My local paper did a ‘Science and Technology’ two-page spread this past Monday that caught my eye. This particular article was on the center page and it opened like a banner with huge letters as the headline: POLAR BEARS AND CLIMATE CHANGE and it begins with a 9”x9” picture of a beautiful bear looking right into the camera. Awwwwww. So far, so good.
In the SECOND PARAGRAPH, the stated ‘facts’ are:
The world’s 20,000 to 25,000 remaining polar bears are classified as vulnerable, with dwindling Arctic sea ice reducing their chances of hunting and breeding. Increasing greenhouse gas emissions are largely responsible for the deterioration of the polar bear’s habitat, and the genetic diversity of the population also has suffered as numbers have dwindled.
Keeping in mind the title of the article, we now move down 8 paragraphs, further than most people would read, I assure you, and we find this:
The researchers’ estimates of the historical polar bear population show that the bears have been in decline for the past 500,000 years or so, with warming periods bringing about greater loss in numbers. [Emphasis is mine]
The current warming period, which started about 11,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age…
WELL D’OH! Reread that... The current warming period, which started about 11,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age…
Is that profound or what! End of Ice Age = Beginning of warming [And conversely the end of a warming phase would mark the beginning of a cooling phase... ]
Do you think we, the taxpayers, paid for this study?
The polar bear and mastadon both enjoyed a large range during the last glaciation. It extended all the way down to the 43rd parallel. Somehow the mastadons went extinct but the polar bears survided. The polar bears await the next glaciation.
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