Global Warming Link to Drowned Polar Bears Melts Under Searing Fed Probe

Global Warming Link to Drowned Polar Bears Melts Under Searing Fed Probe

Polar bears drowning in an Alaskan sea because the ice packs are melting—it’s the iconic image of the global warming debate.

But the validity of the science behind the image—presented as an ignoble testament to our environment in peril by Al Gore in his film An Inconvenient Truth—is now part of a federal investigation that has the environmental community on edge.

Special agents from the Interior Department’s inspector general's office are questioning the two government scientists about the paper they wrote on drowned polar bears, suggesting mistakes were made in the math and as to how the bears actually died, and the department is eyeing another study currently underway on bear populations.

Biologist Charles Monnett, the lead scientist on the paper, was placed on administrative leave July 18. Fellow biologist Jeffrey Gleason, who also contributed to the study, is being questioned, but has not been suspended.

The disputed paper was published by the journal Polar Biology in 2006, and suggests that the “drowning-related deaths of polar bears may increase in the future if the observed trend of regression of pack ice and/or longer open-water periods continues.”

It galvanized the environmental movement that led to the bear’s controversial listing in 2008 as threatened, and it is now protected under the Endangered Species Act.

Although the four dead bears cited in the paper were observed from 1,500 feet during flights over the Beaufort Sea, and the carcasses were never recovered or examined, Gleason told investigators it is likely the creatures drowned in a sudden windstorm that produced 30-knot winds, not for lack of an ice pack.

“We never mentioned global warming in the paper,” Gleason told the investigators, according to the transcript.

“But it’s inferred,” responded investigator Eric May. “That’s why the world took it up as a global warming tangent.”

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In particular, investigators are asking questions about the peer review work on Monnett’s drowned polar bear paper, which was done by his wife, Lisa Rotterman, as well as Andrew Derocher, the lead researcher on the Canadian study under review by the inspector general's office.

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Dr. Rob Roy Ramey, a biologist who specializes in endangered species scientific issues for Wildlife Science International, Inc., reviewed Monnett’s paper as well as the inspector general's interviews for HUMAN EVENTS and said that the authors made unwarranted assumptions and large extrapolations based on a single event.

“They did not know if the polar bears actually drowned, they assumed that they had drowned. There were no statistical tests, just extrapolations made with no accounting for measurement error,” Ramey said.

“The paper gives the appearance that rigorous surveying was done for polar bears, when it was not,” Ramey said.

“They were flying at 1,500 feet with the purpose of looking for bowhead whales, which are much larger and easier to spot.”

Ramey also says he sees a conflict of interest for Monnett’s wife to be part of the internal peer review, and questioned the awarding of a contract to Derocher, who also participated in the peer review.

“That’s not impartial,” Ramey said. “It’s really important that peer review be truly independent. If they can’t be, then everyone has to state their conflict right up front.”​

 

This crap, ladies and gentlemen, is what passes for science for the AGW crowd.

Pathetic.

 

Those bears likely died from drinking soda. All hyped up on the sugar and caffeine . . . 'tis the devil's drink I tell ya!


[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXdsaYHUn1M&playnext=1&list=PL3A8F7FCF07D7E2D2]Coca Cola Commercial - Polar Bears #2 - YouTube[/ame]

 

^ ^ ^ Moobs!

 

Al Gore deserves to be tarred and feathered and run out of town. The man is a PATHOLOGICAL LIAR -if he opens his mouth, you can count on hearing a lie come out. It didn't start with the global warming scam -where he stands to make BILLIONS but only if the scam stays on track. Its de-railed which is why he went on another one of his rants the other night screaming, shouting and cursing. And his lies are unlikely to stop with global warming either. Fucking asshole.

Yeah but Bachmann is the whacko.....rofl

 

Gore has become a punchline for 1,000 jokes.

 

We have more Polar Bears now than we did in the 1950's and they made them endangered with an asterisks to protect any backlash later.. Pathetic..

 

But that increase has to do with hunting regulations. It says nothing about loss of habitat due to melting ice.

 

BULL!!!!!

Thats a lie, they wanted them placed on the endangered species list but they wouldn't agree since their numbers aren't low as far as anyone knew. So they made a compromise and they are listed as "threatened".. That means they may become endangered due to projected global warming. It was a political ploy...