Scientists: 2/3 Of World's Polar Bears To Die Off By 2050

Associated Press:

Two-thirds of the world's polar bears will be killed off by 2050 -- and the entire population gone from Alaska -- because of thinning sea ice from global warming in the Arctic, government scientists forecast Friday.

Only in the northern Canadian Arctic islands and the west coast of Greenland are any of the world's 16,000 polar bears expected to survive through the end of the century, said the U.S. Geological Survey, which is the scientific arm of the Interior Department.

Read the whole story: Associated Press

Comments

[rivrgrrl]

11:13 PM on 09/08/2007

Kyoto wasn't ratified in 1997:

The treaty was negotiated in Kyoto, Japan in December 1997, opened for signature on March 16, 1998, and closed on March 15, 1999. The agreement came into force on February 16, 2005 following ratification by Russia on November 18, 2004. As of December 2006, a total of 169 countries and other governmental entities have ratified the agreement (representing over 61.6% of emissions from Annex I countries)."

I was wrong on a couple of points, I can admit it and have no problem with that. That you think me a nitwit has absolutely no bearing on me and my life. Worrying about what a bush apologist thinks of me ranks pretty low on my list of what matters in this world, but if it makes you feel like a big person, go for it.

At the end of the day, my team has been right on every major issue facing our country today; the shrub wasn't elected, he was selected; the shrub and the GOP would squander the surplus Clinton left our country, they did; invading Iraq would be a huge mistake, it has been; there were no WMDs, there weren't; the shrub would alienate the US from the rest of of the world and tarnish our good will towards the rest of the world, he has; Iraq would end up in a no win quagmire, it is; the economy would suffer under shrub's economic policies, it has.....need I go on?

btw - as if you have any influence or power over who posts here.....puhleeese....take that crap over to freeperville where the lemmings are used to being told what to think, do and say.

[Will7]

11:27 PM on 09/08/2007

You sound just like Dan Rather:

All of our evidence was false, but our conclusions were correct.

Now, let's go through these one more time:

All the major studies conclude that Bush would have won had the count continued, which was a complete violation of the Florida Constitution.

The tax cuts, coming on top of 9/11 and the recession President Bush inherited, caused record growth in GDP and tax collections.

There were no WMD's, even though John Kerry, Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton said there were, and said so before President Bush became President.

Iraq was mismanaged horribly - but your solution, I believe, is worse.

Your metaphysical certaintudes are horribly misplaced.

[rivrgrrl]

12:12 AM on 09/09/2007

LMAO

Okaaay, bushbot.

What you call metaphysical certaintudes (lol, is that even a word, other than in your warped mind?), the rest of us in the real world call it the truth.
I'm not here to change your mind....my only question is:
what color IS the sky in your world?

Just because you're in a foul mood and can't take it out on the little woman because she'd kick your ass to the curb doesn't make it right that you go online looking for anonymous posters to denegrate......then again, go for it. As with most bushbots, it only affirms my views of your type.

[StillAmused]

02:42 AM on 09/09/2007

Speaking of Dan Rather, we're still waiting for that reunion of Junior's Air Guard contemporaries, all of them irate and insistent upon attesting that he fulfilled his commitment, was a leader of men and always showed up on time.

(crickets)

Asshole.

You celebrate the trashing of a legendary newsman (you're probably not old enough to remember his reports from Vietnam — under fire, and NOT "embedded"), but you whistle past the graveyard when you KNOW that his AWOL story on the BushBaby is unrefuted.

You're a fucking uninformed pretender... and that's a "certaintude", absitively.

[rivrgrrl]

11:13 PM on 09/08/2007

"The scientific community has concluded that burning fossil fuels – oil, coal, and natural gas – to power our cars, homes and businesses is causing global temperatures to rise. This heating of the earth poses a serious threat to our health, safety, and the environment. The national science academies of the United States, England, France, Russia, Germany, Japan, Italy, Canada, Brazil, China and India issued the following joint statement in June 2005: “The scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to the justify nations to take prompt action.”

http://nebraska.sierraclub.org/movalley/usglobal/warming/Bellevue.asp

In June of 2007, China unveiled a 62-page climate change plan and promised to put climate change at the heart of its energy policies but insisted that developed countries had an “unshirkable responsibility” to take the lead on cutting greenhouse gas emissions and that the "common but differentiated responsibility" principle, as agreed up in the UNFCCC should be applied.[48][49]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#Local_governments

I will concede your second point; it was a 95-0 vote, but look where we stand today; 169 countries and 663 US cities support Kyoto. Knowing the current US admin doesn't support Kyoto, 8 US states have signed onto the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, whose aim is the same as Kyoto.

cont.

[Exusian]

11:02 PM on 09/08/2007

Back to the actual topic of this thread, polar bears.

Besides the news story this thread stems from, and the Polar Bear International website HumeSkeptic linked to, two links have been put forward that say that polar bear populations are actually stable or increasing. One, provided by Lukesmaster is to a two and half year old story in The Scottsman that quotes Dr. Mitch Taylor, a biologist with the Nunavut Department of Environment - Wildlife. TimN provides another to a National Post story from March of this year that quotes the same Dr. Taylor.

I see Environmental-Action has some things to say about Dr. Taylor. EA reports that Taylor has stated that at least one population of polar bears in the western Hudson Bay region has declined, and that we are not sure how climate change has affected populations in other regions. EA also asserts that Dr. Taylor may be in a possible conflict of interest as he appears to be advocating in favor of the tourist hunting industry in Nunavut: http://www.environmental-action.org/blog/archives/2007/01/so_predictable.html

[TimN]

12:19 PM on 09/09/2007

Fair enough.

I also posted a link that quoted Dr. H. Sterling Burnett.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=H._Sterling_Burnett

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_bear

In a 2007 article, H. Sterling Burnett wrote, "Since the 1970s, while much of the world was warming, polar bear numbers increased dramatically, from roughly 5,000 to 25,000 bears."[7] This increase coincides with changes in hunting practices which began in the early 1970s. For example, the USA adopted the Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972, and in 1973 the International Agreement for the Conservation of Polar Bears was signed by Canada, Denmark, Norway, the USSR and the USA.

[neogejo]

11:02 PM on 09/08/2007

Global Warming. What the hell is that?

That is just what the Bush administration wants us to think.
This is serious. There have been too many ecological regulations cut under this administration that effect the promotion of Global Warming.
Some people may not care about this issue, but this is what we are leaving children. We must care that two thirds of the polar bear population will be gone by 2050. We are doing things that will change the earth in years to come. We must be mindful of this and do something to reverse this movement.
This administration is doing far too little to combat the destruction of our planet. So, we as citizens must do what our govenment cannot, or will not do. We must be advocates for the ecological well being of our planet.
If Bush will not make it his legacy, then we must make it our own.

[QueenCeleste]

09:56 PM on 09/08/2007

So sad and unnecessary that species must suffer and face extinction due to man's foolishness and selfishness. I am sickened by this, and all the callous imbeciles who believe global warming doesn't exist, or simply don't care.

[Will7]

10:28 PM on 09/08/2007

Yeah, like all those dinosaurs that died at the hand of man.

No, wait; that happened millions of years before man existed.

Never mind.

[rivrgrrl]

07:12 PM on 09/08/2007

Real brave, bushbots. Come on here and spew your lies and distortions when no one else is on the thread. Cowardly is what it is. Then again, so typical of bushbot behavior.

will7:

1. Wrong.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-12/30/content_771296.htm

2. Wrong again. It was a Republican Congress that prevented Clinton from signing on. Kyoto was put into operation in 2005, under your der leader.

3. Leaving out vital info is sooo rovian. (Speaking of which, where is rove now?)
Under the agreement, many countries don't have to actually start reducing until 2012, giving them time to implement the standards in a way that lessens the impact.

I'm sure you won't bother reading all of the links, sounds like too much work for those who are content to repeat what drug addled liars and perverted phone sex harassing bullies tell them to. But if you are interested in being informed, there they are.

For the rest of us living in a reality based existance, check out what BMG is doing to spread the word - pretty cool video from a pretty cool group of guys:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QM-mfEMssy8

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol
http://usliberals.about.com/od/environmentalconcerns/p/KyotoProtocol.htm

[rivrgrrl]

07:15 PM on 09/08/2007

oops

The two links at the bottom should go under number 2 as refutations to the bile that will was spewing.

[JulieSA]

08:11 PM on 09/08/2007

2. The vote in the Senate was 95-0. Were all 95 Republicans?

[rivrgrrl]

08:36 PM on 09/08/2007

Just really want to argue, huh?

Much more has been found out about climate change since 1997. Point is the shrub had a chance to be a part of the solution, but with every other issue, he chooses to remain a part of the problem.

Does that make you proud of him?

[GhostintheMachine]

06:59 PM on 09/08/2007

former Vice President Al Gore waits to hear if he has won this year's Nobel Peace Prize for his tireless effort on climate change, a new video will air this weekend capturing Gore on a fuel-guzzling private jet!

[notepad2]

06:54 PM on 09/08/2007

I wonder how polar bears survived the MWP and other periods of warming in the last 200,000 years.

[notepad2]

06:22 PM on 09/08/2007

Wow. Govt. scientists receiving govt. paychecks. And what do govts. say? They say gw is caused by humans. And what do govts. want? They want more and more control over every aspect of peoples lives. Connect the dots. And libs are more than happy to give govts. exactly what they want. The next headlines will be; "govt. scientists say 2/3 of polar bears will be gone by 2010."

[T.Roll]

05:02 PM on 09/08/2007

What's going on? Huffpo used to run a ridiculous, alarmist global warming news item every day. Now they show up once every couple of weeks. Are people getting bored with this shit? It's like global warming scare mongering is going extinct too.

[Will7]

04:00 PM on 09/08/2007

The great thing about the Global Warming hoax is that, just like in times past, there are three types of countries in this debacle:

1. Those like China and India, who choose not even to consider it.

2. Those like the United States, who vetoed Kyoto 95-0. And that was under a Democrat President.

3. Those like those in the EU who pay lip service to it, but whose carbon emissions are growing at a faster rate than in the U.S.

So, to the contrary, I don't worry about GW at all. I know it is like we have been saying about the weather for centuries - everyone talks about it but nobody does anything about it.

[liberalveteran]

03:16 PM on 09/08/2007

One thing I've noticed on this site. Nothing gets the Repoopicons's panties in a bunch faster than the subject of global warming.

The fact that their Dear Leader invaded Iraq for no good reason and caused the death-directly or indirectly- of 100,000s of men, women, and children is small potatoes to this bunch.

But the idea that getting into their bloated SUV and idling for twenty minutes at the drive-thru window at McDonalds might have something to do with melting the polar ice caps and the Greenland ice shelf, really gets them steamed.

The reason is obvious. It indicates that the American Way of Life, based on buying lots of junk and burning lots of gas might be damaging to the planet itself.

The problem is not what might happen fifty years from. The problem is what is happening as we speak. 100,000s of square miles of polar ice have disappeared in the last few years. If the Greenland ice shelf goes next, the folks in Louisiana and Florida will be refugees.

Maybe the Cons are right, after all. Stock up on guns. Terrible times lie ahead.

[Trittydi]

02:41 PM on 09/08/2007

Everything about this is heartbreaking.
*

[714Day]

02:19 PM on 09/08/2007

If only the intelligent creatures held dominion over the earth!
They could put human beings in zoos, then.

[Exusian]

01:33 PM on 09/08/2007

Yet another climate change thread with yet more of the same ignorant, tired, juvenile posts from the nay-sayers.

So many opinions, so little understanding and hard science.

[Will7]

03:20 PM on 09/08/2007

That's strange. I seem to be the only one posting quotes, and they all seem to refute the GWA. See all my previous posts on this thread. All referenced.

And yours?

[Exusian]

07:59 PM on 09/08/2007

No problem, which of my points wouild you like to see cites for, will?

[Exusian]

08:23 PM on 09/08/2007

By the way, will, I just searched the entire thread, and your cites amount to "Newskweek in the 1970s" (since when is Newsweek peer-reviewed as you asserted?), New York Times articles from 1895 and 1920, and Wikipedia. That's it. Not a single link.

Is this what you mean by "intellectually rigorous"?