National Geographic's Misinformation about Forests and Climate Change

By Jim Steele Friday, April 15, 2022

National Geographic is at it again! Five years ago, National Geographic published a story and a video of a sickly emaciated polar bear that they fearmongered was the result of climate change. After heavy criticism they admitted they didn’t really know what had affected the bear and, in their attempt to raise “concern” about climate change had gone too when stating "this is what climate change looks like." But that’s how click-bait journalism profits.

Now, they have assembled cherry-picked photos of dying forests that they also blame on climate change to craft a propaganda article:

 “The FUTURE OF FORESTS” with the headlines “HEAT AND DROUGHT ARE KILLING OUR FORESTS…BUT WE CAN LIMIT THE DAMAGE… IF WE CHANGE COURSE NOW.”

Although the article admits “Trees are growing faster” due to rising CO2, and in passing also acknowledged “climate change still poses less of a threat to forests than logging and land clearing”, their intent was to sell fear that “the climate threat is growing fast.” To make the reader believe their hyperbole, they paraded a myriad of unsupported claims that “climate change is killing trees.” That, “forest scientists are increasingly uneasy in the quickening pulse of extreme events—fire, more powerful storms, insect infestations, and, most notably, severe heat and drought.” Throughout the article, National Geographic sprinkles in truth but then hammers their readers with climate change misinformation.

National Geographic mindlessly blamed catastrophic wildfires on climate change-worsened drought, despite all the scientific evidence pointing to the build-up of forest fuels due to poor landscape management. In 2002-2004 some 350 million piñons, New Mexico’s state tree, died across the Southwest due to drought and fire. To National Geographic’s credit they reported on the wildfire in the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico that “From 1650 on, this ponderosa pine forest survived 15 fires—but in the 20th century most fires were suppressed. Fuel built up in the forest and a long, hot drought settled in. A monster blaze in 2011 ravaged 45 square miles in its first night.” “Unprecedented fires eviscerated hundreds of thousands of acres of ponderosa pines.”.............To Read More....

Polar bears: The end of a climate delusion icon

By Dr. Jay Lehr | January 22nd, 2020 | Climate | 104 Comments @CFACT

One of the climate delusion’s greatest frauds was issued by the Center for Biological Diversity which said “Climate change is drowning and starving polar bears. If greenhouse gas fueled climate change keeps melting their sea ice habitat, an arctic apocalypse will wipe them out in a century – and they will disappear from the United States by 2050.”

This was echoed by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which stated in 2013 “Our analyses highlight the potential for large reductions in the global polar bear populations if sea ice loss continues which is forecast by climate models and other studies.”

In May of 2008 the US Fish and Wildlife Service listed the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Specie Act, predicting that  polar bear populations would decline by two thirds as the sea ice they rely on for hunting continued to shrink. This conclusion was not based on numbers observed but were put on the list by mathematical models woven from thin air.  The actual numbers observed during these years showed the opposite to be true.

Patrick Michaels of the Cato Institute, disputed the flawed models and perverted science saying that “this was the first time an animal was ever placed on the threatened or endangered list based on a mathematical model”. The reader should understand that such models guess at the controlling variables and are actually only of value when attempting to learn what variables if any might be of importance.

But it must be understood that the real measured data would be inconvenient for the environmental groups trying to raise money on their claims of harm coming to these cute and cuddly creatures.

Creatures which in fact are as dangerous as any of the grizzly bear, brown or black bear species.

The real facts of the matter are that polar bear populations are increasing and that the regions with the greatest ice loss are thriving. Susan Crockford, considered to be among the world’s leading experts on this species, reports from a recent study, that the current population of between 22,000 and 31,000 is the highest it has been in the past 50 years.

A recent study of Canadian polar bears found stable or increasing numbers in 12 of 13 colonies in their country.  The evidence is really overwhelming.

The chart below shows Crockford’s estimates since 1960 based on actual surveys in Canada and the Arctic region.

Even more interesting and telling are the results of recent polar bear research. It has been learned that the belief that declining sea ice is detrimental to these white furry animals is untrue.  They actually are healthier and heavier in the areas of greater ice loss. Below is a map showing two areas of the Arctic Ocean, the Chukchi Sea and the Beaufort Sea.  The Chukchi Sea has lost twice as much ice as the Beaufort Sea in recent decades of slight warming.  While researchers supported by the global warming alarmists had expected to find that the polar bears in the Chukchi Sea would have suffered as a result, they found the opposite to be true. The females in the Chukchi Sea were on average 70 pounds heavier and the males 110 pounds heavier than those in the Beaufort Sea.

 

Furthermore the females gave birth to larger litters with the yearlings weighing as much as 50 pounds more than their counterparts on the Beaufort Sea where the ice loss was double that of the Chukchi Sea.

The saddest part of the story was the confusion voiced in the researchers reports trying to justify the unanticipated outcome for their funders who were certain they would be gaining more evidence of the negative impact of man-caused Climate change. A joint report by the US Geological Survey, a once great government science agency, and the University of Wyoming, a once fine academic institution developed a negative reason for the outcome of their study claiming that with less sea ice they needed to devour more seals to keep their strength up.

So it appears now that the “simple bear necessities” may not actually include ice.  Indeed it will be a lot harder to raise money for The World Wildlife Fund once it gets out that warmer temperatures mean more polar bears. The bears after all originated on land and migrated to the ice about 150,000 years ago.  Like us they are warm blooded creatures and like us they prefer warmer than colder weather.

As time goes by you will see less and less of the polar bear as an icon of the climate change delusion.
Note: Portions of this essay have been excerpted from the outstanding book INCONVENIENT FACTS: The Science That Al Gore Does Not Want You To Know, with permission of the author Gregory Wrightstone. For detailed discussion of the many frauds in the climate change delusion, his book is among the very best sources.

Author

• Dr. Jay Lehr
  CFACT Senior Science Analyst Jay Lehr has authored more than 1,000 magazine and journal articles and 36 books. 

2019 Alaska aerial survey found the most polar bears since 2012 – dozens of fat healthy bears

Charles Rotter  January 12, 2020

January 12, 2020
This aerial shot of six fat polar bears lolling around on a sand beach on the coast of the Southern Beaufort Sea, Alaska, was taken by NOAA employees in July 2019. It exemplifies the reality that bears in this subpopulation are currently abundant and healthy, negating the suggestion that numbers have continued to drop since 2006 because bears are starving.

The above picture of polar bear health is not an exception but the rule for all 31 bears recorded onshore last July, as the photos below from other locations testify. Those who would blame this abundance of bears on lack of sea ice in 2019 should note that ice retreated as early and as extensively in 2017 yet only 3 bears were spotted onshore. Results of a recent (2017-2018) population survey, which have not yet been made public, will of course not reflect conditions seen in 2019. ...........To Read More....


My Take - Let's face it. No matter what the evidence actually shows, the left plays by the same rules as does the criminal element.  Never give up the con!

Polar bear expert purged

By CFACT Ed |  October 18th, 2019  |  Civil Rights, Climate  |  279 Comments

Global warming campaigners have done an effective job at convincing the media and much of the world that polar bears are dying out.

It’s not true.

In fact, thanks to a hunting ban, polar bears are a major conservation success story. Their population ballooned from around 5,000 in the 1960s to (depending on whose estimate) from 22,000 to over 30,000 today. Today the North is loaded with fat, happy, fecund bears (sorry seals).

It appears that telling the truth about polar bears made Dr. Susan Crockford, a respected, published Canadian zoologist, the victim of an Polar bear expert purged 2ideological purge. First she was removed from the University of Victoria’s speakers bureau, and then not renewed to her position as an adjunct professor.

“The loss of adjunct status,” Crockford wrote, “will primarily prevent me from continuing scientific research on speciation and domestication mechanisms in evolution: without an academic affiliation I will be unable to secure research funds or academic collaborations.”

But this woman of science is fearless.

“What a lack of academic affiliation has not done, and cannot do,” Crockford continued, “is stop me from investigating and commenting on the failures and inconsistencies of science that I see in published polar bear research papers and reflected in public statements made by polar bear specialists. I am still a former adjunct professor and I will not be silenced.”

Free speech is anathema to the Left...........To Read More.....

EPA Website Gets Major Overhaul, Yanks Climate Change Hoax Info

 By Andrew West April 30, 2017

After 8 years of misguided leftist policies being propagated by the Obama administration, the EPA is finally getting an overhaul.

For decades, the political leftists of the globe have pushed a massive hoax on the governments of the world, claiming that human beings and their industrial byproducts were causing a rapid incread in temperature across the globe. The hoax, which came to be known as “climate change” or “global warming”, was then exploited en masse by globalists and liberals to guilt the world’s more gullible populations into over-regulating even the most minute of industries. This, in turn, created more government jobs for their cohorts, and helped to usher in the possibility of a New World Order, or global government, that would be installed to combat this terrible situation.

The only problem with all of this, however, was that the science was bunk. As recent as 40 years ago, these same industries were being blamed for a rapid cooling of the globe that many liberals thought would bring about a second ice age. In order to gain the support of the people in their quest to over regulate and create these opportunities for fellow politicians, the liberals needed saddening imagery to get the public on board.

Cue the polar bears......To Read More....

GWPF PRESS RELEASE 27/02/17

As Polar Bear Numbers Continue To Increase, GWPF

Calls For Re-assessment Of Endangered Species Status

On the occasion of International Polar Bear Day, the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) is calling on the U.S. Administration to re-assess the ‘endangered species’ status of polar bears.

On May 15, 2008, the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service listed the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The listing is based on the assumption that loss of sea ice threatens and will likely continue to threaten polar bear habitat.

In a GWPF video released today, Dr Susan Crockford, a Canadian wildlife expert, documents the latest findings about rising polar bear numbers.

In 2005, the official global polar bear estimate was about 22,500.

Since 2005, however, the estimated global polar bear population has risen by more than 30% to about 30,000 bears, far and away the highest estimate in more than 50 years.

A growing number of observational studies have documented that polar bears are thriving, despite shrinking summer sea ice.

By September 2007 sea ice extent was about 43% less than it had been in 1979 – a decline not expected until mid-century, and every year after was almost as low, or lower.

Yet no more drowned polar bears were documented, no more bears than normal starved to death, no unusual spikes in cannibalism occurred, and not a single polar bear population was wiped out.

New scientific evidence suggests that loss of summer sea ice, regardless of the cause, is not a major risk for polar bear survival.

“A thorough external review of the polar bear status issue is now required -  not only because it’s the right thing to do but because it may help restore public support for science and conservation,” Dr Crockford said.

GWPF TV: Polar Bear Scare Unmasked: The Saga of a Toppled Global Warming Icon

Contact
Dr Susan Crockford
e: sjcrock@shaw.ca

Scientific Integrity is an Oxymoron. Why Is This Buried and Not Headlines?

Good news about polar bears suppressed, but guesswork is fine

From Polar Bear Science

This article from yesterday (Oct 09, 2012) caught my eye: “How many polar bears live in the Arctic?” by Jill Burke 

Buried deep within this article (page 3, in the default format) is this statement by US Fish & Wildlife polar bear biologist Eric Regehr:

“In 2009, when the PBSG [Polar Bear Specialist Group] issued its population status reports, it listed the Chukchi Sea population, which Alaska shares with Russia, as being of unknown size, but one thought to be in decline because of anecdotal reports about possible over-harvesting in Russia. But now, newer research yet to be published has scientists reconsidering the status designations of the Chukchi population, Regehr said. It appears the bears in this area are reproducing well and maintaining good body condition.“

Again, results are in but we are not allowed to see the data. Sound familiar? See my earlier post on the critical evidence for western Hudson Bay polar bears that is also unpublished.

To Read More…. 

Observations From the Back Row

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De Omnibus Dubitandum
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Why We Can’t Have Nice Things: $205,075 to Move a Bush

While this is only slightly related to Resourceful Earth’s work on natural resources, its too comical/depressing not to share:

The government spent at least $205,075 in 2010 to “translocate” a single bush in San Francisco that stood in the path of a $1.045-billionhighway-renovation project that was partially funded by the economic stimulus legislation President Barack Obama signed in 2009.

“In October 2009, an ecologist identified a plant growing in a concrete-bound median strip along Doyle Drive in the Presidio as Arctostaphylos franciscana,” the U.S. Department of Interior reported in the Aug. 10, 2010 edition of the Federal Register. “The plant’s location was directly in the footprint of a roadway improvement project designed to upgrade the seismic and structural integrity of the south access to the Golden Gate Bridge.

“The translocation of the Arctostaphylos franciscana plant to an active native plant management area of the Presidio was accomplished, apparently successfully and according to plan, on January 23, 2010,” the Interior Department reported.

The bush—a Franciscan manzanita—was a specimen of a commercially cultivated species of shrub that can be purchased from nurseries for as little as $15.98 per plant. The particular plant in question, however, was discovered in the midst of the City of San Francisco, in the median strip of a highway, and was deemed to be the last example of the species in the “wild.”

I do not profess to be particularly knowledgeable or excited about flora, but I cannot for the life of me understand why it matters that this plant was located in the “wild” especially if everyone was fine with moving the plant anyway. It certainly doesn’t exist in the “wild” after the government spent $200,000 to move it to a new location. It’s effectively been planted/altered by man at that point, as far as I can tell.

Biodiversity Bombshell: Polar Bears And Penguins Prospering, But Pity Those Paramecia!
Just last year, the World Wildlife Fund’s climate blog headlined that “Polar Bear Population in Canada’s Western Hudson Bay Unlikely to Survive Climate Disruption.” But it seems that since then this subpopulation, previously believed to be among the most threatened subpopulations due to global warming, has made a miraculous recovery. According to aerial surveys released by the Government of Nunavat this month, their numbers are at least 66% higher than expected. This region, which straddles Nunavat and Manitoba, is critical because it’s considered to be a bellwether for how well polar bears are faring elsewhere in the Arctic.

GMO label movement faces hurdles in Vermont
Advising people that their food contains food is somewhat counterproductive. It’s only real purpose is to enable activists and scare mongers to frighten consumers about, well, nothing, actually.

Charles Clover: Green Rage Against Shale Gas Is Irrational
This Sunday marks the 42nd anniversary of Earth Day. Once again, we can expect an all-out assault covering all communication channels, a barrage of all the most stale ideas concocted by the most backward-looking eco-obsession.

Peter Foster: Human Day
Property rights are the best guides to custody of the ¬environment - For more than 40 years, Earth Day has both reflected genuine environmental concern and mirrored the UN’s attempted eco power grab. Sunday’s Earth Day comes two months ahead of the vast, but significantly brief, UN Rio+20 conference. Both are pale reflections of their original radical aspirations. Earth Day is still celebrated, but 42 years of crying wolf have inevitably had an effect. The event has also been corporatized, greenwashed and taken over by such announcements as that of the “50 sexiest environmentalists.” Rio+20 will represent the graveyard of aspirations for all prospective — and inevitably less sexy — Captains of Spaceship Earth, Global Saviours, and High Priests of Gaia.

My Take - “Captains of Spaceship Earth, Global Saviours, and High Priests of Gaia" - we have far too many of these types in the pest control industry. One fumigator I am familiar with classifies himself as a “world problem solver” because he embraced the eco-clamor to replace methyl bromide.  Now his “solution” is under attack and I hear nothing from or about him.

The primary registrant asked for support from the pest control industry to keep their product, sulfuryl fluoride on the market. Yet I didn’t hear a peep from them when that piece of junk science known as the Montreal Protocol eliminated their competition methyl bromide!

These people just don’t get it. No solution will stand the test of time with the greenies. They will embrace any “solution” to one of their non-problems today as long as it suits their needs in order to attack some product they wish to destroy. Afterwards .... whatever is left out there will be fair game.

Foolish people in our industry (and I include the manufacturers at the top of that list) will work to find something to replace a perfectly good product with one that is acceptable to the greenies.

After the greenies have attained their goal, they turn on the replacement product and those who manufacture, sell or use those products. There is no safe ground with the green movement. They are irrational; they are misanthropic; they are not our friends; they cannot be trusted because they have no command and control structure!  Why can’t we get that?

Patrick Michaels: Celebrating Earth Day: Is Another Half-Acid Apocalypse On the Way?  Editor’s Note: Ignore the ad and it will go away in a few seconds.
What with it being Earth Day and all, it’s a good time to reflect on the sorry track record of environmental apocalypse prognostication and make a little forecast of our own, namely that something called “ocean acidification” is going to be the latest, greatest threat to our survival. “This time we mean it”, my greener friends are saying.