“The polar-bear capital of the world is simply getting too warm for polar bears,” the BBC claimed recently. But this is not true, says polar bear expert Susan Crockford.
From a BBC article on December 18th 2022, “Canada’s polar-bear capital Churchill warms too fast for bears”:
But as the polar bear becomes an icon of climate change, the bears’ plight in Churchill embodies the inextricable link between preserving the natural world and fighting global warming. The polar-bear capital of the world is simply getting too warm for polar bears.
“Looking over the last couple of decades, [the sea ice] forms later and later and it breaks up earlier and earlier in spring,” Dr. Flavio Lehner, of conservation charity Polar Bears International , says.
“So this season in between – where the bears are on land and can’t take advantage of those hunting opportunities – that is getting shorter and shorter, with warming.”
The simple fact is that sea ice in Western Hudson Bay, where Churchill is located, has not been declining more and more with rising CO2 emissions, according to data published by polar bear specialists (e.g. Castro de la Guardia et al. 2017).
In other words, there has been no escalation of poor Churchill-area sea ice conditions in recent years as stated by the BBC.
The BBC and others only get away with such blatantly false statements because polar bear specialists simply do not update their published data on Western Hudson Bay sea ice or condition of bears. Data for ice is now seven years out of date and information on the condition of the bears is decades out of date.
Moreover, the models predicting the demise of polar bears by 2100 are implausible prophesies based on discredited RCP8.5 scenarios that assume an unrealistic 500% increase in coal and a 6°C rise in global temperature (Hausfather and Peters 2020) and out-of-date information on WH bears (Molnar et al. 2010, 2020).
You’ll need to set up an account to comment if you don’t already have one. We ask for a minimum donation of £5 if you'd like to make a comment or post in our Forums.
The BBC is a political propaganda organisation – of that there can be no doubt. There merely remains the question of who they are working for – their own sincerely held beliefs, string pullers in UK government or string pullers further afield, or some unholy combination of all three. The only positive outcome for this country is for it to be dissolved.
We’ve seen how the FBI put pressure on Twitter. Is it so far-fetched to believe it couldn’t happen to our state-funded broadcaster?
It is highly unlikely any establishment party will ‘ dissolve’ the BBC. The Tory Party can be relied on to raise the anti towards the BBC when elections loom for its own electoral benefit but that’s all. But we the public can ‘defund’ the BBC by not paying the licence fee. Very slowly more of my friends are admitting to not paying the licence fee. Of course this needs to be torrent for it to be effective.
Anybody making predictions about what’s going to happen in 2100 (78 years from now) is trying to pull a fast one as this means neither he nor anybody from his present audience will likely still be around in order to find out how things actually are in 2100.
I see the scientifically dumb, histrionic doom peddler Justin Rowlatt hyperventilating about Churchill polar bears on BBC. In between adverts from the WWF about how elephants are in danger of dying out tomorrow. The only thing that’s really dying out is journalists with a sense of integrity and proportion.
The silence from Marianna Spring the BBC Disinformation reporter will be deafening of course.
SomersetHoops
2 years ago
The BBC once had a reputation for accurate reporting, which has now gone. The problem is many people still believe what they say. So many of the claims they make about climate have been proven wrong, its time they were forced to correct them and return to being an organisation to rely on for the truth. Unfortunately that will never happen unless they get someone in charge with the guts to insist it does.
I thought this Polar Bear nonsense had been put to bed years ago. Apparently not. But does a species that has grown five fold from about 5000 bears to 25,000 bears in the last 60 years sound like a species that is in trouble to you?
xpaperboy
2 years ago
Hey, Will, good stuff. But the skeptical polar bear in my libertarian satire ‘Grandpa Bear Goes to Washington’ has known the untruth about polar bear endangerment for more than a decade. Check it out. It’s an epic tale for all true lovers of polar bears and freedom and a shameless steal of Orwell. https://clips.substack.com/p/an-epic-tale-for-all-true-lovers
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
The BBC is a political propaganda organisation – of that there can be no doubt. There merely remains the question of who they are working for – their own sincerely held beliefs, string pullers in UK government or string pullers further afield, or some unholy combination of all three. The only positive outcome for this country is for it to be dissolved.
We’ve seen how the FBI put pressure on Twitter. Is it so far-fetched to believe it couldn’t happen to our state-funded broadcaster?
Michael Shellenberger on Twitter: “1. TWITTER FILES: PART 7 The FBI & the Hunter Biden Laptop How the FBI & intelligence community discredited factual information about Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings both after and *before* The New York Post revealed the contents of his laptop on October 14, 2020” / Twitter
It is highly unlikely any establishment party will ‘ dissolve’ the BBC. The Tory Party can be relied on to raise the anti towards the BBC when elections loom for its own electoral benefit but that’s all. But we the public can ‘defund’ the BBC by not paying the licence fee. Very slowly more of my friends are admitting to not paying the licence fee. Of course this needs to be torrent for it to be effective.
“And now for something completely different.”
If you love good facts that are easy to digest give this a go.
https://newworldhumor.substack.com/p/liquifact-daily-facts-in-a-bottle
Anybody making predictions about what’s going to happen in 2100 (78 years from now) is trying to pull a fast one as this means neither he nor anybody from his present audience will likely still be around in order to find out how things actually are in 2100.
I see the scientifically dumb, histrionic doom peddler Justin Rowlatt hyperventilating about Churchill polar bears on BBC. In between adverts from the WWF about how elephants are in danger of dying out tomorrow. The only thing that’s really dying out is journalists with a sense of integrity and proportion.
Are they not all dead already?
They’re on the critically endangered list….
The silence from Marianna Spring the BBC Disinformation reporter will be deafening of course.
The BBC once had a reputation for accurate reporting, which has now gone. The problem is many people still believe what they say. So many of the claims they make about climate have been proven wrong, its time they were forced to correct them and return to being an organisation to rely on for the truth. Unfortunately that will never happen unless they get someone in charge with the guts to insist it does.
I thought this Polar Bear nonsense had been put to bed years ago. Apparently not. But does a species that has grown five fold from about 5000 bears to 25,000 bears in the last 60 years sound like a species that is in trouble to you?
Hey, Will, good stuff. But the skeptical polar bear in my libertarian satire ‘Grandpa Bear Goes to Washington’ has known the untruth about polar bear endangerment for more than a decade. Check it out. It’s an epic tale for all true lovers of polar bears and freedom and a shameless steal of Orwell. https://clips.substack.com/p/an-epic-tale-for-all-true-lovers