Fat Polar Bears Are Killing The Polar Bears

by | Sep 24, 2008

Last July, we reported that Fat People Are Killing the Polar Bears.

In November we reported that Fat Swedish Men Are Killing the Polar Bears.

In April we reported that Fat Polar Bears are Killing the Penguins.

In May we reported that Fat People are Killing the Butterflies and the polar bears again.

According to CNN:

Polar bears resort to cannibalism as Arctic ice shrinks

The article isn’t about polar bears at all, but about 2008’s Arctic sea ice extent – which failed to be worse than last year’s. But who gives a toss about ice cubes when there are charismatic mega fauna to write news bulletins about?

“The Arctic sea ice melt is a disaster for the polar bears,” according to Kassie Siegel, staff attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity. “They are dependent on the Arctic sea ice for all of their essential behaviors, and as the ice melts and global warming transforms the Arctic, polar bears are starving, drowning, even resorting to cannibalism because they don’t have access to their usual food sources.”

Scientists have noticed increasing reports of starving Arctic polar bears attacking and feeding on one another in recent years. In one documented 2004 incident in northern Alaska, a male bear broke into a female’s den and killed her.

This is Disney for grown-ups. Evil fat people in SUVs force cuddly, friendly, vegetarian, and not at all vicious, nasty creature to perform a sadistic act of murder, just for dinner.

It’s telling that a story about Arctic ice extent has to feature fluffy bears. It’s a sure sign that the storyteller doesn’t credit the audience with the brains to be able to work out that it’s a bad thing for themselves. If you don’t care about finer points of cryospheric crisis, won’t you please, please, please think of the cutesy animals?

More animal-related madness….

What is the future for Arctic sea ice? Some scientists believe that in just five years, the Arctic may be ice-free during the summer.

“The Arctic is kind of the early warning system of the climate,” Meier said. “It is the canary in the coal mine, and the canary is definitely in trouble.”

Meier isn’t one of the scientists who believe that Arctic summer ice will be gone in just five years, as we revealed earlier this month. However, he doesn’t seem to be doing much to correct such transparently ridiculous reporting. And as we said last week, when everything… penguins, migratory birds, the Antarctic, the Arctic, Tuvalu, sea turtles, Kenyan pastoralists, islands, polar bears, Australian ski resorts, US ski resorts, Australian vineyards, Napa Valley vineyards, Canada’s Inuit, Alaska, mountain ecosystems, tropical ice-caps, Greenland, pika, naturists, the Bering Sea, intertidal zones, coral reefs, to name but a few… are all cited as ‘canaries’, then the whole wide world becomes a cage.

7 Comments

  1. Magnus

    (Meta: Remove a dot in the end of the “Fat Swedish Men” link. //br Magnus)

    Reply
  2. Carl W

    What proxies can be used for measuring cannabalism in polar bears? Or is this a direct measurement? Is the bear-eating-bear (BEB) dataset derived from sattelite imagery? I would imagine that surface observation would be skewed as any observer near to a polar bear attack would likely not live long enough to inform Jim Hansen. So, perhaps, we have seriously underestimated polar bear cannibalism. Perhaps Michael Mann would be kind enough to derive a cannibalistic bear reconstruction using a robust, commonplace BEB proxy like number of kids that Chris Colose (author of the blog “Climate Change”) gets into arguments with about global warming on student-oriented social-networking site, Facebook. Yeah, that should work – maybe add a few Bristlecones too. Oh, and just a dash of elitist, snobbish, self-riteous, we’re-better-than-you-so-we-get-to-fly-around-in-our-private-jets attitude. Sounds like the perfect reconstruction for whatever we were discussing…was it societal submission to Al Gore, or am I confused?

    But seriously, of all the global warming claims made with no basis, this tops them all. I hope the American people can see through this type of thing.

    Reply
  3. Robert of Texas

    If you think about what would drive bears to canabalism a couple of thoughts come to mind:
    1) It’s natural behavior
    – but becomming more frequent
    – not more frequent but observed more because we are watching closer
    – not more frequent but just reported more
    2) It’s stress driven behavior
    – caused by over population
    – caused by starvation
    – caused by something yet unknown

    We know it is natural behavior because it has been observed in many species of bear over many decades.

    We know people are watching the bears more closely, more often, and with greater sophistication.

    One can measure bears and determine if they are underweight, and thereby likely starving. There is no evidence polar bears are starving any more then previously – they are hungry opportunistic eaters of just about anything. If they are starving it could be caused by a denser population.

    It has been known for a long time that male bears will try to kill cubs and that mother bears will try to defend them. This is normal behavior.

    Global warming could impact either food or population density, but you need to determine how much of global warming is natural versus anthropogenic – not even IPCC thinks its all man made. Impacts to population are completely speculative because so far populations have not fallen.

    The bottom line is there is very weak evidence polar bears are impacted any differently today then in previous warmer climate periods. Most polar bear populations have expanded since the 1960’s – some estimates say doubled which for a large slow reprocucing species means they are not under serious duress. There is fossil records of polar bears back before other interglacial periods so we know they adapt to warmer climates.

    Please – let’s base policy on data, not emotional reaction to poorly researched articles.

    Reply
  4. JMW

    “But seriously, of all the global warming claims made with no basis, this tops them all. I hope the American people can see through this type of thing.”

    And the bad comedy that is climate change reporting marches on. Like the mythical image of lemmings marching towards the cliff edge.

    “Please – let’s base policy on data, not emotional reaction to poorly researched articles.”

    If only the Greenies would let our political leaders do just that. No, they’re convinced we’re headed for doom, and that their solution is not only the best one, but the only one. Anything else will incur the wrath of the climate gods.

    Reply
  5. Kunoichi

    When I was a kid growing up on the farm (in the 1970’s), my chores included taking care of our chickens. These were, by today’s jargon, free range, organically raised chickens. Sometimes, the chickens would attack and kill weaker ones. I’ve even seen them cannibalize the remains of chickens – I don’t think I want to know how those chickens died in the first place.

    During the 70’s, the consensus was a looming ice age.

    ZOMG!!! Global cooling causes cannibal chickens!

    Hey, why not? It makes as much sense and global warming causes cannibal polar bears.

    Reply
  6. Geophys55

    Can we all please remember that the polar bears lived through the Medieval Warm Period when temperatures were warmer than today?

    That was back when wine grapes grew in England, Vikings navigated to what’s now Nova Scotia, Bristle Cone Pines grew far above today’s timberline (as their still frozen trunks testify).

    In the 1800’s whalers noted polar bears swimming 100’s of miles from shore. Are you trying to tell me they have forgotten how to swim?

    The Earth has been much warmer and much colder in the past, and will be both in the future. The Earth has had much more CO2 in its atmosphere, even when ice bound.

    This hysteria mongering has done damage to our economy and security. Those responsible should be held accountable.

    Reply
  7. JMW

    “During the 70’s, the consensus was a looming ice age.

    ZOMG!!! Global cooling causes cannibal chickens!

    Hey, why not? It makes as much sense and global warming causes cannibal polar bears.”

    Once upon a time, when something unusual happened, we said it was the work of divine beings, and usually they were angry at us for some transgression.

    These days, whenever we see something unusual happen, we blame climate change for whatever weirdness we see, and invariably we hold ourselves at fault for it. We drive too many cars. We fly to too many places. We use too many gadgets. We consume too much oil or meat or whatever. No matter what it is, it’s too much and we’re running out of it and so on.

    Climate change is the new “Goddiddit” for society and especially science, where it makes for a convenient answer to a puzzling problem [and is about as lazy a form of thinking as attributing occurrences to some divine being].

    Reply

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