| | |  Editorials | Opinions 
Polar Bear Politics
 Alan Burkhart - PVNN
March 02, 2010
| | Polar bears likely have already survived at least one period of global warming that took place approximately 115,000 years ago. (riverdaughter) | |
Throughout the last several decades, one of the environmentalist left's trademark tactics has been to use symbolism instead of substance. This, as any thinking person already knows, is due to the fact that the extreme left, as it becomes ever more extreme, finds it increasingly difficult to push its agenda based on its own merit. This leaves them little choice but to use smoke and mirrors to foist their remarkably bad ideas on the rest of us.
In the debate over human-caused global warming, aka "climate change," perhaps the most overused and exploited symbol is the polar bear. We are bombarded almost daily with images of polar bears struggling to stay afloat on comparatively tiny chunks of arctic ice. We hear about their struggles to find food and shelter for themselves and their young. Climate change, we are told, will be the death of the mighty polar bear.
However...
Funny thing. It seems that climate change was responsible for the birth of species. The discovery of an ancient jawbone at Poolepynten on the Arctic island of Svalbard by Professors Olafur Ingolfsson, of the University of Iceland, and Oystein Wiig, of the University of Oslo has yielded new insight into the evolutionary history of polar bears.
Previous estimates as to the date of origin of the species ranged from 50,000 to one million years ago. A series of DNA tests on the jaw bone has revealed that polar bears are much closer kin to brown bears than previously believed, and they're especially similar to a population of brown bears in the "ABC Islands" of Alaska.
The age of the jawbone fossil and other evidence makes a strong case that the polar bear evolved from brown bears trapped in the onset of an ice age that began about 190,000 years ago. The fossil is believed to be between 110,000 and 130,000 years old. This also means that polar bears likely have already survived at least one period of global warming that took place approximately 115,000 years ago.
This notion does come with a caveat:
Professor Chris Stringer, of the Natural History Museum in London, an expert in ice ages, said: “Early polar bears would not have had all the specialisations of modern animals and we know nothing about their behaviour. Living through a warm period back then does not mean they are resilient to climate change now.”
- TimesOnline
Interesting to note however, that his tone is one of gloom and doom for modern polar bears even while admitting that "... we know nothing..."
Then again, knowledge, or the lack thereof, has never been an impediment to climate alarmists. According to a study by American and Canadian scientists in 2006, the shrinking ice pack was leaving polar bears less and less space in which hunt seal. As a result, they claim, polar bears were resorting to cannibalism. Such a proclamation doubtlessly sent climate change true believers and animal activists into a frenzy of demands for new legislation to save the hapless bears.
But...
Inuit leader Jose Kusugak, the president of the Kivalliq Inuit Association, told reporters: “A male polar bear eating a cub becomes a big story and they try to marry it with climate change and so on. It becomes absurd — when it’s a normal, normal occurrence.”
- TimesOnline
And...
"Both Inuit and scientific knowledge show that cannibalism in polar bears happens, and it probably always has," said Steve Pinksen, director of policy and legislation for Nunavut's Department of Environment.
The concern over cannibalism comes after a tourist group witnessed adult male bears attacking cubs for food. There have been at least eight reports of similar sights from Churchill, [Manitoba]. The photos accompanying stories on the issue show bright-red remains strewn across blankets of snow.
Mr. Pinksen, however, called the incidents an "act of nature," and said the public reaction has been taken out of proportion.
- Signs of the Times News
Stop the presses!
This is a classic example of what I'm talking about. A few isolated incidents of people stepping out of their normally well-insulated lives and seeing nature at its most brutal results in the notion that a catastrophe is occurring within the polar bear population. This is the kind of knee-jerk reaction that the environmentalists feed on to push public opinion in directions that work to their advantage. Happens every day.
Pinksen continues:
"Maybe if you're sitting in an armchair in the city somewhere these pictures would be a shock, but people up here see these things all the time," he said, adding residents that are out hunting animals for food, clothing and income have seen evidence of these attacks in the past. "A bear eating a bear is not a pretty picture, but nature is not really a pretty thing all the time," Mr. Pinksen said.
- Signs of the Times News
In short, the fact that polar bears sometimes eat their young isn't news. Other predators are known to eat their young as well. Male African lions for example, will eat the cubs sired by competing males to protect the dominance of their own bloodline. Fears that polar bear cannibalism will contribute to the death of the species are greatly exaggerated and based upon false assumptions and the politics of shameless opportunism.
Another assertion by leftist environmentalists is that polar bears are drowning in great numbers due to the melting ice, and that this of course will contribute to the eventual extinction of the species. According to various observations, polar bears are having to swim farther than ever before to reach sources of food, and many of them drown or die of hypothermia in the open seas.
According to the new research, four bear carcases were found floating in one month in a single patch of sea off the north coast of Alaska, where average summer temperatures have increased by 2-3C degrees since 1950s.
The scientists believe such drownings are becoming widespread across the Arctic, an inevitable consequence of the doubling in the past 20 years of the proportion of polar bears having to swim in open seas.
- TimesOnline
That these bears died in search of food is certainly a sad occurrence. But is man at fault here? According to many credible scientists, the answer is a resounding "NO."
Is the Arctic ice melting? Yes, although there is some debate as to the rate of melt vs. the rate of refreezing. Most agree that there has been a decrease in total ice coverage since the early 1970's. Climate alarmists of course would have us believe this is due to human activity. The hacked e-mails from East Anglia strongly suggest otherwise. How does one trust the science behind temperature monitoring stations when many of those stations were located (perhaps intentionally?) in areas affected by unnatural heat sources? One of them was even located near an industrial incinerator. Accurate science? Hardly. But the most recent IPCC Climate Report was based on data taken from those weather stations.
Consider this excerpt from an article by Jonathan Leake:
The IPCC faces similar criticisms from Ross McKitrick, professor of economics at the University of Guelph, Canada, who was invited by the panel to review its last report.
The experience turned him into a strong critic and he has since published a research paper questioning its methods.
“We concluded, with overwhelming statistical significance, that the IPCC’s climate data are contaminated with surface effects from industrialisation and data quality problems. These add up to a large warming bias,” he said.
Such warnings are supported by a study of US weather stations co-written by Anthony Watts, an American meteorologist and climate change sceptic.
His study, which has not been peer reviewed, is illustrated with photographs of weather stations in locations where their readings are distorted by heat-generating equipment. Some are next to air-conditioning units or are on waste treatment plants. One of the most infamous shows a weather station next to a waste incinerator.
Watts has also found examples overseas, such as the weather station at Rome airport, which catches the hot exhaust fumes emitted by taxiing jets.
In Britain, a weather station at Manchester airport was built when the surrounding land was mainly fields but is now surrounded by heat-generating buildings.
- Climate Change Fraud
The shameless, heavily politicized pseudo-science of climate change is making a select few people very wealthy and simultaneously creating a heavy burden on everyone else. The simple fact is that given what we now know after the break-in at East Anglia, human-caused global warming is a fraud. People like Albert Gore, Jr. are making a lot of money via panic mongering and intentionally faulty research.
Back to the bears...
Let's look at the flip side of the coin for a moment. Polar bears are supposedly drowning while trying to reach better feeding grounds. But do we hear much about grizzly bears moving northward into areas formally dominated by polar bears? Are the grizzlies in dire danger?
Polar bears face a new threat besides melting ice — male grizzly bears are moving into their territories, competing for food and are even mating with their females.
Scientists have already discovered one case of a hybrid “grolar” bear and are circulating requests to hunters and polar tour operators to look out for more.
One possible explanation for closer interaction between the species is climate change, which has allowed grizzlies to move north into areas that were once too cold for them.
- TimesOnline
So... grizzly bears are actually benefiting from climate change. And we have already learned that it's highly likely polar bears are an evolutionary split-off from another species. And according to the article quoted above, grizzlies and polar bears have been mating at least in some areas. It’s also interesting to note that in spite of the gloom and doom rhetoric surrounding the polar bears, their population is actually increasing in some areas. Hard to reach extinction when your numbers are growing.
The bottom line...
We all know that the climate in virtually every part of the world has changed many times over the centuries. Ocean currents, solar and / or volcanic activity, even earthquakes can have long term effects on the climate of a given area. Carbon dioxide, that most reviled of all greenhouse gasses, is as much or maybe more the product of heating, rather than the cause.
Nature, in all its facets, moves in cycles. And like the climate, the animal kingdom also goes through changes. Species come and go. Habitats change. And life nearly always finds a way to adapt to new circumstances. The brown bears that were the forerunners of the polar bear adapted to their new environment. There is no reason to believe the bears and other animals of today will not do likewise. There may be a completely new species of bear someday, spawned by the current state of the climate patterns. What we are seeing, in our brief time on this world, is a small part of the great cycle of nature in action. Only human vanity could assume that we are somehow responsible for it.
Sources and Related Reading:
The Bears...
Polar Bear is a ‘New’ Species
Polar Bears Drown as Ice Shelf Melts
Climate Change ‘Forcing Polar Bears to Become Cannibals’
It’s a Grolar, The Climate-Change Polar Bear
'Act of Nature': Climate Change Not to Blame for Polar Bear Cannibalism
Skeptical Scientists, Legal Action, etc...
Royal Society of Chemistry Backs 36,000 Physicists in Condemning Climategate
University ‘Tried to Mislead MPs on Climate Change E-mails’
World May Not Be Warming, Say Scientists
Study Shows Polar Bear Increase in Davis Strait
Alan Burkhart is a cross-country trucker and occasional writer. He lives in southern Mississippi. You can visit Alan at his blog: AlanBurkhart.blogspot.com. |
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