Polar bears drown as ice shelf melts

The Sunday Times ^ | December 18, 2005 | Will Iredale

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

SCIENTISTS have for the first time found evidence that polar bears are drowning because climate change is melting the Arctic ice shelf.

The researchers were startled to find bears having to swim up to 60 miles across open sea to find food. They are being forced into the long voyages because the ice floes from which they feed are melting, becoming smaller and drifting farther apart.

Although polar bears are strong swimmers, they are adapted for swimming close to the shore. Their sea journeys leave them them vulnerable to exhaustion, hypothermia or being swamped by waves

*Snip*

[Jigsaw John]

Like humans, they can. But try swimming 10 miles sometime.

Sixty miles is nothing for a polar bear.

You may be right, but I was referring to and speak with a human.

[Jigsaw John]

See 81.

[righttackle44]

"But since penguins look like nuns, the UN disregarded the vote."

LO really L.

[Brucifer]

That's no biggie. Before I got my first car I had to walk about seventy miles to reproduce. Numerous times.

[GRRRRR]

When I was 'younger' I had to swim 5 miles to school, every day...in the snow!...UP HILL!!!

Hysterical scientists with bad dater...they are the REAL DANGER !!!

!!!

[Jigsaw John]

When I was 'younger' I had to swim 5 miles to school, every day

That is very commendable.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

And why is that news?
The F&WS banned hunting of polar bears years ago . Now there are so many of them you would expect to find one dead once in a while! Is this cause for panic?

[Mike Darancette]

Global warming will reverse itself in time as it has always.

During the Medieval Maximum period of Global Warming Europeans and Eskimos simultaneously reached Greenland via separate routes. When the Earth got colder the Europe and died out the Eskimos did not. Adapt or die.

[digger48]

It's always easier with that third leg setting the pace.

[Seamoth]

I believe that it's real too, just not necessarily man-made.

Tell us--how do we deal with it?

[Sweetjustusnow]

Climate change happens. What happened to the previous ice age? What caused the warming then? There weren't combustible engines then. So what caused it?

http://www.junkscience.com/

[emiller]

Without the polar bears? How will we get honey, aluminium, and gum arabic--- all of which, I understand, come from polar bears?

Why won't somebody think of the children!!!
(Sobbing)

[festus]

Regardless of whether or not you belive that man caused global warming, this is a real problem. Climate change is real and we need to deal with it.

So assuming one does not think man caused it what exactly do you propose we do to deal with it ?

Sacrifice virgins to the sun god to stop warming the planet to much ?

Sacrifice virgins to the volcano gods' to not belch any pollutatnts into the air ?

Sacrifice virgins to the fire gods to quench the mine fires that put more pollutants into the air than the entire US combined ?

(Incidentally any virgins who wish to ensure that they are no longer eligible for virgin sacrifices please freepmail me. ;-)

[firebrand]

Yes, your comment was relevant to the thread. I meant that my comment was more relevant to the future of the planet.

[Ghengis]

Investigators suspect that the polar bears were lured out onto the ice floes by the cute penguins in the Coca-Cola ad. And then left to die.

[HardStarboard]

There is a great book about a guy who winters-over in the ice up in Baffin Bay between Greenland and Canada. After the ice broke up he was sailing at 5 knots when he was passed by a polar bear - the bear was heading for an island 30 miles off shore.

I doubt that the polar bears would head for an "ice flow" 60 miles off shore - it is highly improbable for them to be able to see a low lying object such as an ice flow at that distance. Curvature of the earth and all that. Environmntalist scare tactics?? It's been done before.

The book if anyone is interested is "North to the Night" - forget author name.

[firebrand]

what exactly do you propose we do to deal with it ?

You addressed this to conserv13, but I'd like to suggest that there are many things we could be doing. Many. The problem is not finding solutions. The problem is breaking through the short-term, abundance-in-my-lifetime, abundance-in-my-country thinking that has put all of us in a fog of denial.

[redhead]

"I do not believe that a polar bear cannot find food for 60 miles of open ocean."

You are more than likely 100% correct. Polar bears also live on land. And a long swim for them is nothing. Survival of the fittest...

[festus]

The problem is breaking through the short-term, abundance-in-my-lifetime, abundance-in-my-country thinking that has put all of us in a fog of denial.

The only thing I'm in denial about is that logic like the above belongs on the free republic. Such communist tendendacies belong on the DU.

No don't bother me now I'm off to save the virgins!

[redboiling]

No one, but no one, claims that the only way warming can be caused is by human activities and waste and combustible engines. Everyone on all sides agrees there is long term climatic variation. The disagreement is whether recent human activities *add* onto that.