The fish hasn’t been seen since. Click to enlarge.
Polar bears are the cute poster-beasties of climate change. I’m sure the cute factor would quickly fade as those pearly-whites and claws closed in from a few metres away, but as cuddly toys polar bears are top-drawer. Professor James Renwick used them the other day against Dr Doug Edmeades’ “sceptical” climate views but in doing so was careless with the truth. His argument went like this:
Polar bear numbers are increasing. Strange then that polar bears are now listed as a “vulnerable species”, as a result of climate change. A quick look on Google and Wikipedia can help out here.
His sarcastic rebuttal is cringe-worthy, sure, but it’s not even correct (he mentions Wikipedia—he should try it himself). In the second paragraph on polar bears I read this:
Because of expected habitat loss caused by climate change, the polar bear is classified as a vulnerable species
The listing isn’t “as a result of climate change”. Dr Susan Crockford plainly says in her article of March 2017 that it hasn’t happened yet:
The polar bear (Ursus maritimus) was the first species to be classified as threatened with extinction based on predictions of future conditions rather than current status (emphasis added).
The bears’ status was based on predictions that habitat will be lost. Renwick got it wrong. Wikipedia goes on:
at least three of the nineteen polar bear subpopulations are currently in decline. However, at least two of the nineteen subpopulations are currently increasing, while another six are considered stable.
On balance, a species whose numbers are currently increasing. It’s right there in Wikipedia. What is Renwick’s problem? Wikipedia concludes:
For decades, large-scale hunting raised international concern for the future of the species, but populations rebounded after controls and quotas began to take effect.
In other words, we stopped shooting them.
We’re seeing the depths to which Renwick will stoop to buttress his crusade against climate change but his falsifications don’t inspire me to believe him.
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So simple really.
Polar bears need sea ice to hunt.
Sea ice is in decline.
Therefore polar bears will find it more difficult to find food.
When animals don’t get enough food their numbers decline.
I know from your comments and lack of knowledge you don’t read any science or links.
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/02/polar-bears-starve-melting-sea-ice-global-warming-study-beaufort-sea-environment/
https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/arctic-sea-ice/
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/09/22/climate/arctic-sea-ice-shrinking-trend-watch.html
I would characterise it as laziness rather than deception.
The fact that a reasonable point by Doug was dismissed “by a quick Google search” is the key.
I would suggest that these guys would win more people over to their side if they conceded one or two points from their mantra.
Roger Pielke Jr is one of these rare cases of someone who accepts the basic tenets of IPCC science (which obviously covers a wide range of scenarios). Unfortunately he was a target of a witch hunt by members of the Obama administration and as a result gave up writing about climate
This indicates to me how desperate they are getting
I have a friend who went ski touring in Svalbard recently, and has photos of Polar Bears and Polar Bear tracks
They weren’t that difficult to find, he tells me
Renwick is no longer at Niwa, having been involved with Salinger, who destroyed our 7 station series. Polar bears have declined disastrously from c.5ooo to only c.30000 since shooting was controlled.
Pretty much characteristic of climateerism’s plausibility. Total seaice is growing of recent years, but it is only early ice which counts, that being the seal calving period. Thick ice is a disaster.
Animals like polar bears have a cuddly look about them—at least, in soft-toy form! As such they, and other animals of similar appearance are brilliant propaganda subjects. Gore knew this only too well. How would Australians feel if koala were to be declared vulnerable because of climate change? (That may have happened, but I am not aware of it.) In recent times Susan Crockford has destroyed the claims which emerged recently around video clips of underfed bears.
I do not find it surprising that Renwick would latch on to such statements. He is losing the arguments on so many fronts that it is becoming necessary for him, and his ilk, to grasp at the most egregious claims about the “dangers” of climate change.
Steven Schneider says it all regarding the poor little polar bears
https://kleinefeldmausorgnz.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/schneider-3.gif?w=640
Dennis, you say “Sea ice is in decline.” Sorry, I didn’t get that memo. Could you elaborate, please?
As far as I know, sea ice is volatile at both poles, and the prediction that the Arctic could be ice-free by whatever date has been missed several times already and now is at best a little tired as a proposition.
In God we trust, everybody else needs data. Show us your data that “Sea ice is in decline.”
Cheers!
Mike,
You’ll get no reply from Dennis, as he’s been denied access to this site for the crimes of crudeness and rudeness.
Crudeness and rudeness could apply to POTUS. Would you deny that?
Yes, but let him try it here and we’ll see how quickly I tire of it.