Scientists Admit Polar Bear Numbers Were Made Up To ‘Satisfy Public Demand’

[mamooth]

Some fine sleaze by the deniers and TheOwl in particular, implying that an estimate is actually a fabrication.

Dr. Susan Crockford is openly on the denier dole, drawing a monthly paycheck from The Heartland Institute, and making the rounds as a paid speaker for other denier groups. This should cause TinyDancer to repudiate her, given her professed distrust of those on the dole, but we know that won't happen. It's that denier double standard, one of the things which defines them.

Dr. Susan Crockford has also never done any actual research on polar bears. I mean, aside from sitting in an office and reading about them on the internet. Oddly, the conservative media and denier blogs still refer to her as "World Renowned Polar Bear Expert". Every single piece of "Polar Bears are doing great!" pseudoscience on the internet literally comes from that one single source, paid denier shill Susan Crockford.

In contrast, there are a whole lot of people out in the field busting their butts doing actual research. And the deniers here hate them for their hard work and honesty, for any actual science that fails to agree with denier party-approved pseudoscience.

 

[mamooth]

"I am a different kind of polar bear expert than those that study bears in the field"
-- Dr. Susan Crockford

About | polarbearscience

That's TheOwl's hero, the desk jockey/internet expert. Such a good little UsefulIdiot he is.

 

[Crick]

What do polar bear population estimates have to do with AGW? Are polar bear numbers monitored by climate scientists? What was the public pressuring polar bear scientists FOR? Not low numbers, just numbers. They took shortcuts to meet demands from the people who pay their bills. Big whoop. How're Arctic ice extents doing? How will the world's polar bears do when there ISN'T any ice left up there? How about the walruses? Fur seals?

Yes folks. Liberals are fucking double talking hypocritical brainwashed piece of shit losers.

Do go fuck yourself you witless ass.

 

[Crick]

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_bears

Climate change
The IUCN, Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, United States Geological Survey and many leading polar bear biologists have expressed grave concerns about the impact of climate change, including the belief that the current warming trend imperils the survival of the species.[26][134][135][136][137][138]

The key danger posed by climate change is malnutrition or starvation due to habitat loss. Polar bears hunt seals from a platform of sea ice. Rising temperatures cause the sea ice to melt earlier in the year, driving the bears to shore before they have built sufficient fat reserves to survive the period of scarce food in the late summer and early fall.[97] Reduction in sea-ice cover also forces bears to swim longer distances, which further depletes their energy stores and occasionally leads to drowning.[139] Thinner sea ice tends to deform more easily, which appears to make it more difficult for polar bears to access seals.[59] Insufficient nourishment leads to lower reproductive rates in adult females and lower survival rates in cubs and juvenile bears, in addition to poorer body condition in bears of all ages.[26]

Mothers and cubs have high nutritional requirements, which are not met if the seal-hunting season is too short. In addition to creating nutritional stress, a warming climate is expected to affect various other aspects of polar bear life: Changes in sea ice affect the ability of pregnant females to build suitable maternity dens.[23] As the distance increases between the pack ice and the coast, females must swim longer distances to reach favored denning areas on land.[26] Thawing of permafrost would affect the bears who traditionally den underground, and warm winters could result in den roofs collapsing or having reduced insulative value.[26] For the polar bears that currently den on multi-year ice, increased ice mobility may result in longer distances for mothers and young cubs to walk when they return to seal-hunting areas in the spring.[26] Disease-causing bacteria and parasites would flourish more readily in a warmer climate.[59]

Problematic interactions between polar bears and humans, such as foraging by bears in garbage dumps, have historically been more prevalent in years when ice-floe breakup occurred early and local polar bears were relatively thin.[134] Increased human-bear interactions, including fatal attacks on humans, are likely to increase as the sea ice shrinks and hungry bears try to find food on land.[134][140] The effects of climate change are most profound in the southern part of the polar bear's range, and this is indeed where significant degradation of local populations has been observed.[138] The Western Hudson Bay subpopulation, in a southern part of the range, also happens to be one of the best-studied polar bear subpopulations. This subpopulation feeds heavily on ringed seals in late spring, when newly weaned and easily hunted seal pups are abundant.[126] The late spring hunting season ends for polar bears when the ice begins to melt and break up, and they fast or eat little during the summer until the sea freezes again.[126]

Due to warming air temperatures, ice-floe breakup in western Hudson Bay is currently occurring three weeks earlier than it did 30 years ago, reducing the duration of the polar bear feeding season.[126] The body condition of polar bears has declined during this period; the average weight of lone (and likely pregnant) female polar bears was approximately 290 kg (640 lb) in 1980 and 230 kg (510 lb) in 2004.[126] Between 1987 and 2004, the Western Hudson Bay population declined by 22%.[141]

In Alaska, the effects of sea ice shrinkage have contributed to higher mortality rates in polar bear cubs, and have led to changes in the denning locations of pregnant females.[96][142] In recent years, polar bears in the Arctic have undertaken longer than usual swims to find prey, resulting in four recorded drownings in the unusually large ice pack regression of 2005.[139]

 

[flacaltenn]

What do polar bear population estimates have to do with AGW? Are polar bear numbers monitored by climate scientists? What was the public pressuring polar bear scientists FOR? Not low numbers, just numbers. They took shortcuts to meet demands from the people who pay their bills. Big whoop. How're Arctic ice extents doing? How will the world's polar bears do when there ISN'T any ice left up there? How about the walruses? Fur seals?

Because without the incredibly long list of lies, fearful tales and distortions -- the public wouldnt give half the fuck they give now?? ???????

 

[Crick]

But you're taking the choice of one group - publicly-funded polar bear biologists choosing to make a less than optimally accurate population estimate estimate in the face of an intense demand from the public for such a value - after first mischaracterizing it as an intentional fabrication - as having some bearing on the science behind AGW and the near-universal position of climate scientists (a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT group) that human activities are the primary cause of the global warming we've experienced the last 150 years.

It is precisely as if I took the behavior of, let's say, the VA administrators who chose to falsify patient wait times or of Bernie Madoff stealing people's life savings or of Japanese fisherman slaughtering dolphins for food and said this means that AGW deniers are dishonest. It is precisely as connected.