Posted onAugust 27, 2023|Comments Off on “10k dead penguin chicks” more animal tragedy porn used to advance global warming agenda
Like the 2017 video of the National Geographic starving polar bear, the 2022 deaths of emperor penguin deaths promoted last week is emotional blackmail. Both are examples of preposterous fear-mongering pushed by activist scientists and the media for political purposes. Don’t fall for it.
Despite the hype last week over the newly published paper by Peter Fretwell and colleagues, there is no plausible ecological rationale for proposing that that a single season’s reproductive failure in four small colonies of emperor penguin (Aptenodytes fosteri), due to La Nina conditions — phenomena unrelated to carbon dioxide emissions — are signs of a future “quasi-extinction” of the species, as proposed in the BAS video here. None of the estimated 282,150 breeding pairs of adult emperors were lost in 2022 off the Antarctic Peninsula and chicks born in several dozen other emperor colonies around the Antarctic continent survived, which means this was a tiny bump in the road rather than a catastrophe for the species.
Relying on the data I referenced used to be uncontroversial. When a CNN science journalist did an investigation similar to AFP’s in 2008, he spoke to numerous scientists and they agreed “that polar bear populations have, in all likelihood, increased in the past several decades.” When polar bears in 2008 were listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, the decision noted that the population “has grown from a low of about 12,000 in the late 1960’s to a current worldwide estimate of 20,000-25,000.” The data here haven’t changed, only the media’s willingness to disregard annoying facts.
The result is that the public is denied access to accurate data and open debate about these very important topics. Ridiculous points on one side are left standing while so-called fact-checking censors inconvenient truths. If we’re to make good climate policy, voters need a full picture of the facts. Lomborg 2023, backup link
I would add this fact: in 1982, polar bears were listed by the IUCN as ‘vulnerable’ but by 1996, that had changed to ‘lower risk/conservation dependent’–now called ‘least concern‘ (see screencap below) because population numbers had rebounded after more than 20 years of international protection from over-hunting. The reversion to ‘vulnerable’ in 2006 was based entirely on predictions that population numbers would decline in the future due to see ice loss, which so far has not happened (Crockford 2017, 2019; Crockford and Geist 2018).
References
.Crockford, S.J. 2017. Testing the hypothesis that routine sea ice coverage of 3-5 mkm2 results in a greater than 30% decline in population size of polar bears (Ursus maritimus). PeerJ Preprints 19 January 2017. Doi: 10.7287/peerj.preprints.2737v1 Open access. https://peerj.com/preprints/2737/
Crockford, S.J. 2019. The Polar Bear Catastrophe That Never Happened. Global Warming Policy Foundation, London. Available in paperback and ebook formats.
Crockford, S.J. and Geist, V. 2018. Conservation Fiasco. Range Magazine, Winter 2017/2018, pg. 26-27. Pdf here.
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Posted onNovember 1, 2022|Comments Off on King Charles & David Attenborough parrot WWF activist nonsense they naively accept as ‘science’
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) was created in 1961 to raise funds for wildlife conservation and immediately recruited European royalty to help attract wealthy benefactors. At first it was a novel good cause and this is why Britain’s royal family, plus their close friend David Attenborough, have been loyal supporters for six decades. However, for more than twenty years, the WWF has not been the benevolent conservation organization that it was in the 1960s yet these powerful men support them with more vigor than ever.
Prince Philip was the first president of the WWF-UK but ended his association with the group when they morphed into a politicized activist organization lobbying for the limitation of fossil fuels to curb human-caused global warming. However, Prince Charles, now King Charles III, became even more involved in WWF propaganda machine and eventually initiated son William, now heir apparent, into doing the same.
When the WWF began falsely promoting itself as a scientific authority a dozen or so years ago, these naive elite boosters accepted it without question, parroting unsubstantiated WWF climate doomsday talking points at every opportunity. These men don’t speak with an authority of their own knowledge on this topic: they use their exalted positions to assist the WWF and others achieve their utopian dream: destroy for others the capitalism that created their own wealth and power.
It is clear now that many of the goals of the WWF are also shared by the World Economic Forum (WEF), and that these complement the vision the King and David Attenborough have for the future. They all want a return to a world with fewer people that live meager, circumscribed lives while the rich carry on their jet-setting ways. The King will lobby again for their collective vision of the world this Friday at Buckingham Palace.
Attenborough also spoke out on the topic in person a few weeks ago (see below) after years of making documentaries and public statements that make his position very clear. Attenborough became an official WWF ambassador in 2015, the same year that the WWF partnered with Netflix and the BBC to make their first documentary, ‘Our Planet’. The WWF’s warped perception of science prevailed in ‘Our Planet’, so it’s no wonder the documentary is full of misleading and deceptive information. The film featured the infamous falling walrus fiasco that is the focus of my book, Fallen Icon: Sir David Attenborough and the Walrus Deception.
I have copied an excerpt below about the WWF-Royalty-Attenborough connection as important background to understanding the power structure of the climate change and animal conservation agenda that is now being pushed hard in an emotionally manipulative manner. I have spent years showing that conditions in the natural world are not as bad as Attenborough and the WWF insist and so do not warrant extreme ‘solutions’ as proposed by King Charles, the WEF, and many who will attend the COP 27. I will continue resisting this utopian fantasy.
Posted onJune 16, 2022|Comments Off on Newly-discovered SE Greenland polar bear subpopulation: another assumption proven false
Researchers have discovered that the 300 or so polar bears living in SE Greenland (below 64 degrees N) are so genetically distinct and geographically isolated that they qualify as a unique subpopulation, adding one more to the 19 subpopulations currently described by the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group.
NASA photo, SE Greenland glacier-front habitat with a polar bear and two cubs.
Previously, polar bear researchers simply assumed all of the bears in East Greenland were part of the same subpopulation but no field work had been conducted in the extreme southern area until 2015-2017. When they included this region, they got a big surprise: now they are spinning it as significant for polar bear conservation (Laidre et al. 2022).
Posted onFebruary 9, 2022|Comments Off on Archive of IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group status and meeting reports back to 1965
The IUCN/SCC Polar Bear Specialist Group have recently modernized their website, which apparently required them to remove all meeting reports and status documents going back to 1968. Since I had downloaded all of them for my own research, I have archived them here for anyone wishing to assess the accuracy of statements made by PGSG members about what they did or said in the past, or to understand the history of the organization. I did something similar a few years ago regarding the administrative reports used in 2007 to support the decision to list polar bears as ‘threatened’ under the US Endangered Species Act (ESA), which disappeared from the US Geological Survey website: they can now be found here.
Posted onOctober 31, 2021|Comments Off on Global population size estimates for polar bears clash with extinction predictions
How many polar bears are there in the world? This was the primary question the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) had for the newly-formed Polar Bear Specialist Group (PBSG) back in 1968. Assessing the species global population size was part of the group’s mandate ahead of the 1973 international treaty to protect polar bears from wanton overhunting. For decades, this was an important objective for the scientists that made up the group.
However, about 15 years ago that goal disappeared. I contend it was abandoned because it had become incompatible with the PBSG claim that polar bears are ‘Vulnerable’ to extinction due to human-caused global warming. The group now insists that global population estimates cannot be used to determine if numbers have gone up or down: a Catch-22 that prevents public and scientific scrutiny. This is why they push back so hard when anyone suggests that global polar bear numbers have increased.
Posted onMay 10, 2021|Comments Off on How are polar bears doing 15 years after the IUCN declared them ‘vulnerable’ to extinction?
The beginning of this month was the 15th anniversary of the day the IUCN declared polar bears ‘vulnerable’ to extinction because of climate change, the first time such a designation had ever been made. It was based on the opinion of polar bear specialists who examined the vague information available at the time and decided that in 45 years the bears might be in serious trouble. This decision changed the way the IUCN assessed species risk and led to mass confusion for the general public, who falsely assumed polar bear numbers had already declined by a huge amount.
Posted onApril 15, 2018|Comments Off on Polar bear specialist Mitch Taylor on accountability in polar bear science
Polar bear specialist Mitch Taylor emailed me and others his response to the New York Timesarticle that appeared Tuesday (10 April) about the Harvey et al. (2018) BioScience paper attacking my scientific integrity. Here it is in full, with his permission, and my comments. Don’t miss the footnote!
Posted onDecember 5, 2017|Comments Off on Retraction request to Bioscience: FOIA emails document another harsh criticism of Amstrup’s 2007 polar bear model
Today I sent a letter to the editors of the journal Bioscience requesting retraction of the shoddy and malicious paper by Harvey et al. (Internet blogs, polar bears, and climate-change denial by proxy) published online last week.
The letter reveals information about the workings of the polar bear expert inner circle not known before now, so grab your popcorn.
I have copied the letter below, which contains emails obtained via FOIA requests to the US Geological Survey and the US Fish and Wildlife Service by the Energy and Environment Legal Institute, E&E Legal, and the Free Market Environmental Law Clinic (USFWS request; USGS request) and sent to me by lawyer Chris Horner in 2014, unsolicited. I reveal some of them now, with his permission (most of the emails are boring, involving mostly technical topics not relevant to anything, as might be expected).
The emails in question, sent in 2014, pertain to preparations by three members of the Polar Bear Specialist Group for the IUCN Red List assessment due in 2015 (Kristin Laidre, University of Washington, Eric Regehr, US Fish and Wildlife Service, and Østein Wiig, Museum of Natural History, University of Olso), and Steven Amstrup (formerly head of the polar bear research at the US Geological Survey, now “head scientist” for conservation organization Polar Bears International.
They include frank discussions about a harsh critique of Amstrup et al.’s 2007 report and 2008 paper used to support listing polar bears as ‘threatened’ on the US Endangered Species List. The criticisms come from modeling expert and chair of the IUCN Red List Standards and Petitions Subcommittee (which develops guidelines for threatened and endangered species assessments, and evaluates petitions against the red-listing of these species), H. Resit Akçakaya. The IUCN is the world’s leading conservation organization, of which the PBSG is a part.
These records are a damning indictment that the “best available science” was not used to assess conservation status of polar bears under the ESA in 2008 and 2014 and show that I am not the only scientist who thinks Amstrup’s model is fatally flawed. The letter is copied in full below, the emails are copied at the end. A file of all of the entire pertinent email thread is available as a pdf below. Here’s a sample:
Posted onMay 1, 2017|Comments Off on IUCN PBSG insists the 2015 Barents Sea polar bear count was not an increase
Similar to the spin on the 2013 Baffin Bay/Kane Basin polar bear population survey, the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group now insists the latest count of the Barents Sea subpopulation is not evidence of an increase in numbers since 2004, as the leader of the study announced in 2015.
This is Part 2 of the big surprises in the latest version of the polar bear status table published by the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group (PBSG) on 30 March 2017. See last post here regarding the PBSG population size estimates that no longer concur with the 2015 Red List assessment, including the global total — even though PBSG members wrote the report (Wiig et al. 2015, and its Supplement).
Here I want to focus on the results of subpopulation surveys that were made public after the 2015 Red List assessment was published, particularly the Barents Sea estimate.
While the 2013 Baffin Bayand Kane Basin estimates (SWG 2016) have been added to the new PBSG table, any suggestion that these might indicate population increases are strong discounted. Similarly, contrary to initial reports by the principal investigators of the survey, the PBSG insist that the Barents Sea population has not actually increased since 2004, which you may or many not find convincing.
Watch polar bear habitat reform in the Canadian Arctic: “last 10 days” Canadian Ice Service animation (works anytime) HERE.
See Quote archive for details.
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