Acclaimed Polar Bear Researcher Has "Integrity Issues"

Who'd have thunk it? The guy who wrote up the report of dead polar polar bears in the water that was cited extensively by Al Gore and used by enviro wackos everywhere to pressure the planet to panic over global warming seems to have some integrity issues.

A federal wildlife biologist whose observation in 2004 of presumably drowned polar bears in the Arctic helped to galvanize the global warming movement has been placed on administrative leave and is being investigated for scientific misconduct, possibly over the veracity of that article.

Charles Monnett, an Anchorage-based scientist with the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, or BOEMRE, was told July 18 that he was being put on leave, pending results of an investigation into "integrity issues."

There was another scientist that accompanied Monnett on the study which was conducted in 2004 named Gleason. While he doesn't dispute the 4 dead polar bears he does dispute the cause.

According to a transcript, investigator Eric May asked Gleason his thoughts on Gore referencing the dead polar bears. Gleason said none of the polar bear papers he has written or co-authored has said "anything really" about global warming.

"It's something along the lines of the changing environment in the Arctic," he said.

Gleason said others put their own spin on research or observations.

Yes folks, four dead polar bears is all it takes for environmental zealots to shut down all the energy production in this country. Well that and some little guppies and lizards.

Oh No! Another 'Polar Bears are Disappearing' Story

Of course the story is replete with the the word if, since there's zero evidence to support this nonsense and as recent as 2008 there were record numbers of polar bears. But hey, let's play along.

THE polar bear population is falling because of melting sea ice, a study published today has claimed.

The survival of the species across much of the Arctic will be in question if climate change continues at its current rate, said researchers from the University of Alberta.

They predicted that up to 73 percent of pregnant females in the Hudson Bay region will not reproduce if sea ice breakup comes a month early.

"If climate change continues unabated, the viability of the species across much of the Arctic will be in question," said biologist Peter Molner, the paper's lead author.

During ice-free periods, pregnant female bears are less able to hunt for food to build up energy reserves, as they hibernate before giving birth. If they cannot build up proper reserves, the embryo is reabsorbed.

If if if if.

Not will, not is, not conclusive evidence shows.

If.

As in, if these people weren't beholden to research grant money, they would be forced to get real jobs.

The Hudson Bay polar bears are the most southerly population and the first to be affected by global warming, said researchers, but if temperatures continue to rise across the Arctic, most of the polar bear population will be at risk.

OK, they're slipping. Is it climate change or global warming?

BBC 'Science' Reporter Insists Polar Bears In Trouble

I think it is time for the BBC to get a new science reporter. Today's breathless headline proclaims Polar bears can be saved by emissions cuts, study says.

Well that is all fine and dandy except for the fact that the polar bears don't need saving. Their population has been growing over the last decade.
From 2007:

In the Davis Strait area, a 140,000-square kilometre region, the polar bear population has grown from 850 in the mid-1980s to 2,100 today.

"There aren't just a few more bears. There are a hell of a lot more bears," said Mitch Taylor, a polar bear biologist who has spent 20 years studying the animals.

And then there is this story from Jan of this year with anecdotal evidence.

In the Western Hudson Bay area, where harvest quotas were reduced by 80 percent four years ago, communities are complaining about the number of polar bears. “Now people can look out the window and see as many as 20 polar bears at the ice-flow edge,” Flaherty says.

During a public hearing last September focusing on the polar bear population in the Baffin Bay region, hunters reported more sightings of females with three cubs. The normal litter is one or two. Flaherty, himself a serious hunter, says the abundant food supply – primarily baby ring seals – in the area is responsible for the bigger litters.

The on-the-ground reports, if accurate, seem to contradict the official story of the beleaguered polar bear. According to the standard theory, warmer temperatures (caused by human CO2 emissions) are shrinking the ice floe, the polar bear’s main hunting ground, forcing populations to compete for a diminishing food supply. Warmer temperatures also are to blame for the loss of thicker “multi-year ice.”

The BBC writer also seems to be worried about polar bears breeding with grizzlies, and while that might be of some concern if you were to stumble across one of these monsters I wonder if the author is harboring some sort of racist thinking. Can't have those white bears breeding with the brown ones after all, we all know what happens next.

Dr Brendan Kelly of the US National Marine Mammal Laboratory, and colleagues, write in a separate comment piece about the possibility of increased cross-breeding between the polar and grizzly bears.

A polar bear with patches of brown fur was shot by hunters in 2006 and this year, a hunter killed a polar bear thought to be the offspring of a polar-grizzly hybrid.

Dr Kelly suggests that as the ice cap melts and polar bears go ashore, the natural barrier between the bear populations will fall, and such hybrids, dubbed "pizzly bears" by some, might become more commonplace.

But hey, don't let real facts get in the way of your religion, er science.

More Grim News for Polar Bears

None of this would've happened if Al Gore was still alive. Or married. Whatever. But I saw it coming a couple of years ago. We're so overrun with polar bears it may be time to thin the herd.

A joint commission is recommending lifting the ban on harvesting polar bears for traditional and cultural purposes in Russia.

The U.S.-Russia Polar Bear Commission met this week in Anchorage to determine the potential for a coordinated and sustainable subsistence harvest of polar bears by Native peoples of Alaska and Chukotka in Russia. The commission determined that the harvest should be limited to up to 58 polar bears a year, with no more than 19 being females.

The move will end a 50-year ban on the Russian side. However, it is expected to improve monitoring and decrease poaching in that country.

In Alaska, a team will develop implementation procedures to be presented at the next meeting of the commission in June 2011.

Heartless Obama Hates Polar Bears

Recall the hysteria when the Bush administration didn't cave in to the global warming nuts and declare polar bears an endangered species, despite the fact their numbers are greater than ever. Well, it will be curious to see how heartless and cruel Barack Obama is portrayed now that another promise and constituency is thrown under the bus.

The Associated Press has learned that the Interior Department is letting stand a Bush administration regulation that limits protection of polar bears from global warming.

People familiar with the decision say Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will announce late Friday morning that he will not rescind the Bush rule, although Congress gave him authority to do so. The people spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to pre-empt the secretary's announcement.

A year ago, the iconic polar bear was declared a threatened species because global warming is causing a severe decline in Arctic sea ice, the bear's habitat. But the Bush administration rules limit protection, saying no action outside the Arctic region could be considered a threat to the bear under the law.

Check out this part from the first incarnation of the story.

A U.S. decision involving the iconic polar bear could determine whether protecting endangered species might also help save the earth from global warming.

Sheesh. A little advocacy journalism, anyone?

Update: Sure to further enrage to kook left: Sarah Palin declares victory.

“This is a clear victory for Alaska,” Governor Palin said. “We all want to preserve and protect the polar bear using the best possible tools, but there is absolutely no need to change the 4(d) rule to accomplish this purpose. I want to thank Secretary Salazar for his careful review of the science and the administrative record that led to this decision.”

Despite Record Numbers, Polar Bears Now 'Threatened'

Moonbattery has enveloped the Bush Administration, as they've made the absurd move of listing polar bears as threatened in spite of recent news that they're now at record numbers.

The U.S. government has decided to list polar bears as a threatened species under its Endangered Species Act — a decision that could deal a severe blow to the lucrative sport hunt in Canada's North.

The decision follows concerns from scientists that two-thirds of the polar bears could disappear by mid-century because of sea ice loss due to global warming.

This is a lose-lose. The eco-nuts are going to flip out since they won't be listed as endangered and the Republicans continue to lose credibility by giving credence to this global warming nonsense.

Just get a load of this drivel.

Not content to sit back and let global warming slowly melt the polar ice cap - forcing the drowning and starvation of polar bears - the Bush administration (along with six oil companies) has, it seems, declared all-out war on the species. Not only has the White House refused to place polar bears on the list of endangered species, it has also opened the Chukchi Sea (an important habitat of the species), and is trying to open the Beaufort Sea (another important habitat) to oil drilling.

Faux conservative pundit Stephen Colbert of Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report" must be positively giddy over this news. After all, as he often says, bears are "godless killing machines" (as opposed to the Bush administration, who might aptly be referred to as "God-fearing killing machines").

Dude, step away from the crackpipe already.

Despite the evidence of record numbers of polar bears, the left still demagogues and lies with impunity.

"We are now beginning to see declines in a number of populations of polar bears, and that's because of global warming," says John Kostyack of the National Wildlife Federation. "Effectively, the polar bears are starving."

No amount of evidence will ever get through to these morons. Which begs the question: Why does anyone pay attention to them?

Update: Kempthorne claims it's not about global warming. Good luck with that.

Notwithstanding the secretary's disclaimers, this is the first time the Endangered Species Act has been used to protect a species threatened by the impacts of global warming. There has been concern within the business community that such an action could have far-reaching impact and could be used to regulate carbon dioxide.

Maybe They Should Move

More heart-rending global warming alarmism.

George W. Bush is killing off polar bears.

Polar bear population seen declining

WASHINGTON - 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. USGS projects that polar bears during the next half-century will disappear along the north coasts of Alaska and Russia and lose 42 percent of the Arctic range they need to live in during summer in the Polar Basin when they hunt and breed. A polar bear's life usually lasts about 30 years.

"Projected changes in future sea ice conditions, if realized, will result in loss of approximately two-thirds of the world's current polar bear population by the mid 21st century," the report says.

Polar bears depend on sea ice as a platform for hunting seals, which is their primary food. They rarely catch seals on land or in open water. Because the general decline of Arctic sea ice appears to be underestimated, scientists said their forecast of how much polar bear populations will shrink also may be on the low side.

"There is a definite link between changes in the sea ice and the welfare of polar bears," said USGS scientist Steven Amstrup, the lead author of the new studies. "As the sea ice goes, so goes the polar bear."

Amstrup said 84 percent of the scientific variables affecting the polar bear's fate was tied to changes in sea ice.

As of this week, the extent of Arctic sea ice had fallen to 4.75 million square miles — or 250,000 square miles below the previous record low of 5.05 million square miles in September 2005, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

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.

Polar bears have walked the planet for at least 40,000 years.

If polar bears have walked the earth for 40,000 years, it's because they've learned to adapt to climate conditions and migrate elsewhere.

If by chance their populations does thin out in these areas, there's nothing some pinhead government scientists can do about it.

Of course, the latest scare tactics give political hacks something else they can blame on President Bush.

"This grim news about polar bears and sea ice decline is horrifying, but it is a call to action, not despair," said Kassie Siegel of the Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity. "The good news is that there is still time to save polar bears. Our hope lies in a rapid response, including both deep and immediate carbon dioxide reductions and a full-court press on other greenhouse pollutants such as methane."

The fate of polar bears has struck a public nerve. Fish and Wildlife officials have received 600,000 public comments so far on the proposed listing, spokesman Chris Tollefson said.

On Friday, Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., urged the Bush administration to grant polar bears federal protection.

"This is becoming a tragic metaphor for the administration's voluntary approach to global warming," said Markey, chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. "Instead of meeting the challenge, the Bush administration is happy to float along, waiting to see if the planet, and polar bears, will sink or swim."

Another member of the committee, Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., said the loss of some of the magnificent creatures on earth may be the proverbial "canary in the coal mine" needed to prod both Congress and the Bush administration into action on climate change.

George W. Bush, polar bear killer. Will the horror ever end?