London lecture at the GWPF offices was splendid from my point of view and the audience seemed to enjoy themselves fully. Josh was there and sent his cartoonist’s perspective of the evening*:
*PS Thanks Josh and such a pleasure to finally meet you.
London lecture at the GWPF offices was splendid from my point of view and the audience seemed to enjoy themselves fully. Josh was there and sent his cartoonist’s perspective of the evening*:
*PS Thanks Josh and such a pleasure to finally meet you.
Comments Off on My London lecture according to Josh
Posted in academic freedom, Conservation Status, Life History, Sea ice habitat, Summary, Uncategorized
Tagged catastrophe, GWPF, Josh cartoon, lecture, London, polar bear, science, sea ice, won't be silenced
We are told the Arctic is warming twice as fast as anywhere else in the world, yet as the internet reverberates with shrill, almost-the-lowest-ice-extent-ever stories, polar bears, Pacific walrus, and the most common ice seal species (ringed and bearded seals, as well as harp seals), are all thriving. Two new videos published by the GWPF on polar bears and walrus confront this conundrum and the conclusion is clear: if there is no climate emergency for polar bears, there is no climate emergency anywhere.
Comments Off on No climate emergency for polar bears or walrus means no climate emergency period
Posted in Advocacy, Conservation Status, Sea ice habitat, Summary
Tagged Arctic, climate change, climate emergency, Eemian, geology, global warming, GWPF, history, ice age, interglacial, LGM, polar bear, sea ice, youtube video
The BioScience paper “Internet blogs, polar bears, and climate-change denial by proxy” (Harvey et al. 2018) is a smack-talk response to my pointing out that polar bear numbers did not plummet as predicted when mid-century-like sea ice conditions arrived unexpectedly in 2007 (Crockford 2017). Here is why this shoddy piece of work will go down in history as a self-inflicted wound for the polar bear community (and biologist co-authors Ian Stirling and Steven Amstrup) and an own-goal for their wanna-be climate-hero friends, Stephan Lewandowsky, Jeff Harvey, and Michael Mann.
“…absolutely the stupidest paper I have ever seen published” tweeted climate scientist Judith Curry, Emeritus Professor of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Institute of Technology (“Georgia Tech”).
Dr. Curry is a favourite target of colleague Michael Mann’s penchant for derogatory name-calling. Ironically, Mann often promotes something he calls the “Serengeti Strategy,” which he described to US Congress in 2017 in presenting himself as a victim of abused by others [my bold]:
“I coined the term “Serengeti Strategy” back in 2012 in “The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars” to describe how industry special interests who feel threatened by scientific findings—be it tobacco and lung cancer, or fossil fuel burning and climate change—single out individual scientists to attack in much the same way lions of the Serengeti single out an individual zebra from the herd. In numbers there is strength, but individuals are far more vulnerable. Science critics will therefore often select a single scientist to ridicule, hector, and intimidate. The presumed purpose is to set an example for other scientists who might consider sticking their neck out by participating in the public discourse over certain matters of policy-relevant science.” Michael Mann, 2017 Congressional testimony.
Mann thinks others are using this strategy against him but if he had half an ounce of self-awareness he’d see it’s exactly what he and his long list of colleagues are doing with the Harvey et al. BioScience attack on me. Intimidation by numbers is the only rational explanation for a roster of 14 when two incompetent researchers could have produced a similar result.
Polar bear specialists Ian Stirling and Steven Amstrup knew they didn’t have a valid argument to refute my paper (Crockford 2017; Crockford and Geist 2018) on their failed polar bear survival model (Amstrup et al. 2007), which their responses to my International Polar Bear Day (27 February 2018) Financial Post op-ed revealed to the world (see here and here with references).
So when ignoring me didn’t work – or, more accurately, when the world started paying too much attention to me, by their own admission (Harvey et al. 2018:3) – they teamed up with Michael Mann, Jeff Harvey, and Stephan Lewandowsky (all with previous form attacking colleagues who don’t share their views) to publish an academic paper attacking my scientific integrity. In the words of Terence Corcoran, I was “climate mauled.”
Judith Curry stated recently (14 February 2018), regarding the Mann lawsuit against Rand Simberg, Mark Steyn and the National Review vs. the attacks on her integrity:
“Mann’s libelous statements about me (because he is a scientist with many awards) are far more serious than say Rand Simberg’s statements about Mann.”
In other words, like the attack on me in the Harvey paper (used to libel other internet bloggers by association), when senior scientists like Mann, Stirling, and Amstrup use derogatory and defamatory language against a colleague it’s a serious breach of professional ethics that impacts careers. Harvey et al.’s attack against me may be worse than those against Curry at a Congressional Hearing because it has been entered into the scientific literature in my own field.1
However, I expect BioScience (read mostly by teachers, students, and the general public, and therefore widely subscribed to by public libraries) was the only outlet willing to publish such unprofessional tripe. The editor’s refusal to retract the paper after numerous complaints about the language and the quality of the scientific content, tells you all you need to know about the journal’s “low, sectarian standards“. For example, the notice showing the two corrections they were willing to make at the end of March 2018 had to be pulled because such an egregious error occurred (it was posted to the wrong journal) it got the attention of online watchdog Retraction Watch! [Still not fixed as of 8 April]
It also tells us quite a lot about the bias of its publishers, the American Institute of Biological Sciences.
Did you know, for example, that this organization has an “actionbioscience” program that provides free idealogically biased content aimed at kids and teachers that’s not particularly different from the biased content produced (without references) for kids and teachers by activist conservation outfit Polar Bears International (employer of Harvey et al. co-author Steve Amstrup)? The AIBS actionbioscience program currently includes an out-of date, alarmist essay by litigious Center for Biological Diversity employee Shaye Wolf on the plight of penguins (from 2009) as well as one by pessimistic polar bear specialist Andrew Derocher (from 2008) .
If you are able, please support the work I do here at PolarBearScience, some of which will go to Josh for these fabulous cartoons:
Here is a list of issues regarding the Harvey et al. paper as well as responses to it: some of these you won’t have heard before. Because this is a long summary post, for convenience I offer it here also in pdf form (latest version with a few typos/spelling errors corrected): “Climate mauling, polar bears, and self-inflicted wounds of the self-righteous.”
Comments Off on Climate mauling, polar bears, and the self-inflicted wounds of the self-righteous
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Amstrup, BioScience, blogs, cartoons by Josh, climate heroes, climate mauling, cool it, Crockford, Geist, GWPF, Harvey, internet, Lewandowsky, Lomborg, Marc Morano, Michael E. Mann, own-goal, polar bear, proxy, sea ice, self-inflicted wound, self-righteous, Serengeti Strategy, Stirling, WUWT
Just in time for Polar Bears International’s self-proclaimed fall Polar Bear Week (5-11 November 2017), here’s a new resource for cooling the polar bear spin. I’ve updated my 2015 summary of reasons not to worry about polar bears, which is now more than two years old. In this new version, you will find links to supporting information, including published papers and fully referenced blog posts of mine that provide background, maps and bibliographies, although some of the most important graphs and maps have been reproduced here. I hope you find it a useful resource for refuting the pessimism and prophecies of catastrophe about the future of polar bears. Please feel free to share it.
As global leaders meet in Bonn for COP23 (6-17 November 2017), it’s time to celebrate the proven resilience of polar bears to their ever-changing Arctic environment.
Conclusion
Comments Off on Twenty reasons not to worry about polar bears, the 2017 update
Posted in Conservation Status, Summary
Tagged conservation, extinction, future, good news, GWPF, observations, polar bears, summary, threatened
Walrus researchers from the US Geological Survey have a new report on the history of walrus haulouts in the Chukchi and Bering Seas – yet their media efforts (via press release and interviews) fail to mention the relationship between fluctuating size of walrus haulouts and fluctuating walrus population size that is evident in that history. In fact, overall population size is not mentioned at all.
Two articles came out over the weekend that announced the results of this new joint US-Russian initiative [PBS, Walrus beaching in Alaska might not be as harmful as it looks. Here’s why – 31 July 2016 and ADN, Alaska and Russia join forces to create 160-year database of walrus haulouts – 31 July 2016]
But neither articles nor the new USGS paper they are touting (Fischback et al. 2016) mention the huge summer/fall haulouts of females, calves, and juveniles that were documented in the 1970s that coincided with the huge population size at that time, which crashed in the 1980s.
Only now has the population grown (to at least 200,000) to the point that huge haulouts are again being reported – conservation has done it’s job. But when walrus numbers get too high the animals out-strip their food source and numbers plummet, as they did in the 1980s (Fay et al. 1989; Garlich-Miller et al. 2011). See my fully referenced summary paper, Crockford 2014 (On The Beach: Walrus Haulouts are Nothing New).
Here’s the concern: When (not if) a population crash happens again, will it be blamed on global warming rather than natural causes? According to the PBS article:
“The database is supposed to help federal officials with conservation, especially as more ships start sailing through the newly open waters. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is determining whether walrus should be listed as a threatened species.” [my bold]
My GWPF video on the issue (The Walrus Fuss) below:
See excerpts from the USGS database below, with a map:
Comments Off on USGS report on history of walrus haulouts leaves out correlation with population size
Posted in Advocacy, Conservation Status, Sea ice habitat, walrus
Tagged Alaska, beaching, Bering Sea, change, Chukchi Sea, facts, Fischbach, global warming, GWPF, haul out, haulout, history, Point Lay, population size, report, St. Lawrence Island, threatened, USGS, video, walrus, Walrus Fuss
In The Arctic Journal, 7 October 2015: Unstable thinking about polar bear habitat [not my title choice]
This is a previously unpublished summary, written exclusively for The Arctic Journal, of my peer-reviewed, fully referenced essay on this topic that was published earlier this year by the Global Warming Policy Foundation in their “Briefing Paper” series (#16, June 8, 2015: The Arctic Fallacy: Sea Ice Stability and the Polar Bear), which includes a foreword by Dr. Matthew Cronin, Professor of Animal Genetics at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Pdf here.
Here are the essential points, one by one:
Continue reading
Comments Off on Sea ice is not a stable habitat for polar bears – summarized today in The Arctic Journal
Posted in Conservation Status, Sea ice habitat
Tagged Arctic Journal, decline, GWPF, habitat, IUCN, polar bear, population size, sea ice, spring, summer, thick spring ice
I have a new paper out that explains a fundamental problem with polar bear conservation.
I’m convinced that a flawed and out-dated ecological concept — that sea ice, under natural conditions, provides a stable, predictable habitat — is what has allowed the present doom and gloom attitude of most polar bear specialists to develop.
Sea ice changes, of course, from season to season. However, the concept that sea ice is a stable habitat assumes that these seasonal changes are predictable and virtually the same from one year to the next – at least, similar enough that the differences are not responsible for causing marked declines in population size.
The assumption is that under natural, stable conditions populations of Arctic animals will either stay the same over time or increase. Biologists were taught at university that sea ice should be a stable habitat and as a result, they’ve glossed over evidence they collected to the contrary. [see recent posts here and here, for example]
Negative effects on populations of short-term natural variations in spring sea ice or spring snow cover on sea ice have been entirely ignored in modeled predictions of future conditions. The focus has been on summer ice extent.
I have summarized this evidence in a fully referenced, peer-reviewed essay that explores how the acceptance of this fallacy (“sea ice is a stable habitat”) has so skewed the conservation biology of polar bears that to outsiders it may look like a scientific integrity issue.
The summary and the essay are below (with embedded links and references). The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) has published the essay in their “Briefing Paper” series (#16, The Arctic Fallacy: Sea Ice Stability and the Polar Bear), which includes a must-read foreword by Dr. Matthew Cronin, Professor of Animal Genetics at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Press release here, pdf here.
I think you’ll find it timely and thought-provoking.
Comments Off on My new Arctic Fallacy paper- Sea ice stability and the polar bear
Posted in Conservation Status, Sea ice habitat
Tagged Beaufort Sea, climate change, Cronin, ecology, global warming, GWPF, habitat, Hudson Bay, IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group, K-selection, model, PBSG, polar bear, Polar Bears International, polarbearscience, population size, predictions, ringed seal, sea ice, snow depth, stable, summer, thick spring ice, variability
Not just anyone warrants the attention of the European rapid response team: only those who get media attention and refuse to stay ‘on message’ about global warming issues get the Carbon Brief treatment.
After years of being ignored, I have finally been acknowledged as a worthy adversary [a force to be reckoned with] by those who spin the science of polar bears.
Carbon Brief folks got their knickers in a knot over my “Twenty Good Reasons Not to Worry about Polar Bears” blog post that the Global Warming Policy Foundation released as a Briefing Paper (pdf here). All timed for release on International Polar Bear Day (27 February 2015), which got mainstream media attention galore in the UK.
Continue reading
Comments Off on PolarBearScience has been ‘Carbon Briefed’ – success at last!
Tagged Amstrup, BBC, Carbon Brief, declining population, declining sea ice, Derocher, GWPF, IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group, Kara Sea, media attention, PBSG, polar bears, population estimates, rapid response team, The Times, threatened, vulnerable, Webster
Produced by the Global Warming Policy Foundation, there is now a short video summary of my recently-released GWPF briefing paper, which I wrote and narrated.
Watch it below:
Available also at GWPF TV: “The Walrus Fuss – Walrus haulouts are nothing new.”
The briefing paper is here.
Comments Off on Walrus mass haulout hype refuted, the video
Posted in Life History, Sea ice habitat, Summary, walrus
Tagged Alaska, briefing paper, climate change, Dr Susan Crockford, global warming, Global Warming Policy Foundation, GWPF, haulouts, Point Lay, sea ice decline, stampedes, USGS, video, walrus, walrus mortality, WWF
State of the Polar Bear Report 2017 shows polar bears are thriving
My new report reveals that polar bears are doing well despite recent reductions in sea-ice. It shows in details why this is so, with summaries of critical recent research.
Press release and pdf below. And read my op-ed in the National Post here.
Continue reading
Comments Off on State of the Polar Bear Report 2017 shows polar bears are thriving
Posted in Conservation Status, Population, Summary
Tagged balanced, commentary, facts, GWPF, Peiser, Polar Bear Day, population, review, science, seals, status, synthesis, unbiased