WASHINGTON, Sept. 7, 2007
Scientists: Most Polar Bears Dead By 2050
Government Scientists Project Two-Thirds Drop In Bear Population Due To Global Warming
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CBS News' Daniel Sieberg sets sail for the Arctic to learn more about climate change.
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The agency projects that polar bears during that time will lose 42 percent of the Arctic range they need to live in during summer in the Polar Basin when they hunt and breed.
Polar bears depend on sea ice as a platform for hunting seals, their primary food. But the sea ice is decreasing due to climate change.
"It's that declining sea ice that appears to be driving the results in our models," said U.S. Geological Survey scientist Steven Amstrup, the lead author of the new studies. "As the sea ice goes, so goes the polar bear."
Scientists do not hold out much hope that the buildup of carbon dioxide and other industrial gases blamed for heating the atmosphere like a greenhouse can be turned around in time to help the polar bears anytime soon.
"Despite any mitigation of greenhouse gases, we are going to see the same amount of energy in the system the next 20, 30 or 40 years," Mark Myers, the USGS director, said.
Greenland and Norway have the most polar bears, while a quarter of them live mainly in Alaska and travel to Canada and Russia. But the USGS says their range will shrink to no longer include Alaska and other southern regions.
The findings of U.S. and Canadian scientists are based on six months of new studies, during which the health of three polar bear groups and their dependency on Arctic sea ice were examined using "new and traditional models," Myers said.
They were made public to help guide Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne's decision expected in January on his agency's proposal to add the polar bear to the government's endangered species list.
Last December, Kempthorne proposed designating polar bears as a "threatened" species deserving of federal protection under the Endangered Species Act, because of melting Arctic sea ice from global warming. That category is second to "endangered" on the government's list of species believed most likely to become extinct.
A separate organization, the World Conservation Union, based in Gland, Switzerland, has estimated the polar bear population in the Arctic is about 20,000 to 25,000, put at risk by melting sea ice, pollution, hunting, development and tourism.
© MMVII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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See all 83 Commentsjesus loves you, but he hates the polar bears, apparantly.
Especially Americans, who will lose out big if things continue to worsen. And since previous skirmishes with the stock market have shown what happens to America inevitably reverberates around the world, nobody''s going to want America to crash.
Posted by camposanto at 07:20 PM : Sep 07, 2007
this is funny!
Posted by winnerindia at 08:01 PM : Sep 07, 2007
?
hehe
WOOOOHOOOOO!
Posted by camposanto at 07:20 PM : Sep 07, 2007
please, tell me
why is "it" not captalized?!
Posted by camposanto at 07:20 PM : Sep 07, 2007
----------
***, over?
Posted by camposanto at 07:20 PM : Sep 07, 2007
please, tell me
why is "it" not captalized?!
Posted by nggr at 08:12 PM : Sep 07, 2007
The reason is that he was typing with caps lock on, on his keyboard and by the time he typed IT he pressed the shift key of his keyboard to type the abbreviation in capital letters. But since he never knew that the caps lock was on, the effect of caps lock was balanced and he typed IT in lower case as it.
Maybe if Algore would have shut off the heater on his outdoor pool years before he did "Inconvenient Truth" the polar bears would be okay.
Maybe if Algore wouldn''t fly around in private jets all the time the polar bears would be okay.
...
Posted by Hawksprings at 08:41 PM : Sep 07, 2007
Still flogging that same old dead horse Hawksprings.
Reality is reality.
How is it all going up there in the mountain tops.
Maybe if Algore wouldn''''t fly around in private jets all the time the polar bears would be okay.
...
Posted by Hawksprings at 08:41 PM : Sep 07, 2007
---------------
Maybe if Reagan hadn''t turned the heat back on in the White House after Carter turned it off, the polar bears would be ok.
Maybe if John Travolta didn''t fly around in his Boeing 707, wasting fuel and heating up the planet, the polar bears would be ok.
Maybe if...
So what you are saying is that if something doesn''t taste good it''s worthless?
I doubt if we were to cook you up you would taste very good so I guess there won''t be much of a loss when your gone either, eh?
I hope you aren''t offended by what I am going to ask you. There are times I ask my husband this question also.
Did you take your stupid pills today?:)
erasmus, you could never offend me!!! :)
rheola, the higher elevations (8500 feet and up) are supposed to get snow this weekend... we''re still waiting for global warming around here.
...
Posted by hawksprings at 12:18 AM : Sep 08, 2007
Good on you mate.
Hang in there.
Let us all pause to go and read the article at this link:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/article/20070814/NATION02/108140063
It tell of how in the 1920''s the headlines of the Washington Post read: "Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt."
And in the body of the article it reads: "great masses of ice have now been replaced by moraines of earth and stones," and "at many points well-known glaciers have entirely disappeared."
Could it just be possible that our current "experts" are wrong (again) and that we''re seeing a natural cycle?
jimfinster, where are you?
...
Thank you!
Tou may find this of interest:
The 2003 survey of more than 530 climate scientists is available at http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=20861 . A summary of the 2006 survey of members of the National Registry of Environmental Professionals is available at http://www.globalwarmingheartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=20512
I would also like to point out to the dimwits who occasionally point to weather in isolated locales as contradicting the trend in global warming that they are, once again, barking up the wrong tree. We''re talking about averages not specifics, and we''re talking about climate, not weather (and no, they are not the same thing).
Anyone denying that waste accumulates within a closed system---which is all we''re talking about---is obviously engaging in willful ignorance. We know it, and more to the point, they know it as well. Again, we are simply dealing with the fundamental cowardice of the conservative. Listen to a conservative sometime; all their positions are based on fear.
Posted by hawksprings at 12:18 AM : Sep 08, 2007
LOL. It''s so funny to listen to the ignorance about global warming! Oh, but there is no such thing. You are a scientist, right? Oh yeah, "you''s gradiated from Limbo Institoot of Consoirvative Studyss!
Posted by bobgee_1999 at 01:15 AM : Sep 08, 2007
You should know that this willful ignorance is about fear. If they can feign ignorance, then they do not have to worry about anything in their world ever changing. But it will, and no amount of willful ignorance will change that.
"jimfinster, where are you?"
I don''t think jimfinster wants to talk to you anymore. He is probably tired of trying to get you to see the light.:)
The Earth, or more properly "Terra", is NOT a closed system. It is affected by, and interacts with, everything in the universe in one way or another but mostly within our solar system, including the gravity trapped objects beyond Pluto. Most notably in gaseous, radioactive and gravametric exchanges. not to mention the light, heat and wind from the sun. Treating any heavenly object as a closed system in a model produces errors in the output. Reacting as if those errors were truisms can cause more harm than good. Do some research on your own instead of acting like a californian.
Ok, so lets accept for a moment your logic, so where does toxic waste go when dumped into the rivers, lakes, and oceans, to Pluto? Where do the emissions from autos, factories, and coal burning plants go once emitted?
The influences of remote objects in the universe are so negligible that the Earth can be considered, for all intents and purposes a closed system. True, there are oxygen atoms in space, but can you breathe out there? This is the only biosphere we have, and ignoring our effects on it only hasten our doom. Poisoning the hydrosphere is akin to defecating in the kitchen, dude, that is our only water supply. same goes for the atmosphere.
The earth and other bodies with gaseous atmospheres are constantly losing atmosphere into space, helped along by the solar wind. Space is mostly hydrogen not oxygen. The issue is closed system versus open system so please do not confuse matters. Earth recieves minerals and water on a regular basis via "shooting stars" (meteorites and cometary debris). The earth recycles it''s surface by subduction (usually slowly) and volcanic expulsion (rapidly). The interaction of an open system is what created the moon, added mass to the planet and most likely changed it''s orbit.
Mars has similar warnubg problems currently due to these same interactions but lacks a "Van Allen" belt so radioactivity and solar wind have an increased effect. Computer models that do not include ALL factors result in errors (GIGO).
For matters of health the pollution needs to be addressed but climate change will still occur as it has for the last 4.5 billion years. That is, as frightening as it may be, the way it is. Man has no control over the climate of Earth, we adapt or die like all the creatures before us.
All Bush''s fault
Everything was great until 1/20/00
It''s all America''s fault, we are dooming the planet. The rest of the world is fine, it''s all us.
You won''t read it here but there was another "global warming" trend back in, I think 1922. There were dire predictions then, polar bears dying out, etc, etc.
Then we had "the new ice age" back in the 70''s during the "we''re a selfish nation and need to suck it up carter years". What happened then?
Does anyone realize that the climate is constantly changing and shifting? Do we really know what the norm is?
You know how the left is saying that the whole global war on terror is a hoax? Well lefties, I think your powers that be and your msm is playing this up big time.
NOw, about the polar bears. Could this be the over population from the ice age 70''s?? That question is no dumber than those that think we can change the climate. That is the ultimate in elitism.
All Bush''''s fault
Posted by Xlib
Nope, Bush is blameless...for everything, it''s all someone else''s fault. The buck hasn''t stopped with Bush in 7 years, why would you expect it now?
When all the wild life is gone from the Alaskan wilderness, there''ll be nothing to stop the Republicans from drilling there!
What I just typed above was a translation for the more simpler folk that come to this forum so all may understand what the radical environmentalist movement is really about.
Is anybody retared enough to believe one man (Bush) or anybody else can stop this trend. Does anybody realize that the core samples taking from the antartic ice cap has shown us that this planet has gone thru periods of gloabal warming that exceeds our current "plight"?
What a shame some of these cry baby enviromentalists wont go the same way the polor bears do.. Extinct!
By Barbara Ann.
I sit and ponder.
Of the earth that is home.
From my window I can
see the changes.
The pretty blue sky
of my childhood is gone.
I do miss its colour.
Today it a hazy blue.
As I walk to the places.
I notice the heat.
More so as it is pavements.
I feel the heat from them.
They never really cool down.
Years they were not there.
The car is every where.
Everyone in a hurry.
I wait for my ride.
The mode drivers
where rather it not be.
Mass transit bus.
I happily board.
Greet the driver.
Pay my fare and sit.
As I find a seat and
fold my white cane
I am thankful for that bus.
As I debus I thank the driver
Go tapping towards home.
At home I sit at computer
reading the news,letters.
Just relax playing a paw.
Computer dutiful deal
a paw of solitaire.
I have a deck to play
the old way ,
It is easier on computer.
They ask why the changes
and the heat.
Years ago it was in the 60s and 70s.
Today not so.
IF it had remained
mostly pavement free.
And few cars running
roads it would still be cool.
In winter it don''t snow.
It DID snow years ago.
I used shovel it.
Now it is easier to get about.
I wonder HAVE we damsged our world.
Is it truly too late to save her.
I can see the need for a simple
lifestyle where greed is done away.
So I ponder it.I am only one person.
There many who can make a difference.
If money was not the issue.
PLEASE GIVE BARBARA ANN CREDIT IF YOU USE IT.
Posted by lorinkundert at 02:24 PM : Sep 08, 2007
Yes, including humans. Do you say "so what" to that?
Posted by jimfinster at 03:31 PM : Sep 08, 2007
Yes...I do. You are also an animal...no better then a bear. Human animals just think they are better then the other species...kind of like the pope thinks he runs the only true church.
"The polar bear probably first appeared roughly 200,000 years ago, during the Pleistocene."
Thus, the arctic has had ice on it at least for the last 200,000 years.
Still think global warming is just another blip in the climate?
Posted by sblake63 at 12:57 PM : Sep 08, 2007
Let''s all work together to make the neocons extinct first :)
Well, now that we finally have her on the ropes, let%u2019s finish her off once and for all!
Then everything will be fine.
In the case of global warming, the two by four hasn%u2019t quite made contact with the scull yet.
It%u2019s going to be hilarious (and too late) when it finally does.
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