The Polar Bear Lie

The UN folks have been busy in their press office. Now, the "thousands" of unnamed scientists seem have declared Polar Bears are just about extinct. You know 2050. Time to wear a sandwich board: THE END IS NEAR.

I know this is not so, from reading about them before the media had a new bone to gnaw, leaving scraps for the masses. IN FACT: Polar Bear populations likely increase in warmer condition.

I won't even bother bemoaning the lack of journalistic work etc etc. It is obvious that journalists need not apply. The reports are cool aid drinking. I will just refer you to other data:

Artic Ice (not Antarctic - I am tired of talking about the misinformation about the South Pole, let's go north)

A study commissioned by Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans examined the relationship between air temperature and sea ice and concluded, "the possible impact of global warming appears to play a minor role in changes to Arctic sea ice." Rather, the Canadian study found that changing wind patterns are the primary cause of changing sea ice distributions. Moreover, while sea ice has decreased in the Arctic, it has remained relatively constant (or even increased slightly) in the Antarctic since 1978.

Is Global Warming Killing Polar Bears?

Though polar bears are uniquely adapted to the Arctic region, they are not wedded solely to its coldest parts nor are they restricted to a specific Arctic diet. Aside from a variety of seals, they eat fish, kelp, caribou, ducks, sea birds and scavenged whale and walrus carcasses. In addition, as discussed above, Arctic air temperatures were as high as present temperatures in the 1930s and polar bears survived.

Interestingly, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), an international organization that has worked for 50 years to protect endangered species, has also written on the threats posed to polar bears from global warming. However, their own research seems to undermine their fears. According to the WWF, about 20 distinct polar bear populations exist, accounting for approximately 22,000 polar bears worldwide. As the figure shows, population patterns do not show a temperature-linked decline:

• Only two of the distinct population groups, accounting for about 16.4 percent of the total population, are decreasing.
• Ten populations, approximately 45.4 percent of the total number, are stable.
• Another two populations — about 13.6 percent of the total number of polar bears — are increasing.

The status of the remaining six populations (whether they are stable, increasing or decreasing in size) is unknown.

Moreover, when the WWF report is compared with the Arctic air temperature trend studies discussed earlier, there is a strong positive (instead of negative) correlation between air temperature and polar bear populations. Polar bear populations are declining in regions (like Baffin Bay) that have experienced a decrease in air temperature, while areas where polar bear populations are increasing (near the Bering Strait and the Chukchi Sea) are associated with increasing air temperatures. Thus it is difficult to argue that rising air temperatures will necessarily and directly lead to a decrease in polar bear populations.