Shrinking Ice Caps
Are Polar Bears Going Extinct?
By Daniel Muniz

There have been quite a few news stories circulating through the press and a number of documentaries airing on cable about polar bears going extinct because of global warming. The gist of this claim is that since the climate is warming, the polar ice caps are shrinking which is reducing the natural habitat of these bears. So once the ice sheets disappear, the polar bears would not be able to adapt in their new warmer environment and they would eventually disappear.

As a result, activists insist that unless we as a civilization, namely the United States, do something right now to stop global warming, we are ultimately responsible for the extinction of this animal as well as for destruction of other species. After all, the press and a number of politicians claim with near absolute certainty that global warming is manmade, therefore we as a society have a moral obligation to stop polluting the planet.

The first thing to challenge is where is the uncontestable data that polar bears are indeed going extinct?

There is certainly a lot of talk about it but where is the proof?

Although there are plenty of passionate discussions how the planet is being ravaged by global warming, there is no definitive data that indicates that there currently is any decrease in polar bear populations in the United States or throughout the world.

The Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) which has been carefully gathering data really has no information about the decline on their own fact sheet. About the only credible evidence are reports of a handful of polar bears that are below average in weight and that there are fewer cubs surviving in certain regions but there is still no explanation for these small anomalies. It is tempting for the activists to jump on climate change but every species goes through these natural cycles so more data is needed to determine if there is even any significance attached to these variations.

But other than that, solid evidence showing that this species is immediately heading towards extinction regardless of the media buzz that dominates the airwaves is sparse at best. It is pretty amazing that after all the hype, the media isn't able to point to a mountain of comprehensive studies and exhaustive research but that hasn't stopped the press before when it comes to sensationalized stories.

So here is the next big question. Are polar bears currently an endangered species?

What the press conveniently ignores in their news stories is that the bears were not even in the “threatened” category although the Bush Administration recently did some paper shuffling in which polar bears are now classified as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). But it was more of a game of semantics because the designation is non-binding and bears can still legally be hunted by trophy hunters and indigenous natives. The bottom line is that the population hasn’t shifted enough to warrant any additional protections that the bears already enjoy under existing laws and treaties.

And here is another important detail that the press also missed. Polar bears have survived climate changes before without going extinct in which temperatures were much warmer in the past than what they are today.

For example, during the Medieval Climate Optimum which occurred only 1,000 years ago, the human population of northern Europe soared because the warmer climate created favorable conditions for raising livestock and for farming. In fact, the Vikings were able to raise livestock in Greenland and even farm it during that period of global warming. However, the downfall of the Vikings was not the result of war but of global cooling. The ensuing Little Ice Age devastated northern Europe and brought about famine and disease.

And beyond that was the Holocene Climate Optimum which occurred 5,000-9,000 years ago where the planet once again experienced warmer temperatures.

So in the past 10,000 years, polar bears weathered the climate change and survived.

But why is it that you don’t see these natural warming trends in any of the sensational news stories about these same bears heading towards extinction?

And even if the planet did warm up to the temperatures of the Medieval Climate Optimum and the Holocene Climate Optimum, in which we are nowhere near close to being today, there is nothing to prevent the polar bears from adapting to the climate changes as they have done before. Yet there seems to be very little inclination from the press to investigate how the bears adapted and survived huge temperature changes in the past 10,000 years.

The media and the global warming activists never seem to acknowledge these footnotes in history when they forecast gloom and doom. They immediately make the unsubstantiated correlation that polar bears would be completely wiped off the face of the Earth because of climate change.

It is time for the press to start asking serious questions about these kinds of dire predictions instead of rushing to dubious conclusions even though they do make good headlines that capture the public’s attention. By failing to adhere to even some of the most basic journalistic standards, the media is doing a tremendous disservice to the public by only presenting a selective piece of scientific debate.

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