Polar bear expert barred by global warmists
Eric Gisin
Polar bear expert barred by global warmists
Mitchell Taylor, who has studied the animals for 30 years, was told his views 'are extremely
unhelpful' , reveals Christopher Booker.
Christopher Booker
Published: 5:20PM BST 27 Jun 2009
Comments 112 | Comment on this article
According to the world?s leading expert on polar bears, their numbers are higher than they were 30
years ago Photo: AP [polar bears]
Over the coming days a curiously revealing event will be taking place in Copenhagen. Top of the
agenda at a meeting of the Polar Bear Specialist Group (set up under the International Union for
the Conservation of Nature/Species Survival Commission) will be the need to produce a suitably
scary report on how polar bears are being threatened with extinction by man-made global warming.
This is one of a steady drizzle of events planned to stoke up alarm in the run-up to the UN's major
conference on climate change in Copenhagen next December. But one of the world's leading experts on
polar bears has been told to stay away from this week's meeting, specifically because his views on
global warming do not accord with those of the rest of the group.
Dr Mitchell Taylor has been researching the status and management of polar bears in Canada and
around the Arctic Circle for 30 years, as both an academic and a government employee. More than
once since 2006 he has made headlines by insisting that polar bear numbers, far from decreasing,
are much higher than they were 30 years ago. Of the 19 different bear populations, almost all are
increasing or at optimum levels, only two have for local reasons modestly declined.
Dr Taylor agrees that the Arctic has been warming over the last 30 years. But he ascribes this not
to rising levels of CO2 - as is dictated by the computer models of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change and believed by his PBSG colleagues - but to currents bringing warm water into
the Arctic from the Pacific and the effect of winds blowing in from the Bering Sea.
He has also observed, however, how the melting of Arctic ice, supposedly threatening the survival
of the bears, has rocketed to the top of the warmists' agenda as their most iconic single cause.
The famous photograph of two bears standing forlornly on a melting iceberg was produced thousands
of times by Al Gore, the WWF and others as an emblem of how the bears faced extinction - until last
year the photographer, Amanda Byrd, revealed that the bears, just off the Alaska coast, were in no
danger. Her picture had nothing to do with global warming and was only taken because the
wind-sculpted ice they were standing on made such a striking image.
Dr Taylor had obtained funding to attend this week's meeting of the PBSG, but this was voted down
by its members because of his views on global warming. The chairman, Dr Andy Derocher, a former
university pupil of Dr Taylor's, frankly explained in an email (which I was not sent by Dr Taylor)
that his rejection had nothing to do with his undoubted expertise on polar bears: "it was the
position you've taken on global warming that brought opposition".
Dr Taylor was told that his views running "counter to human-induced climate change are extremely
unhelpful". His signing of the Manhattan Declaration - a statement by 500 scientists that the
causes of climate change are not CO2 but natural, such as changes in the radiation of the sun and
ocean currents - was "inconsistent with the position taken by the PBSG".
So, as the great Copenhagen bandwagon rolls on, stand by this week for reports along the lines of
"scientists say polar bears are threatened with extinction by vanishing Arctic ice". But also check
out Anthony Watt's Watts Up With That website for the latest news of what is actually happening in
the Arctic. The average temperature at midsummer is still below zero, the latest date that this has
happened in 50 years of record-keeping. After last year's recovery from its September 2007 low,
this year's ice melt is likely to be substantially less than for some time. The bears are doing
fine.
tunderbar
> More suppression of "heretic science" by the eco-fascists.
>
Talk about inconvenient truths.
OuroborosRex
>
Of course they barred him, how else would AGW nutjobs "win" a debate?
By silencing the critics of course!
enigma
"ANCHORAGE, Alaska, June 18 (Reuters) - Polar bear populations in and
around Alaska are declining due to continued melting of sea ice and
Russian poaching, according to reports released Thursday by the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service."
Eric Gisin
"enigma" <enigm...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:2fde11b8-b1b0-4cc4...@z14g2000yqa.googlegroups.com...
Catoni
Government propoganda site. Perhapos they would be so good as to
tell us how the Polar Bear and walrus survived the Medieval Warm
Period, and even more, the Eemian. The Eemian was about five to eight
degrees warmer then now and very little or no Arctic ice at all in
summer. 125,000 years ago when our caveman ancestors were walking
around. The tree line about 300 - 400 miles further north due to the
much warmer arctic.
How did the Polar Bears and walruses, and coral reefs, and the blue
spotted puffer survive that? They aren't going to say. But let me
guess that these animals are much better able to adapt to changing
conditions then the Alarmists give them credit for.
erschro...@gmail.com
> On Jun 28, 1:42 pm, enigma <enigma_...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > "ANCHORAGE, Alaska, June 18 (Reuters) - Polar bear populations in and
> > around Alaska are declining due to continued melting of sea ice and
> > Russian poaching, according to reports released Thursday by the U.S.
> > Fish and Wildlife Service."
>
> >http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN18294663
>
> Government propoganda site.
As compared to you, a just plain lying propaganda site?
> Perhapos they would be so good as to
> tell us how the Polar Bear and walrus survived the Medieval Warm
> Period, and even more, the Eemian.
Much slower change, gives species time to adapt.
>The Eemian was about five to eight
> degrees warmer then now and very little or no Arctic ice at all in
> summer.
Cite?
> 125,000 years ago when our caveman ancestors were walking
> around. The tree line about 300 - 400 miles further north due to the
> much warmer arctic.
>
> How did the Polar Bears and walruses, and coral reefs, and the blue
> spotted puffer survive that? They aren't going to say. But let me
> guess that these animals are much better able to adapt to changing
> conditions then the Alarmists give them credit for.
If the change is gradual enough.
Rich
2f024e...@z14g2000yqa.googlegroups.com:
So, who is right, the polar bear expert, or these people?
Catoni
>:>The Eemian was about five to eight
> degrees warmer then now and very little or no Arctic ice at all in
> summer.
Cite?
Reply:
Well, you know it's really not that difficult to use
Google, but here you go...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eemian
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2005AGUFMPP43C..03D
>"> How did the Polar Bears and walruses, and coral reefs, and the blue
> spotted puffer survive that? They aren't going to say. But let me
> guess that these animals are much better able to adapt to changing
> conditions then the Alarmists give them credit for.
If the change is gradual enough.
Reply:
No worries there. We have only warmed perhaps one
or one and a half degree in the past 150 - 160 years. Very gradual.
You do know that the Earth has had what they call "Abrupt Climate
Change" may times in the past. Times when climate changed as much as
10 degrees in one decade.
Remember, the Polar Bear is actually a developement, or evolution of
the brown bear or grizzly to adadpt to colder arctic conditions. It
can adapt or evolve to warmer conditions as well. There are know cases
both in the wild and in captivity of hybrid bears.
Polar bears don't just eat seals. They prefer them, but will also
eat many other foods, including berries, kelp,and roots, reindeer,
muskox, birds, eggs, rodents, crabs, shellfish, and even other polar
bears.
Do you wish a cite?
If you don't believe me, you do not
know any of this, or you are too busy to Google it youself,
I will search it up for you.
tunderbar
Alaska is not the globe. That is only one of 14 populations. Two are
under pressure, the rest are doing just fine.