Posted on 01/01/2007 12:20:29 PM PST by GMMAC
Eco hysteria over polar bears unjustified:
They are not in danger, insists Nunavut biologist who knows the animals
The Edmonton Journal, Sun 31 Dec 2006
Page: A16 , Section: Opinion
Byline: Lorne Gunter
"No evidence exists that suggests that both [polar] bears and the conservation systems that regulate them will not adapt and respond to the new conditions. Polar bears have persisted through many similar climate cycles."
There's a lot in that two-sentence statement from Dr. Mitch Taylor, polar bear biologist for the government of Nunavut, and one of the leading experts in the world on Ursus maritimus.
First, it shows that polar bears are currently not threatened.
Not only that, there is every reason to believe they are going to stay that way.
Elsewhere this year, Taylor has written "At present, the polar bear is one of the best-managed of the large Arctic mammals. If all the Arctic nations continue to abide by the terms and intent of the [1973] Polar Bear Agreement, the future of polar bears is secure."
Second, Taylor's statement shows "no evidence exists" that polar bears or the ecosystems in which they live are threatened. He has admitted several times that climate change is affecting and will continue to affect the majestic white animals. But there is no reason to believe the effects will be harmful or lead to the bears' extinction.
Finally, Taylor's statement acknowledges what almost no environmentalists will: The current climate cycle is very similar to many others in the past.
There are man-made threats to the bears, most notably encroachment on their territory and slightly elevated levels of pollutants in their air, water and prey. Human activity may even be strengthening and quickening the current climate change (I don't believe it is, but I am willing to admit others do).
Our activities are not driving the bears to the brink of disaster. So curtailing our activities cannot prevent them from tumbling over an ecological precipice they are not teetering on in the first place.
There are 20 significant populations of polar bears around the top of the globe. Of the 13 in Canada, 11 are either stable or increasing in size. "They are not going extinct, or even appear to be affected at present," according to Taylor.
The bear population of western Hudson Bay (the one most often cited by environmentalists) has declined over the past 25 years "and the reproductive success of females in that area seems to have decreased." Yet the reason seems to be that conditions for the bears there in the mid-1980s "were exceptionally good."
Every ecological cycle has its peaks and valleys. For bears in western Hudson Bay, the latest peak occurred two decades ago. The decline since has been neither precipitous nor unnatural.
What makes Taylor so sure man-made climate change is not causing the Hudson Bay bears to disappear? Some population has to be the first to feel the brunt of any disaster, after all.
"The neighbouring population of southern Hudson Bay does not appear to have declined," and another nearby population "may actually be over-abundant."
The same average number of cubs are being born to mother bears as in the past. (Some environmentalists have claimed triplets used to be the norm, but single cubs are now.) Nor have the bears extended the length of the weaning period, a sign they are having fewer cubs on average.
In Canada, where a decade ago our Arctic had 12,000 bears, Taylor and other bear specialists estimate there are now 15,000 bears, an increase of 25 per cent in just 10 years. Worldwide there are 22,000 to 25,000 polar bears, whereas 50 years ago -- before the first SUV, before Kyoto, before most people had even heard of the global warming theory -- there were just 8,000 to 10,000.
The U.S. Department of the Interior, under pressure from environmentalists, has recently announced that it is considered raising the bears' environmental status to "threatened."
Why?
Well, the real reason is politics. The White House has decided to go a bit "greener." Rather than attempt to explain the science behind climate change, and why most of the current change (if not all of it) is likely natural, the Bush administration has decided to pander to voters who have been whipped into an environmental tizzy by constant scaremongering by scientists, environmentalists and the media.
The official reason given for changing the bears' designation is that the ice they hunt on is melting.
So? The ice cover is cyclical, too. And in the past, as the ice has receded, the increased sunlight in the water has increased the food available to seals, who have themselves increased in number, providing polar bears with more food to eat.
Indeed, 50 years ago, when there were fewer than half as many bears are there are now, the planet was in the midst of a prolonged cold spell. Ice covered more of the Arctic and there were fewer seals.
Decreased ice also means the bears find it easier to get to land where there are more berries and other foods the big beasts love.
Much of this should be good news for environmentalists, because it is good for the bears. But as Taylor says, "good news does not seem to be welcomed."
Media's hot air on Kyoto
Conservatives get killed for inaction on global warming ...
the Liberals got a pass
By LORRIE GOLDSTEIN
Toronto Sun
December 31, 2006
I've been doing some research into global warming and the Kyoto accord and boy, have I found some interesting stuff that the Liberal Party of Canada and its media shills don't like to talk about.
Ready? Here we go. Remember that big Kyoto conference held in Montreal last December, the one hosted by then Liberal environment minister, now Liberal leader, Stephane Dion?
Remember how the Liberals and their media shills breathlessly told us when it ended how Dion had provided the leadership that helped hold the conference together when it was in danger of falling apart, before emerging with a series of new Kyoto deals that some environmentalists proclaimed just might save the planet?
Dion's website (stephane dion.ca) boasts that "at the follow-up to the Kyoto Conference on Climate Change in Montreal in December 2005, he won international agreement to extend the Kyoto protocol beyond 2012."
Right. Well, here's a more realistic assessment of what actually went on in Montreal, written by Kyoto expert Robert Henson in his new book, The Rough Guide to Climate Change, The Symptoms, The Science, The Solutions.
Henson, no global warming sceptic -- his book has been praised as "superb ... even-handed and accessible" by the Pew Center on Global Climate Change -- assesses that meeting in this way:
"In the end, the diplomats managed to eke out an agreement for a two-year round of non-binding talks under the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) that 'will not open any negotiations leading to new commitments' (as the official wording says) but could set the stage for future talks. In this light, it's not at all certain that Kyoto-like targets will prevail after 2012."
Gee. Guess Dion and Co. didn't save the world, eh?
And Canada's record on greenhouse gas emissions -- mainly carbon dioxide and methane, identified as the key culprits in global warming -- during all those Liberal governments from 1993 to 2005?
Well, if you're a supporter of Kyoto, terrible. Just terrible.
While the Liberals signed the Kyoto accord in 1998 and ratified it in 2002, not only did our emissions go up by 24.2% compared to 13.3% for the U.S. from 1990 to 2003 -- which the media did report -- but that left us with the sixth worst record among the world's key industrialized nations.
The "evil" U.S., which never ratified Kyoto, finished five places better than we did.
And while the U.S. is the world's biggest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions (20.6% in 2000, compared to our 2.1% , which put us in ninth place) when you break the numbers down on a comparative basis, we, uh, stink.
Based on emissions per capita in 2000, we were the seventh-worst offender, at 6.3 tonnes of carbon equivalent per person, barely one place better than the U.S., at 6.8.
On the basis of carbon intensity, we were the 10th worst offender at 172 tonnes of carbon emitted per million dollars in GDP, one position worse than the U.S., at 162.
Indeed, you have to wonder what former Liberal PM Paul Martin was smoking when he raced to that Montreal conference last year during the federal election and scolded the U.S. for lacking a "global conscience" on climate change.
Now, remember, we have a Conservative government that has been in power for less than a year. So think back.
How many critical stories and columns do you recall seeing over the last two months in our media, ever since Environment Minister Rona Ambrose released the Tories' proposed Clean Air Act, their response to Kyoto, global warming and other environmental issues? Recall, as well, the unrelentingly dismissive and contemptuous tone of most of that criticism.
Any criticism?
Now, how many critical media stories and columns do you recall, and how many of them were equally dismissive and contemptuous of the Liberals and their record over the previous 12 years that they were in power, while doing almost nothing to control greenhouse gases?
Welcome, again, to liberal (and Liberal) media bias.
None of which means the Tories shouldn't be criticized on environmental issues. Just that the Liberals, by comparison, were given a free pass.
URL for 2nd article
Fortunately the wackos were wrong about Global
Cooling as that might have been a Problem.
barbra ann
Excellent points, sir. I always wondered how meteriorologists could keep their jobs when they're only right half the time?
In another display of pitch-perfect priorities, the U.N. has released its findings on cow flatulence. There's quite a lot of it.
The 400-page study, $27 million of which probably went to Saddam Hussein for old times' sake, discovered that the planet's livestock, including 1.5 billion cattle, produce 18 percent of greenhouse gases.
Apparently the beasts of the field do nothing but wander around all day asking their brethren to "pull my hoof."
Every time a cow feels a small sense of relief, a polar bear goes through the ice.
http://www.newhousenews.com/archive/lileks121406.html
bookmark
Future read, after it warms up some, bump...
So polar bears are doing well after all? Take that, ya buncha tree-huggin' bastards!
The US is not a net emitter of greehouse gases. We absorb all of our CO2 emissions plus 33% of what comes to us.
Do you have a link for your graph ? Thanks.
Do you have a link for your graph ? Thanks.It is:
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