So, What About The Polar Bears.

I don’t wonder at all why it’s so difficult for the average person to grasp the Global Warming issue.

ON one hand, they might see a a story like this.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Far fewer polar bears cubs are surviving off Alaska’s northern coast, a federal government report released Wednesday has concluded.

The study of polar bears in the south Beaufort Sea, which spans the northern coasts of Alaska and western Canada, also found that adult males weigh less and have smaller skulls than those captured and measured two decades ago.

The study does not directly blame the changes on a decline in sea ice. However, fewer cubs and smaller males are consistent with other observations that suggest changes in sea ice may be adversely affecting polar bears, the study said.

The study warns that the decline in cub survival and the smaller adult males are the same conditions that preceded a decline in the polar bears of western Hudson Bay, Canada, where the population dropped 22 percent in 17 years.

When only a day or two before they might have seen a letter like this one talking about those very same polar bears.

One polar bear population (western Hudson Bay) has declined since the 1980s and the reproductive success of females in that area seems to have decreased. We are not certain why, but it appears that ecological conditions in the mid-1980s were exceptionally good.

Climate change is having an effect on the west Hudson population of polar bears, but really, there is no need to panic. Of the 13 populations of polar bears in Canada, 11 are stable or increasing in number. They are not going extinct, or even appear to be affected at present.

It is noteworthy that the neighbouring population of southern Hudson Bay does not appear to have declined, and another southern population (Davis Strait) may actually be over-abundant.

So what is the real story here? are polar bears going extinct because they have no ice or what?

I wish there were a simple answer but it just doesn’t look like there is. Both stories, at least facutally, are true as best I can tell. How those facts are interpreted really make all the difference. I prefer to stick with the general opinion of the Canadian scientist over, say, this person:

The Grim Reaper of global warming is now clearly killing polar bear cubs,” said Deborah Williams, president of Alaska Conservation Solutions, an Anchorage-based group aimed at halting climate change. “This study should be interpreted as a cry from the North to reduce greenhouse gases

Ah yes, the shrill panic of someone whose salary depends on scaring people into giving her money. That’s the stuff on which we should depend, right?

Unfortunately, it’s the stuff that seems to be driving our public policy when it comes to global warming.

Like I said, the issue isn’t an easy one to sort out. Our science is not entirely clear on a lot of key facets of the issue and reasonable scientists have reasonable differences on how to interpret the very same data, or even whether that data is valid. So it takes some patience and some discernment.

Two things most of us seem to have in very short supply.

But it’s important that we find some reserve of both if we are going to solve the long-term problems our lifestyles are going to bring to us (or, in some cases, have already brought to us) over the next 10-50 years.