The sea change when the public catches on that we are cooling is going to be awesome.
=================================

The push to have Polar bears listed as "endangered" is nothing more than a back-door attempt to apply the Endangered Species Act to force us to cut C02 emmissions to "stop global warming." It would employ the habitat presevation aspect of the ESA, stating that by allowing AGW, we are destroying the bear's habitat. Crafty buggers, wild-eyed those tree-huggers.

Unfortunately for them, facts are stubborn things.

damn Right-Wing polar bears are refusing to cooperate with the agenda!!!

It may become necessary to destroy the polar bears in order to save them.

You said it Justrand!! Who would have known they were global worming denialists?
They just hate living in the cold, they want us to heat the planet. Wake up sheeple!!

Next Newsflash:

Global warming increases polar bear population to dangerous levels.

You heard it here first. I expect acknowledgement when you see the real headline.

Man-made global warming is religion, not science. It cannot be falsified. If there is a drought, it is caused by global warming. If there is a flood, it is caused by global warming. If nothing spectatcular happens, it is caused by global warming- or the global warming dire consequences are just delayed.

"Global warming increases polar bear population to dangerous levels." Yup. The reports will soon surface of 'polar bear attacks on people' reaching crisis levels as they overpopulate their environment and begin moving to Toronto for the free health care and sizzling nightlife.

=

They did say 'by 2050' Paul. I mean, really, aren't you jumping the gun? Even if their population is swelling now, there's plenty of time still for global warming to wipe out most of them. Or something like that.

Hmmm, so...

"The USGS predicts a 2/3 decline in polar bear populations by 2050. After two weeks, we see that polar bear populations are just fine! Therefore, science is BS, QED!"

Something seems missing from this reasoning, but I can't put my finger on it.... Oh yeah, reason.

Mantis:

You prove the point of AGW as religion. Thank you. Although they have been harping about AGW for well over a decade, the polar bear population is increasing, not decreasing. Therefore simply state that the catastrophic consequences are delayed or occuring in the reverse direction (i.e global warming leads to dangerous increase in polar bear population).

manis,

so why is it that they are then predicting that number of bears will decline? hasn't global warming already been happening? why are the numbers going UP?

Gee, mantis, when the perceived TREND that the USGS based its 43 years hence prediction on turns out be in the OPPOSITE direction from the ACTUAL "trend"...some of us get skeptical.

He's not a fag, he has BDS, and insufficient skepticism over the thermodynamics of carbon dioxide greenhouse heat trapping, but there are signs that he is working his ass off on both problems.
==========================

The answer seems to be that we airdrop copies of the NY Times to the polar bears! Once they read up on how they are supposed to be extinct they'll get with the program!!

Ice, by the way, and ecological niches, are both bits of froth tossed up by the chaos we vainly like to call climate regulation. Here today, and gone tomorrow, even faster than global temperature change.
=================================

hey mantis... how come the disappearing of ice in the ARCTIC is proof of global warming 300 years out but the fact we have too many polar bears means nothing?

Bullshit mantis. If contemporaneous data can be used to prove something it can be used to disprove it.

Take about cherry picking your data.

Polar bear populations have been increasing for decades, due primarily to hunting restrictions imposed in the early 1970s (the US Marine Mammal Protection Act and the International Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears). Why have they not decreased to the levels predicted by 2050 due to shrinking summer ice? Because it's not 2050 yet, dipshits. It's a prediction.

how come the disappearing of ice in the ARCTIC is proof of global warming 300 years out but the fact we have too many polar bears means nothing?

The shrinkage in summer ice, if it continues as predicted, will impact polar bear populations. Whether the USGS prediction is accurate, I don't know (I can't see the future, yet). The fact that it has not yet shrunk enough to make a significant impact on the bears does not mean that the current bear population levels are evidence against warming, which is happening whether you like it or not.

So making wild predictions contrary to current verifiable data is okay?

I predict that in 2050 we'll have a Senate of 83 Republicans, 9 independents, and 6 Green, and 2 Democrats (Jesse Jackson III and Al Sharpton III).

It will have been the country's reaction to all the frothing stupidity of the left.

All of this is true, and cannot be proved untrue, even if there are 50 dems in the Senate in year 2049, because it's not 2050 yet.

Paul, why delete portions of nehemiah's comments?

thread cleaned up... I appreciate the person in question had second thoughts on his comment just seconds after he hit submit... next time having them BEFORE you hit submit is preferred. knowhatImean?

==========
>Polar bear populations have been increasing for decades, due primarily to hunting restrictions imposed in the early 1970s

You mean there are factors that the predictions don't take into account... say it ain't so.

>Paul, why delete portions of nehemiah's comments?

see above comment... I thought it did not add to the debate... Not to mention a rather egresious comment...

I started to call him out by name but my benevolent side won...

Decision made on the fly, you're welcome to disagree. Just calling like I sees them in real time.

BTW see also my deletion of Bush bashing below...

The decision was as much about thread drift as anything...

I know I've never complained (much) about thread drift before... so sue me, that last thread got under my skin.

P

The year, 2049...the head of the USGS convenes an emergency meeting to discuss a looming problem. Stacked against the wall are dozens of sniper rifles and boxes of ammunition.

"Folks, we've got a crisis. By this time next year there need to be 2/3 FEWER polar bears than there were in 2007. Now, since the polar bear population has been INCREASING since 2007, it means we need a whole lot FEWER polar bears than we've got right now! Since we at the USGS can't afford to look stooopid, I am suggesting a somewhat, uh, radical 'solution' to this 'problem'.

[makes a vague gesture towards the rifles]

Who's with me??"

You mean there are factors that the predictions don't take into account... say it ain't so.

Of course there are. But that doesn't mean that the globe ain't warming. It is.

Re: comments. Just curious. It ain't my thread, or blog.

No probs from my end. Your prerogative on determining acceptable content.

A serious comment: We wasted as a nation millions of dollars and also wasted much of the people's time from the y2k predictions. Global warming hype and false info is doing it much more so now on a much much grander scale. We laugh at the absurdity (like with the sailing dude and now this, and the record cold during Al Gore's speech in NY), but it's having a serious impact on policy and thought that is very very wasteful and non-necessary. It's an incredible shame that we've allowed a bunch of misinformants to spread this hype.

We need to continue to make people more aware, and humorous and attention getting info like the above is important.

How do we know that the global temperature is increasing? Because of aggregated temperature records like the GISS from NASA's Hansen. But what have we recently learned? That Hansen won't cooperate in examining the records that he produces, that those records are plagued with coding errors and unexplained "adjustments" that influence the claimed warming trend. And now that they have been shown to have such errors, they are going back and revising the records without notice and without explanation.

When the adherents to the AGW hypothesis start doing real science instead of propaganda, then I'll start paying attention to their claims.

Pretty much everything your wrote there was bullshit, SPQR.

BTW...it's cooler here today than it was yesterday! Though no polar bear sightings as of yet. Just keepin' ya'll posted on current events.

Hey, maybe I can get a GOVERNMENT GRANT to keep track of this???

We're not dying out. If the numbers appear to be decreasing, it's simply because some of us smartened up and moved to Southern California.

NZ

Ah, right, mantis, that's why they didn't announce a complete revision of the data in recent weeks ... oh, wait - they did.

And that's why Hansen's source code has been in public hands for years, because I'm writing bullshit. Oh, wait, Hansen didn't actually publish until just two weeks ago, in light of the embarrassment of being caught with a Y2K related error.

Mantis, when AGW adherents start doing real science, then you call bullshit, until then you are just a propagandist too.

Hey Mantis, you said:
"But that doesn't mean that the globe ain't warming. It is."

So, it's GLOBAL warming, right? And last I checked, Antarctica is part of the GLOBE, right? So, how do you spin away the fact (as reported in the NYTimes article and elsewhere) that the south pole has gained ice cover to record levels, and that it has been in a 30-year cooling trend (with the exception of the Antarctic Penninsula, which has warmed owing to circumpolar current changes)? It doesn't fit the models. Any of them.

It does, however, fit the Sun/Cosmic ray theory of climate control (see Svensmark, 2007). Spin away!

Oh, sorry, article in NYTime I referred to was Paul's post, three posts back. Sorry for the confusion. Although still applies.

Minor mathematical errors which result in very slight adjustments that in no way affect trends make something not "real science?" You don't know the meaning of the term.

You are being deliberately obtuse, mantis. Of course mathematical errors do not make something unscientific ( although the trends of the errors are interesting evidence - but that's a different argument ).

The issue is that the secrecy, manipulation of data sets without disclosure, concealment of methodology, lack of openness and meaningful review, indeed the intentional frustration of meaningful review - that is a clear indication that the AGW proponents are not practicing science.

Its propaganda.

If AGW adherents were serious scientists, they would be demanding that Hansen, Mann et al end this behavior. AGW adherents would be more outraged at this conduct than even I am.

If they were serious about the science.

So, how do you spin away the fact (as reported in the NYTimes article and elsewhere) that the south pole has gained ice cover to record levels, and that it has been in a 30-year cooling trend (with the exception of the Antarctic Penninsula, which has warmed owing to circumpolar current changes)?

Ice gain has been due in large part to increases in moisture in the southern hemisphere which settles on the continent. Where do you think this increase in moisture came from? (hint: not cooling)

It doesn't fit the models. Any of them.

You obviously don't know what you're talking about.

Oh, and by the way, the new Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment has shown that Antarctica is now losing mass.

Schmidt deals with many of the problems with Svensmark here.

SPSR, your outrage is manufactured. Serious scientists are under no obligation to submit to the demands of cranks.

Remember the "Y2K" bug in the NASA/GISS U.S. temperatures that was discovered by a Canadian blogger and embarassingly fixed by Dr. Hansen at GISS? The updated NASA/GISS website was forced to make 1934 the hottest 20th century year in the U.S.

Well, NASA's Dr. James Hansen has secretly made 1998 the hottest U.S. year in the 20th century again. He couldn't raise the 1998 temperature so he lowered the 1934 temperature.

"SPSR, your outrage is manufactured. Serious scientists are under no obligation to submit to the demands of cranks."

So much for your claim of discussing the science, you quickly resort to ad hominem. I think mantis that you've discredited yourself rather well with that comment. It is of a par with how your favorite site, Real Climate, deals with criticism as well.

Its is not an example of scientific process but of propaganda.

QED

So much for your claim of discussing the science

Oh, you started discussing science? Where was that, exactly? Here, read this, and then come back and discuss the importance of tiny accounting anomalies touted by certain parties. I'll wait.

mantis, if you're going to try to call Hansen a scientist, I'll bet you $1000 he ain't.

he's a shill and a zealot.

go head... take the bet.

Paul,

Define your terms.

Btw, there are a lot of people who work at GISS besides Hansen.

>Here, read this, and then come back and discuss the importance of tiny accounting anomalies touted by certain parties. I'll wait.

heh--- mantis, you got past the second sentence?

Did you not see the glaring problem with it?

You're considerably more skeptical of one side than the other.

Ironically, you're more critical of the people who challenge the group think. Quite scientific of you.

>Define your terms.

hmmm scientist, shill or zealot?

It seemed self evident to me.

Mantis writes:

Here, read this, and then come back and discuss the importance of tiny accounting anomalies touted by certain parties.

As I pointed out above, the accounting errors are not the issue. Why they exist, and have existed for so long. It is because AGW proponents are not doing science, with their secrecy of data, methodology, statistical analysis code etc. That is the issue. Now it is becoming clear that you are intentionally ignoring this. And it is clear that the only answer you have for people who have pursued the lack of disclosure is to call them "cranks".

Propaganda, rather than science, mantis. That is what you are offering.

mantis I predict that you will not be around in the year 2050 to see if you were right or wrong.

I have no problem with challenging the group think, Paul, but not simply because it is group think, but because it is wrong. The evidence behind the scientific conclusions that have been grasped onto by the media and politicians who don't necessarily understand them, and thus disseminated among the general population, is still much stronger than any evidence to the contrary. Just because correct conclusions about complex issues have been adopted by those who don't understand them does not discount the validity of said conclusions. Most people don't understand how gravity works either, but they believe it. I see no compelling evidence to challenge that group think.

As far as the second sentence,

Let's take a look at, say, the entire GISTEMP monthly temperature data set:

What's the glaring problem?

hmmm scientist, shill or zealot?

It seemed self evident to me.

To you, maybe, but I don't bet on things unless they're clearly defined.

Frak! Does this mean we have to endure another Algore concert for man-made global cooling?!?

heck mantis, I'll even let you define the terms. You still won't take the bet.

You know better.

oh mantis???? you still with me?

What's a scientist?

What's a schill?

What's a zealot?

Why bother betting? Just say what you want to say. I'm not much for games.

We should take all those eco-wackos out and strand them in the wilderness with the polar bears killer whales and man eating skuas

You missed a good quote from the original article.
> Taylor and co-worker Dr. Lily Peacock have been working for the past three years on a polar bear inventory in the Davis Strait, the first in the area in 20 years. ...

Yeah. We've been told that the polar bear population is crashing. Here we see that in this area, at least, they haven't even COUNTED the polar bears in 20 years!

(not blaming Taylor and Peacock. Blaming those who pontificate on vanishing bears without checking the evidence)

Here's a little thing that's started popping up in the AGW studies:

Every time the pro-AGW scientists are publicly forced to make an adjustment to their data, it's DOWNWARD.

Every. Stinking. Time.

If they were doing "real" science, some adjustments would be up, and some would be down. Even with some small bias, many would be down, but a good amount would be in the "up" direction.

This is what happens when you design a model based mostly on positive feedback, and make a big effort to ignore all of the know NEGATIVE feedback sources in weather and climate.

As of right now, the current long-term predictions are down by about half of their levels from twenty years back... and at the current rate, they'll be back in "global cooling" mode by about 2020.

> Taylor and co-worker Dr. Lily Peacock have been working for the past three years on a polar bear inventory in the Davis Strait, the first in the area in 20 years. ...

Yeah. We've been told that the polar bear population is crashing. Here we see that in this area, at least, they haven't even COUNTED the polar bears in 20 years!

Maybe you missed the fact that it is a running study and this is year 4.

[If it was a single 4 year study, you'd not have said a word.]

You might have also missed the guy has been working there for 12 years.

But don't let the facts get in your way. You've got a religion to tend to.

That's what I thought mantis... You crawfish because you know the truth....

Pitiful mantis... The guy is a crock and everyone outside the religion knows it.

Just have the balls to say you don't want the bet cuz the guy is full of shit and at least I could respect you for that.

mantis, why do I have to keep explaining this? Global temperature is determined by clouds, which are determined by cosmic rays, determined by the earth's magnetic field, determined by the sun's magnetic field, determined by the distance of the sun from the center of gravity of the solar system. Sometime in the last decade we entered a cooling phase. Carbon dioxide is a trace gas with trace effect, largely as fertilizer. The IPCC concept of greenhouse warming is unphysical, violating the Second Law of Thermodynamics, as shown by Gerlich and Tscheuschner. Basically, the model expects a warmer upper stratosphere to heat the troposphere through an intervening cooler lower stratosphere. Ain't gonna happen. You owe it to yourself to look at this skeptically and objectively, anew. I've promised Paul you are capable of thoroughgoing honesty.
=============================

One day the MSM will accidently report something that doesn't fit the template. I wonder if CBS stocks smelling salts, just in case.

mantis reminds me of a friend I kept nagging about global warming last year, finally he told me I was just pulling his chain. I said yes, that was exactly right, trying to pull it just gently enough to get the light to go on with out pulling the whole fixture down.
===========================================

Look again -- seems the Nunavut government has just changed their minds/story or learned to count. See "Nunavut slashes Western Hudson Bay polar bear hunt(Last Updated: Friday, September 21, 2007 | 9:56 AM CT CBC News) http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2007/09/21/bear-quota.html

"The Nunavut government has cut its polar bear hunt in western Hudson Bay by nearly one-third out of renewed concerns that the bear population in that area is in trouble."

"Environment Minister Patterk Netser said that the decision was based on both Inuit knowledge and western science."

>Look again -- seems the Nunavut government has just changed their minds/story or learned to count.

Nope... Reread it again Frankie... You're talking about a different area. I covered that above.

The area I'm talking about has (as per the story) the bulk of the polar bear population. The area you are talking about is a smaller area.

They didn't change their mind, different decisions about different areas.... see also the post I linked about shrinking ice in the ARCTIC region but record ice in the ANTARCTIC region.

In your mind losing ice in the Arctic and losing bears in the Hudson Bay area is proof of global warming but record ice in Antarctica and a population explosion of bears in the Davis Straights does not disprove it.

It's east to find "proof" when that's your thought process.

oh good grief, you run a sight called polarbearnews and you claim you didn't know the difference?

Either you're clueless or a liar. Either way the amount of respect given you is the same. Zero.

Frankie.

OK I realize we have very different backgrounds, you're a California artists, whom, I'm pretty sure it's safe to call liberal.

I'm scientist, geek who ain't.

But let me ask you a serious question... If you love polar bears so much, shouldn't you 1) be very interested in accurate information about them and 2) be delighted that you found good news?

Nobody, "Learned to Count" the bears. It was a different area....

Sound wildlife policy WILL NOT (never Frankie, never, never) WILL NOT be achieved without sound science. Period.

Again, maybe it is a difference in our backgrounds, but if I was that worried about Polar Bears, I'd be very interested in the science.

The light won't go on, Frankie, me boy, if you put your fingers in the socket.
======================

"Who will rid me of these troublesome bears?"

Put seal scent in the electric outlets.
=============================

Hey Paul, when you're right, you're right. I did get the 2 areas confused. However, I got confused partly due to your post that mentioned, and I quote: "Climate change is not hurting polar bear populations in the Davis Strait area of NUNAVUT, according to Dr. Mitch Taylor, manager of wildlife research ...". Now that is the EXACT area that they now say polar bears are in trouble (not my words but the Naunavut Government's). Sorry for the confusion.

Back to the science. I am NOT a scientist and as it seems even they are in disagreement with each other over the findings, I think you and I can agree to disagree as well. I read absolutely everything I can find about the subject and like you I have to decide for myself which date/version/person to believe.

What makes it even tougher is that the difference in the scientist's opinion seems to be based on who they work for! Alaskan Government vs. environmental group, for example.

Also, Paul, I was also just excited that some bears were being saved from trophy hunters. IMHO, people who pay thousands of dollars to kill a polar bear (or other animal) just for bragging rights then decorates his/her home with the remains should find out how to use a camera instead.

Also, believe me, no one who knows me would call me a liberal. They would call me an environmentalist and animal lover, but not a liberal. BTW, ALL Californians aren't liberals. How do you think we got "The Terminator" as our Governor? LOL