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Re: this post is dumb -- misses the point and ignores the facts
You are so full of it...but you love to fight the windmills........from Canada:
Their status ranges from a "vulnerable" to "endangered" and could be declared "threatened" if the U.S. decides the polar bear is collateral damage of climate change.
Nobody talks about "overpopulated" when discussing the bears' outlook.
Yet despite the Canadian government 's $150-million commitment last week to fund 44 International Polar Year research projects, a key question is not up for detailed scientific assessment: If the polar bear is the 650-kilogram canary in the climate change coal mine, why are its numbers INCREASING?
The latest government survey of polar bears roaming the vast Arctic expanses of northern Quebec, Labrador and southern Baffin Island show the population of polar bears has jumped to 2,100 animals from around 800 in the mid-1980s.
As recently as three years ago, a less official count placed the number at 1,400.
The Inuit have always insisted the bears' demise was greatly exaggerated by scientists doing projections based on fly-over counts, but their input was usually dismissed as the ramblings of self-interested hunters.
As Nunavut government biologist Mitch Taylor observed in a front-page story in the Nunatsiaq News last month, "the Inuit were right. There aren't just a few more bears. There are a hell of a lot more bears."
And..........
Are Polar Bears in Decline? Greenpeace and the Natural Resources Defense Council initially presented only one academic study that found polar bears are currently in jeopardy. The study examined one population of polar bears in Canada’s Western Hudson Bay, where the average weight of female polar bears fell, leading to reduced cub survival. It linked the early break up of seasonal ice in the bay to a 21 percent decline in that polar bear population.
However, Alaska’s polar bear population is stable, and research by Mitchell Taylor, a biologist with the Nunavut Territory government in Canada, shows that the Canadian polar bear population has increased 25 percent during the past decade, from 12,000 to 15,000. Where polar bear weight and numbers are declining, Taylor thinks that it is due to too many bears competing for food rather than Arctic warming.
During the FWS’s review of the listing decision, it requested nine administrative reports from government agencies to bolster its case for listing the bears. Because they are based on the same climate models, these reports share a number of common assumptions concerning sea ice levels during the 21st century. The models predict that the area of the Arctic covered by sea ice in the summer will decline by more than two-thirds. As a result, the studies predict, seal populations will decline. Seals currently constitute a majority of the polar bears’ diet; therefore, the reports predict that bear populations will collapse. No ice, no seals; no seals, no bears — case closed.
However, the two administrative reports that focused specifically on predicting future polar bear populations do not present compelling evidence of the threat to polar bears, much less the need to list them as endangered.
Bad Forecast by Scientists, Good News for Bears. As an aid to better decision-making, forecasting researchers have compiled 140 principles that can be applied to improve the accuracy of predictions across a broad range of disciplines, including science, sociology, economics and politics.
A team led by J. Scott Armstrong, a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and an expert in the field of scientific forecasting, audited the methods used in the two reports from the U.S. Geological Survey Alaska Science Center, that focused on predicting future polar bear populations. S.C. Amstrup was the lead author of one report and S.C. Hunter was the lead on the other. At a recent hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Armstrong testified that the methods used in both reports to arrive at predictions of future polar bear populations violated a majority of the forecasting principles that applied to their research. Amstrong found:
- The Amstrup report clearly violated 41 principles and the Hunter study violated 61.
- Amstrup appeared to violate an additional 32 principles and Hunter, 19.
- Amstrup properly applied 17 principles and Hunter, only 10.
On average, the reports properly applied only 12 percent of relevant principles.
The Amstrup report, for example, simply accepted the projections made by selected general circulation models concerning the number of future ice-free days in the Arctic. But these projections themselves violate forecasting principles and ignore significant evidence to the contrary. For instance, climate scientist David Legates has noted that the decline in snow and ice pack in the Arctic region has not been uniform. In Greenland, he notes, recorded coastal temperatures show cooling and the average summer air temperature at the summit of the Greenland Ice Sheet has decreased by 4° F per decade since measurements began in 1987.
But Keep the spin machine rolling.....for every report you have...I can find 2 stating the opposite.......now go back to stuffing envelopes for Obama.......
posted by
Corbin_Dallas
on June 5, 2008 at 4:31 PM
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this post is dumb -- misses the point and ignores the facts
populations are declining in Alaska and Hudson's Bay. there is no doubting that.
you try and try and cannot successfully demonstrate that global warming is not occuring, nor can you successfully deny that it is from human activity. all you have is pitiful stuff like this. sorry about that.
posted by
Xeno-x
on June 5, 2008 at 1:38 PM
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Corbin Dallas
It was all those hot camera lights and production crews of Mr Gore's that chased that little fellow off after they melted his ice pad. It appears a bit strange to shoot him if he could have been put in a zoo or something. Maybe Mr Gore is planning a dinner party and wants to serve 'white bear meat'. Dumb, de Dumb Dumb okay I'll be good and go away.
posted by
Justi
on June 5, 2008 at 6:13 AM
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Hmmmm. If a polar bear ever rides an iceberg down the Mighty Mo and shows up in Kansas City I will definitely get excited.
posted by
TAPS.
on June 5, 2008 at 2:08 AM
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