Tag Archives: activist scientists

Choose verifiable facts over emotional narratives on polar bear conservation

Posted on March 22, 2021 | Comments Off on Choose verifiable facts over emotional narratives on polar bear conservation

“Polar bears continue to be described as ‘canaries in the coal mine’ for the effects of human-caused climate change, but the evidence shows they are far from being a highly-sensitive indicator species.” Susan Crockford, 24 February 2021

You’ll find the evidence I allude to above – backed up by references to the peer-reviewed literature – in my many publications (Crockford 2015; 2017; 2019, 2020, 2021). My open-access research paper from 2017 has been downloaded more than 6,000 times and despite this being an online forum for legitimate scientific critique, none has been offered. My comprehensive polar bear science book released just two years ago (see below) has a 4.7/5.0 star rating on Amazon, with 132 reviews so far.

For recent blog post examples of the evidence that polar bears are thriving despite profound summer sea ice loss, see this discussion about the many contradictions that exist for claims that sea ice declines have caused harm to polar bear health and survival and this review of the evidence that less summer sea ice has meant more food for polar bears.

For those who haven’t seen it, I’ve copied below the preface from The Polar Bear Catastrophe That Never Happened. This book is an antidote to the emotional blackmail coming at the public from all sides by journalists, polar bear specialists, and elite influencers like David Attenborough.
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Posted in Book promotion, Conservation Status, Population, Sea ice habitat, Summary

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Reflections on my House of Lords lecture: Healthy polar bears, less than healthy science

Posted on August 28, 2014 | Comments Off on Reflections on my House of Lords lecture: Healthy polar bears, less than healthy science

Here is an excerpt of an essay I wrote reflecting on the recent (11 June 2014) lecture I gave at the House of Lords in London (“Healthy polar bears, less than healthy science”). The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) has just published that 14 page essay in its entirety as its 10th such report but you can get a taste of it here.

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My piece addressed the following issues that I talked about in the lecture or which came up afterwards during the question period and discussions later:

•  On what do you base your assertion that polar bear populations are “healthy”?
•  Are the media — or polar bear scientists — to blame for hyping the “polar bears are dying” meme?
•  How significant was the recent dismissal of a petition to force Canada into listing polar bears as ‘threatened with extinction’?
•  What do the recent actions of the Polar Bear Specialist Group say about their commitment to good science?
•  Is my blog helping to “self-correct” the science on polar bears?

The highlighted point is copied in full below. See the full essay here.
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Posted in Conservation Status, Population, Summary

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“Polar bears miss the message on global warming” – my article in RANGE Magazine

Posted on August 26, 2014 | Comments Off on “Polar bears miss the message on global warming” – my article in RANGE Magazine

Here’s an excerpt of my article “Polar bears miss the message on global warming,” just out in the Fall 2014 issue of RANGE Magazine.

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Posted in Advocacy, Conservation Status, Summary

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Amstrup’s comment on his starving polar bear article and my response

Posted on January 24, 2014 | Comments Off on Amstrup’s comment on his starving polar bear article and my response

Steve Amstrup has left a comment below his January 20, 2014 “starving polar bears’ article at The Conversation, which I discussed in my last post.

I’ve copied his comment below and the response to his comment that I left this morning, which is copied below his. See the entire comment sequence here.
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Posted in Advocacy, History, Life History, Sea ice habitat

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Polar Bear Specialist Group adds WWF and PBI activists as full voting members

Posted on June 6, 2013 | Comments Off on Polar Bear Specialist Group adds WWF and PBI activists as full voting members

In a previous post I noted:

In 2009, for the first time, the polar bear biologists that make up the IUCN’s Polar Bear Specialist Group (PBSG) invited four professional advocates – not one or two, but four – to their exclusive, once-every-four-years meeting of top polar bear biologists (called “delegates”) from the world’s Arctic nations (Canada, Russia, USA, Greenland/Denmark and Norway) – two from World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and two from Polar Bears International (PBI).

In that post, I mentioned that there was an “exclusive members-only meeting” scheduled for October 24-27, 2013.

Well, I just came across a notice on the PBSG website that tells us what went on at that meeting.

The Polar Specialist Group (PBSG) voted unanimously to embrace World Wildlife Fund activist Geoff York and Polar Bears International activist Steve Amstrup as delegates with full voting rights until 2016. This is a first: never before have employees of activist organizations been made full member-delegates of this formerly exclusive organization.

With this move, the PBSG are telling the world that they are an advocate association first and a scientific organization second.

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Posted in Advocacy

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