Tag Archives: media

Blacklist by Nature follows defamation by BioScience: journals reject ethics of science

Posted on August 17, 2019 | Comments Off on Blacklist by Nature follows defamation by BioScience: journals reject ethics of science

Along with hundreds of other people – 385 to be exact – I have been blacklisted [#181] by the science journal Nature Communications in a recently-published abysmal paper by three authors from University of California Merced, after I and a number of others were publicly defamed by a squadron of authors in a similarly-stupid paper less than two years ago in the general interest journal BioScience. This obsession that scientists-with-a-message have about silencing peers with other viewpoints (rather than constructing and communicating a winning argument themselves) is vile and utterly counter to what real science is about. Not surprisingly, they positively fawn over media stars like Al Gore and Greta Thunberg who have no science background but willingly repeat the accepted message of climate-change-doom.

Stupidest paper ever final

Now we have two stupid papers that purport to uphold the sanctity of one particular view of climate change: the Harvey et al. “absolutely the stupidest paper I have ever seen published” (Curry 2017) – which we all truly thought could not be matched – and now the Petersen et al. “worst paper published in a reputable journal” (Curry, 2019).

Judith Curry: “Apart from the rank stupidity of this article and the irresponsibility of Nature in publishing this, this paper does substantial harm to climate science.”

Jo Nova: “Skeptics get banned, rejected, blocked and sacked from the mainstream media yet somehow Nature has a paper on Skeptics getting too much media. Believers don’t have to be an expert to control the news agenda, just a Greenpeace activist, or a teenage girl. Skeptics on the other hand, can be Nobel Prize winners, but the BBC won’t even phone them.”

UPDATE 18 Aug. 2019: Additional commentary on this new paper (new or previously overlooked in my initial story); do cruise the comments, some additional gems of analysis there:

Visibility and Invisibility (15 Aug 2019)

A thin bench (15 Aug 2019)

Nature Defamation (16 Aug 2019)

The Nature Communications hate list – a fast-moving story (17 Aug 2019)

Inside The Sausage Factory 18 Aug 2019

ADDED 20 Aug 2019: See this scathing letter to the Editor of Nature Communications by President of the National Association of Scholars, Peter Wood. (15 Aug 2019). In part, he states:

“Nature Communications has published an article which forwards the technology of censorship in pursuit of political activism, but which does not even pretend to forward scientific knowledge.”
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Full podcast of TV interview with Andrew Bolt in Australia talking about polar bears

Posted on March 27, 2019 | Comments Off on Full podcast of TV interview with Andrew Bolt in Australia talking about polar bears

This 10 minute television interview aired a few hours ago on The Bolt Report (Sky News Australia, 26 March 2019). A short excerpt was made available as a tweet but a link to the full length podcast is below.

Bolt report interview intro_26 March 2019

Ironically, despite the huge effort made by polar bear specialists and climate change activists to silence and discredit me over the last year or so, all it’s done is made more people willing to listen to what I have to say. My new book is selling phenomenally well and getting great reviews: if you haven’t ordered your ebook or paperback copy, you can do so here.

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Posted in Book review, Polar bear attacks, Population, Sea ice habitat, Summary

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Sea ice silly season: Wadhams spouts fake facts about polar bears of northern Greenland

Posted on August 22, 2018 | Comments Off on Sea ice silly season: Wadhams spouts fake facts about polar bears of northern Greenland

As the seasonal minimum for Arctic sea ice approaches, the media get carried away by hyperbole. Tha’t been true since 2007. This year, other outlets will need to work hard to beat yesterday’s bit of nonsense from The Independent trying to out-do The Guardian: it not only includes false polar bear facts (from sea ice researcher Peter Wadhams) but leads with last year’s controversial SeaLegacy video of an emaciated polar bear. Sea ice silly season has truly begun.

East Greenland Scorsby Sound March 2011 on Kap Tobin_Rune Dietz_press photo

Wadhams (described as “one of the UK’s leading sea ice scientists” although not a particularly respected one) was interviewed about the small area of open water that opened up over the last few days in northern Greenland (see NSIDC photo below), driven by offshore winds (not melt). This region is the eastern-most part of the area that is considered the “last holdout” for Arctic sea ice: an immense band of very thick (4-20m) multiyear ice that stretches across the Arctic Ocean shores of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.

The open water is expected to last a few days at most but Wadhams was absolutely breathless with dire warnings of what this might mean for the future of polar bear in the region (about which he knows nothing), rhetoric ramped up even further by the news outlet with quotes from co-director of the Grantham Institute (London), Martin Siegert, and predictions on how low the sea ice minimum might be.

Greenland north open water_13 Aug 2018 NASA_NSIDC 15 Aug 2018 report

Cape Morris Jesup on 13 August 2018. W. Meier, NSIDC/NASA.

I think this is a truly spectacular example of the ignorance of scientists speaking outside their area of expertise used to mislead the public but decide for yourself.

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As polar bear populations fail to decline with sea ice, message of doom intensifies

Posted on December 21, 2016 | Comments Off on As polar bear populations fail to decline with sea ice, message of doom intensifies

If 10 years of summer sea ice levels expected to kill 2/3 of the world’s polar bears by 2050 hasn’t had an impact, why would anyone expect a bit less summer ice will do the job?

sea-ice-prediction-vs-reality-2012_polarbearscience

The more the polar bears fail to die in droves, the shriller the message from activist polar bear researchers – via willing media megaphones – that the great death of the bears will soon be upon us, just you wait and see!

Some big media guns were out this past week spreading the prophesy of doom fed to them by the polar bear researchers most committed to the “threatened with extinction” narrative: The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Guardian. The desperation is becoming palpable as the public catches on to their epic failure.

In 2007, the sea ice dropped to a level the experts said wouldn’t be reached until mid-century, and since then, it has remained at that low level (about 3-5mkm2, give or take some measuring error). And in 2007, US Geological Survey (USGS) biologists said with absolute confidence that when sea ice levels reached that point, 2/3 of the world’s polar bears would be gone.

No bears at all would remain, they said, in Western Hudson Bay (the Churchill bears), Southern Hudson Bay, Foxe Basin, Davis Strait, Baffin Bay, Southern Beaufort, Chukchi Sea, Barents Sea, Kara Sea, and the Laptev Sea:  ten out of 19 subpopulations would be extirpated if sea ice levels in most years dropped to the summer lows in the 3-5 mkm2 range.

On the basis of that prediction, polar bears were declared ‘threatened’ with extinction by the US Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

But nothing of the kind happened. There are still lots of polar bears – and not even struggling-to-survive bears but lots of fat healthy bears everywhere across the Arctic, in what were considered by USGS biologists to be the most vulnerable regions of all: Western Hudson Bay (i.e., Churchill), Chukchi Sea and Southern Beaufort (Alaska) and the Barents Sea (Norway).

This is the truth the world needs to hear: the experts were wrong. Polar bears have not been driven to the brink of extinction by climate change, they are thriving. This is the message of each of my two new books (one of which is appropriate for kids of all ages, see the sidebar).

In turns out that polar bears are much more resilient to changing levels of sea ice than data collectors assume and the proof is in the current healthy populations everywhere. Continue reading

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Will Trump reverse ESA decisions listing polar bears & Arctic seals as threatened?

Posted on November 9, 2016 | Comments Off on Will Trump reverse ESA decisions listing polar bears & Arctic seals as threatened?

The New York Times reported this morning: “Donald Trump Is Elected President in Stunning Repudiation of the Establishment.”

I’ve never been very interested in politics but this result has me wondering. Could the new president reverse the Endangered Species Act (ESA) decisions listing polar bears and other species as ‘threatened’ with extinction due to future threats from global warming?

future-of-arctic-species-status-under-trump-presidency-9-nov-2016
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Four years of PolarBearScience and polar bear habitat for ‘Christmas in July’

Posted on July 26, 2016 | Comments Off on Four years of PolarBearScience and polar bear habitat for ‘Christmas in July’

The traditional gift for a 4th anniversary is flowers, so to celebrate 4 years of blogging at PolarBearScience, I’m highlighting a CBC article from last year that featured the work of photographer Dennis Fast, who captured some fantastic images of polar bears cavorting in a field of fireweed near Churchill (see screencap below from the 2015 CBC feature, more at the DailyMail for 21 August 2015). Great photography – it deserves another look.

Churchill pbs in wildflowers_CBC feature_August 2015

Hard to imagine that four years have passed! Cheers to Hilary Ostrov (who blogs at The view from here) for getting me over my initial frustrations with WordPress – without which I’d never have made it this far – and for her much-appreciated typo alerts [Hilary is still dealing with on-going health issues but we talk on the phone from time to time.]

And thanks of course to my readers, who’ve made it all worthwhile. I truly appreciate all your tips and feedback. The word is getting out, via tweets and retweets, reblogging, personal blog and Facebook discussions, as well as links back to particular posts in the comments of news articles and other internet content, and straight up media mentions. The sum of it all has brought us to this point: 495 posts, over 764,000 views, and more than 411,000 visitors. Not too shabby for a single issue science blog, eh?

I thought of adding a Tip Jar button for next year, but decided against it – instead, if you’d like to support my efforts here, you can buy my polar bear attack novel (give it as a gift if you’re not keen on this type of fiction). I’d be just as grateful. See the sidebar for the link.

But back to business – below find sea ice maps of polar bear habitat at 25 July (‘Christmas in July’), this year as well as some previous years.
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WWF and the International Bear Conference

Posted on June 5, 2016 | Comments Off on WWF and the International Bear Conference

The 24th International Conference on Bear Research and Management is coming up mid-month (12-16 June, 2016) in Anchorage, Alaska, and local media outlets are already gearing up. This conference is about all species of bears but the Arctic icon is apt to get most of the attention.

APM_The Science of Bears_June 7 2016 radio screencap_at 5 June marked

 

First up on the media roster appears to be an APRN Talk of Alaska radio talk show entitled “The Science of Bears“ that will feature, among others, Steve Amstrup (spokesperson for Polar Bears International, of “Save Our Sea Ice” fame) and Margaret Williams (WWF, with a Masters in Environmental Studies), scheduled for Tuesday, June 7 at 10:00 AM Alaska time (that’s 11 AM Pacific).

Calls will be taken from the public and comments via email are invited (see below). It could be worth a listen, so mark your calendars. I’ll post a link to the audio podcast here if and when one gets published.

As for the ethics of such a close relationship of international bear scientists with the environmental activists at WWF – one of the richest ‘charities’ around (and one might suppose, plans to stay that way), you’ll have to make up your own mind. Maybe the radio host will ask…

UPDATE 8 May 2016: Here’s the link to the podcast of this Talk of Alaska program from yesterday, which is provided in iTunes format (if you don’t have an iPhone or Apple tablet, you’ll need to down the iTunes program to your PC – a link for which is provided automatically. I did it and it works just fine. On the list of programs provided at the link, just click on the forward arrow to the left of “The Science of Bears”): https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/talk-of-alaska/id264469515?mt=2
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Ancestor of the polar bear by any name: grizzly vs. brown bear monikers explained

Posted on May 8, 2014 | Comments Off on Ancestor of the polar bear by any name: grizzly vs. brown bear monikers explained

Apparently, all media outlets (except Fox News) so confused the distinction between the two common names used for the ancestor of polar bears, Ursus arctos, that they got the point of a recent news story totally wrong. An Alaskan journalist explains.

Coastal brown bears from Admiralty Island, southeast Alaska. See previous post here.

Coastal brown bears from Admiralty Island, southeast Alaska (courtesy Jim Baichtal, US Forest Service, Alaska). See previous post here.

Tundra grizzly from the Yukon (courtesy Government of Yukon Territory). These bears also occur across the north slope of Alaska and are the bears that occasionally hybridize with polar bears, as explained here.

Tundra grizzly bear from the Yukon (courtesy Government of Yukon Territory). These bears also occur across the north slope of Alaska and are the bears that occasionally hybridize with polar bears this time of year, as explained here.

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Cannibalism update and insight on the timing of media hype

Posted on April 19, 2013 | Comments Off on Cannibalism update and insight on the timing of media hype

In my last post, I went over some of the spin and misrepresentation of fact contained in the claim by leading polar bear biologists Steven Amstrup, Ian Stirling and Andrew Derocher (Amstrup et al. 2006; Stirling and Derocher 2012) that cannibalism is on the increase because of the effects of global warming on Arctic sea ice.

I’ve had an opportunity to follow up on three points that puzzled me. Three relate to the Amstrup et al. paper that described three cases of cannibalism in the southeastern Beaufort Sea in 2004 and one to the incidents in western Hudson Bay in 2009. In the process, I found at least three more misrepresentations of fact and gained some insight on why these incidents of cannibalism were hyped so enthusiastically when they were. Continue reading

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First month for Polar Bear Science – Aug, 2012

Posted on September 2, 2012 | Comments Off on First month for Polar Bear Science – Aug, 2012

First posts went up July 26.

Total views @ Aug. 31 – 2454

Total views:
July 2012 –    567
Aug. 2012 – 1887

Over the last three weeks, views have been >600/week, an average of 91/day.

Largest spikes in readership were generated not by new posts (surprise!) but by media coverage:
1) television, newspaper and radio interviews associated with my lecture at the University of Toronto Aug. 14, “Polar Bears: Outstanding Survivors of Climate Change”;
2) one of my posts was featured at Climate Depote on Aug. 31.

I am happy to report that so far, all of the comments I have received via the “comments/tips” page have been positive.

No one has yet asked for references. So, just to be clear, I am happy to send pdfs of any references I cite in my posts (if I have them – not always available, e.g. book chapters). Simply use the “Requests” contact page. Just because you don’t have access to a university library should not mean you can’t get to the science. Don’t take my word for anything – if you have doubts about what the research papers say, go to the source. Just ask!

I felt one comment by a reader was worth posting, so with their permission, I added it to the post as an update. Another commenter sent me photos, which I happily added, noted as an update.

I’ve got some interesting posts lined up, including another book review – stay tuned.

Enjoy the rest of your long weeekend.

PS. Huge thanks to Tom Nelson for highlighting my posts and Hilary Ostrov for technical advice to this novice blogger.

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