It has been speculated that polar bears might get extinct in 100 years from now which would indicate a population decrease of > 50% in 45 years based on a precautious attitude to the uncertainty in data. A more realistic attitude to the risk involved in the assessment make it fair to suspect population reduction of > 30%. Therefore the classification is Vulnerable (A3.c). …”http://alaska.fws.gov/fisheries/mmm/polarbear/pdf/Polar_Bear_%20Status_Assessment.pdf 

Global warming: Will the Sun come to our rescue?

“… We now know that, curiously, both these mini ice ages coincided with prolonged lulls in the sun’s activity – the sunspots and dramatic flares that are driven by its powerful magnetic field.

Now some astronomers are predicting that the sun is about to enter another quiet period. With climate scientists warning that global warming is approaching a tipping point, beyond which rapid and possibly irreversible damage to our environment will be unavoidable, a calm sun and a resultant cold snap might be exactly what we need to give us breathing space to agree and enact pollution controls. …”

http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/mg19125691.100-global-warming-will-the-sun-come-to-our-rescue.html

Global Warming: Hot Air or Cool Science?

Professor Bob Carter

James Cook University

 Global Cooling: The Coming Ice Age

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttLBqB0qDko 

There IS a problem with global warming… it stopped in 1998
By Bob Carter

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/04/09/do0907.xml

New Study Explodes Human-Global Warming Story

“…Writing in the International Journal of Climatology of the Royal Meteorological Society, professor David H. Douglass (of the University of Rochester), professor John R. Christy (of the University of Alabama), Benjamin D. Pearson and professor S. Fred Singer (of the University of Virginia) report that observed patterns of temperature changes (“fingerprints”) over the last 30 years disagree with what greenhouse models predict and can better be explained by natural factors, such as solar variability.

The conclusion is that climate change is “unstoppable” and cannot be affected or modified by controlling the emission of greenhouse gases, such as CO2, as is proposed in current legislation.  …”

http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/global_warming/2007/12/10/55974.html 

 

Background Articles and Videos

“Endangered” polar bear population explodes, threatens man

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HT6DnjtuZmE

Threatened” Polar Bears?

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQ2gcNByenc&feature=related

Polar bears ‘threatened’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DakLZ9vv1nk

Protecting Not Polar Bears But Warmist Power

Marc Sheppard

“…In a move climate realists have dreaded for months, the polar bear was listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act yesterday.  Despite increasing numbers in recent decades, Ursus maritimus now distinguishes itself as the first creature ever officially endangered due to global warming.  Bureaucratic actions this preposterous invariably mask ulterior motives, and this little doozy is certainly no exception.

Under what is perhaps the nation’s strictest environmental law, the bear’s critical habitat must now be protected and a strategy formulated to assist its population’s recovery.

But unlike species whose dwindling numbers actually can be attributed primarily to the actions of man, such as their grizzly bear cousins (trains and cars), the gray whale or the sea otter (both from over-hunting), the polar bears’ plight is purely model-based theory.  And while you can fence off tracks and roads in national parks, and even regulate harpooning and trapping, how do you protect an animal from a warming planet?

Any guesses?

Detractors of the action argued that it would force the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to regulate the cause of the danger — which greenies have convinced the masses to be CO2 emissions from tailpipes and smokestacks. As this would clearly be outside the Service’s jurisdiction, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne reassured us that he’d personally make sure it didn’t happen.  Adding:

“Listing the polar bear as threatened can reduce avoidable losses of polar bears, but it should not open the door to use the E.S.A. to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

What nonsense — the slippery secretary is well aware that — thanks to last year’s absurd Supreme Court declaration of CO2 as an air pollutant — it won’t need to. …”

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/05/protecting_not_polar_bears_but.html

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0503/p13s01-wogi.html

 Polar Bears and Global Warming (great photos of polar bears)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qF4P4Y9YS8Q 

 Polar Bear Facts

“…Distribution and Population: Polar bears are found throughout the ice-covered waters of the Arctic region and prefer to remain out on the sea ice all year if possible.  The sea ice provides a platform from which polar bears can hunt.  As the ice retreats north during the summer months, polar bears travel with the ice floes and continue to hunt seals (Stirling and Guravich 1990, p 61).

Polar bears are usually found in the northern marine areas of Alaska, the Commonwealth of Independent States, Norway’s Svalbard Archepelago, Greenland and Canada (Lynch 1993, p 5). …”

Scientists estimate there are between 25,000 to 40,000 polar bears in the world.  They also believe the polar bear population is divided into 6 core populations, with members of each core never mingling with the other core populations (Lynch 1993, p 6).

http://www.bear.org/Polar/Polar_Bear_Facts.html

U.S. Geological Survey

New Polar Bear Finding

“…The overall conclusion of the USGS research effort is: Projected changes in future sea ice conditions, if realized, will result in loss of approximately 2/3 of the world’s current polar bear population by the mid 21^{st century. Because the observed trajectory of Arctic sea ice decline appears to be underestimated by currently available models, this assessment of future polar bear status may be conservative. …”}  

http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/special/polar_bears/ 

 Note that the person being interviewed in the interview below on polar bears uses the weasel word projection, not prediction or forecasts.

By Michelle Malkin 

“It’s been in the works for quite some time, but now the decision is official. Polar bears have been listed by the Bush Interior Department as a “threatened” species. This is the first listing attributed to global warming.

What’s really going on here? …”

http://michellemalkin.com/2008/05/14/politics-and-the-polar-bear/

Is the Polar Bear Endangered, or Just Conveniently Charismatic?

Kenneth Green

“…All of these environmental groups favor strong regulatory agendas to reduce greenhouse gases, and all have consistently opposed the use of Arctic regions for resource production. So it was perhaps inevitable that several environmental groups (the Center for Biological Diversity, Greenpeace, and NRDC) would petition the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.[10] As of this writing, the Bush administration has not rendered a verdict on whether polar bears are to be placed on the endangered species list, but it seems likely that they will be.[11] The legal deadline for doing so was January 9, 2007, a date that the administration missed, but it is claiming that the delay was procedural and not caused by a dispute about endangerment.[12] Now a federal judge has given the administration a deadline of May 15, 2008, to make a final listing determination.

Listing the polar bear as a threatened species would have significant public policy consequences. It would set a new precedent, representing the first linkage of species endangerment with global warming. Such a listing would basically wall off the entire Arctic region to exploration, resource extraction, and development–at least by U.S. companies–and a threatened species listing would give environmental groups the ability to sue future U.S. governments to force them to reverse climate change by whatever means necessary.

There is little doubt that such lawsuits would be filed quickly. According to the NRDC:

Listing the polar bear guarantees federal agencies will be obligated to ensure that any action they authorize, fund, or carry out will not jeopardize the polar bears’ continued existence or adversely modify their critical habitat, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will be required to prepare a recovery plan for the polar bear, specifying measures necessary for its protection.[13] …”

http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.27918/pub_detail.asp

Politics and the polar bear

Endangered Polar Bears

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwsK8M3a1G8

Climate Change – Is CO2 the cause? – Pt 1 of 4 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOLkze-9GcI 

Climate Change – Is CO2 the cause? – Pt 2 of 4 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vN06JSi-SW8

Al Gore Debates Global Warming 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDI2NVTYRXU

Why? Climate change cannot be predicted or forecasted. You probably thought that is a distinction without much difference. Well you would be wrong if you listen very carefully to the climate modelers. 

What is the Difference Between A Multi-Decadal Climate Projection and a Multi-Decadal Climate Prediction?

 “…• A prediction is a probabilistic statement that something will happen in the future based on conditions that are known today and assumptions about the physical processes that will determine these changes. A prediction generally assumes that future changes in factors other than those being predicted will not have a significant influence on what is to happen. …”

“…• A projection is usually a probabilistic statement that it is possible that something will happen in the future if certain conditions develop. In contrast to a prediction, a projection specifically allows for significant changes in the set of ‘boundary conditions’ that might influence the prediction. As a result, what emerges are conclusions of the type ‘if this happens, then this is what is expected’.  

“…This is a significant issue. The use of the term “projection” results in erroneous communication to policymakers on the accuracy of the multi-decadal global model simulations in being capable of accurately predicting the climate in the coming decades. The models cannot be skillful since they do not contain all of the important first order climate forcings, as identified in the 2005 National Research Council Report. Indeed, when a range of global averaged surface temperature increases for the coming decades are next presented, the question should be asked if this is a prediction, or just the result of a process modeling study with incomplete climate physics ? The honest answer will be the later. …”

http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2006/05/25/what-is-the-difference-between-a-multi-decadal-climate-projection-and-a-multi-decadal-climate-prediction/

In simple English a projection is an educated guess. 

Do not bet money or make policy based on projections.  

http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2006/05/25/what-is-the-difference-between-a-multi-decadal-climate-projection-and-a-multi-decadal-climate-prediction/

The climate modelers make projections based on assumptions they plug into the model.

The projection of polar bear extinction is based upon the climate model projections which are in turn based on assumptions the modelers plug into the model.  The models have a very wide range of  possible results. This indicates that the climate modelers really do not understand the processes or systems very well and the science of climate change is a very young or immature “science”. The models cannot predict either cloud formation or precipatation very well.

Alaska is fighting to block polar bear protections 

“A proposal to list polar bears as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act has Alaska politicians seeing green, as in the color of money that could be lost if a bear recovery plan hinders the state’s resource development.

Gov. Sarah Palin and a majority of legislators strongly oppose the listing and say the acknowledged intent behind it — curbing greenhouse gas emissions nationally — should be debated in another forum, not a law aimed at protecting animals. …”

“It is important that we prevent listing the polar bear as threatened, not only because the designation is not clearly supported by science but because it will be used as leverage to stop development projects across the country, including our own natural gas pipeline,” said Sen. Gary Wilken, R-Fairbanks.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4188/is_20070430/ai_n19050013

Polar bear

“…Polar bears are excellent swimmers and have been seen in open Arctic waters as far as 60 miles (100 km) from land. In some cases they spend half their time on ice floes. Their 12 cm (5 in) layer of fat adds buoyancy in addition to insulating them from the cold. Recently, polar bears in the Arctic have undertaken longer than usual swims to find prey, resulting in four recorded drownings in the unusually large ice pack regression of 2005.^[34]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_bear

Polar Bears

http://www.enviroliteracy.org/subcategory.php/315.html

 Polar Bears International

http://www.polarbearsinternational.org/bear-facts/

Table: Summary of polar bear population status per 2005

This table is found on page 34-35 in the Proceedings.

Population Aerial survey / Mark-recapture analysis

Additional/Alternative Analysis

Number (year of estimate)

Estimate ±2 SE or min-max

Number (year of estimate)

Estimate ±2 SE or min-max

Sim

Dens

TEK

Historical annual removals (5 yr mean)

Potential maximum annual removals

Observed or predicted trend

Status

Estimated risk of future decline

East Greenland

unknown

70

50

Data deficient

Data deficient

No estimate

Comment

Barents Sea

2997 (2004)

2299-4116

na

Data deficient

Data deficient

No estimate

Comment

Kara Sea

unknown

na

Data deficient

Data deficient

No estimate

Comment

Laptev Sea

800-1200 (1993)

na

Data deficient

Data deficient

No estimate

Comment

Chukchi Sea

2000 (1993)

X

43 – Alaska, unk. but substantial in Chukotka

uncertain

Data deficient

Data deficient

No estimate

Comment

Southern Beaufort Sea

1500 (2006)

1000-2000

58

81

Declining

Reduced

No estimate

Comment

Northern Beaufort Sea

1200 (1986)

133-2097

36

65

Stable

Not reduced

No estimate

Comment

Viscount Melville Sound

161 (1992)

121-201

215 (1996)

99-331*

X

4

7

Increasing

Severely reduced

Very Low

Comment

Norwegian Bay

190 (1998)

102-278

3

4

Declining

Not reduced

Higher

Comment

Lancaster Sound

2541 (1998)

1759-3323

74

85

Stable

Not reduced

Higher

Comment

M’Clintock Channel

284 (2000)

166-402

3

3

Increase

Severely reduced

Very Low

Comment

Gulf of Boothia

1523 (2000)

953-2093

46

74

Stable

Not reduced

Lower

Comment

Foxe Basin

2197 (1994)

1677-2717

2300 (2004)

1780-2820*

X

X

97

109

Stable

Not reduced

Lower

Comment

Western Hudson Bay

935 (2004)

794-1076

45

64

Declining

Reduced

Very High

Comment

Southern Hudson Bay

1000 (1988)

684-1116

37

43

Stable

Not reduced

Lower

Comment

Kane Basin

164 (1998)

94-234

11

15

Declining

Reduced

Very High

Comment

Baffin Bay

2074 (1988)

1544-2604

1546 (2004)

690-2402‘

X

217

234

Declining

Reduced

Very High

Comment

Davis Strait

1650 (2004)

1000-2300*

X

X

65

74

Data deficient

Data deficient

Lower

Comment

Arctic Basin

unknown

na

^* Where PVA simulations have been conducted, risk of decline is classed as Very Low (0-20%), Lower (20-40%), Moderate (40-60%), Higher (60-80%), and Very High (80-100%).

Abbreviations: SIM = simulation, DENS = density, TEK = Traditional Ecological Knowledge

^{Total estimate of world abundance: 20,000 – 25,000} 

http://pbsg.npolar.no/

The Global Warming Hoax

http://wnho.net/global_warming_2007.htm

 

LOL

George Carlin – Saving the Planet

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eScDfYzMEEw 

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