The United States Geological Survey has released a report that indicates that there are fewer polar bear cubs surviving in the Southern Beaufort Sea area of Alaska. Not only that, but those that are surviving have smaller skull sizes. Alaskan seals are cheering wildly and walruses are heaving sighs of relief! Fewer and stupider predators is a good thing for them.
The study does not directly blame the changes on a decline in sea ice. However, fewer cubs and smaller males are consistent with other observations that suggest changes in sea ice may be adversely affecting polar bears, the study said.
The study warns that the decline in cub survival and the smaller adult males are the same conditions that preceded a decline in the polar bears of western Hudson Bay, Canada, where the population dropped 22 percent in 17 years.
Advocates seeking protections for U.S. polar bears say the report proves their point.
"It's just another example of seeing all of the impacts that scientists have previously predicted coming to pass," said Kassie Siegel of the Center for Biological Diversity in Joshua Tree, Calif. Siegal is the lead author of the petition seeking to list polar bears as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
"The Grim Reaper of global warming is now clearly killing polar bear cubs," said Deborah Williams, president of Alaska Conservation Solutions, an Anchorage-based group aimed at halting climate change. "This study should be interpreted as a cry from the North to reduce greenhouse gases."
The "grim reaper of global warming"! Wow, what a soundbite. So, let's put this in perspective, shall we? If all man-made CO2 emissions stopped completely starting tomorrow, how long would it take for cooling to start? If it did. This is one of those sensationalized stories meant to make people feel vaguely threatened and then support questionable efforts to do something right now. But the story can just as easily be spun the other way. Fewer polar bears, more baby seals. And this study appears to only have looked at the population of bears. Were there other changes besides the ice?
The way that global warming is reported is one of the biggest scams in mainstream journalisj.
A brief note by Ian Murray over at NRO:
…If you look at the Alaskan temperature record, you can see that there was a big shift in temperatures in 1976 and that temperatures have remained roughly steady since then. When the Pacific Decadal Oscillation shifts back, Alaska will probably cool down again. This has probably happened many times in the past. Moreover, over in Canada, the chief Polar Bear Biologist for the government of Nunavut has said, “Of the 13 populations of polar bears in Canada, 11 are stable or increasing in number. They are not going extinct, or even appear to be affected at present.”