This just came through on Digg, so I thought I'd make a note here of my comment.
I note also that people have been trying to bury my comment, even though it is pretty damn accurate and simply asks questions.
http://digg.com/environment/Polar_bears_result_to_cannibalism_as_Arctic_ice_shrinks
My comment:
What nonsense. And this a day after that stupid article comparing evolution and AGW "deniers". So let's discuss evolution:
"The polar bear probably first appeared roughly 200,000 years ago, during the Pleistocene."
"Scientists believe that the polar bear evolved from a group of brown bears that became isolated by glaciers in an area near Siberia. The stranded bears underwent a rapid series of evolutionary changes in order to survive on the ice."
http://www.polarbearsinternational.org/bear-facts/ ...
A few things:
1 - How many times has the temperature risen 2oC above what it is today in the last 200,000 years? Answer, probably 2 or 3. Did the polar bear die out? (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_Climatic_Opt ...
2 - The evolution of the bear was a result of rapidly changing climate. But what about the brown bear? Did it die out?
3 - It should also be noted that there are more polar bears on the planet today than there were 40 years ago. The majority of deaths - by an order of magnitude - is a result of humans literally killing them, for sport or food or preservation.
metyu
but the numbers provided by the author are: 5k bears in the 1960s, 25k bears today, mainly through the regulation of shooting.
"Even if we take the story of decline at face value it means we have lost about 15 bears each year, whereas we have lost 49 bears each year to hunting"
I used the term "order of magnitude" inappropriately, for which I apologise - it was not intentional.
" The charge from some environmental groups that the polar bear is threatened by anthropogenic global warming, which they say could cause the bear's extinction in the wild within a century, is unsubstantiated. " from http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA566.html (in anticipation: so what if it's right-wing as long as the facts are right? check the footnotes!)
http://pbsg.npolar.no/docs/PBSG13proc.pdf
http://www.iucnredlist.org/search/details.php/22823/all