A recent study is predicting a dire future for the polar bear population on Canada’s Hudson Bay due to the effects of global warming, which climate zealots claim is caused primarily by mankind’s emissions from using fossil fuels to power civilization. But at least one prominent polar bear scientist claims that the study is flawed and full of spurious methodology.
The study, published in the science journal Nature, ominously predicts that if the nations of the world are not successful in maintaining the Paris climate accord, Western Hudson Bay (WHB) and Southern Hudson Bay (SHB) polar bear populations will lose food sources, primarily ringed seals and their pups. This will lead to prolonged fasting periods, which could dramatically affect polar bear reproduction.
But, in her Polar Bear Science blog, researcher Susan Crockford dismisses the study as “yet another bit of utterly useless fearmongering.” Crockford is a zoologist with more than 40 years’ experience with polar bears. She was let go from the University of Victoria in Canada in 2019 when she found that, instead of being endangered as climate fanatics insist, polar bears were actually thriving.
Crockford explains the two main reasons that the study from the University of Manitoba and the University of Toronto is flawed: “It’s a model projection that uses widely discredited SSP5-8.5 ‘business as usual’ climate scenarios for its predictions,” and “it’s based on the false premise that Western and Southern Hudson Bay polar bears have already suffered harm from reduced sea ice blamed on fossil fuel-caused global warming.”
According to Crockford, the paper suffers from the fact that the authors maintain an obvious bias toward the idea that the climate-zealot position that global warming is man-made and can only be addressed by the cessation of fossil fuel use is beyond any contention.
“The fact that recently-deceased Ian Stirling was a prominent co-author should come as no surprise: his irrational promotion of the idea that future ‘climate warming’ could doom polar bears to near-extinction — even after recording and publishing evidence to the contrary — will go down in history as an appalling violation of scientific principles,” she noted.
Plus, “Adding to the dubious validity of the paper: lead author Julienne Stroeve’s 2007 paper predicting summer sea ice decline by 2050 was proven wrong by actual data by the time it was published.”
The researchers maintain that the extirpation (local extinction) of the Hudson Bay polar bears may already be a foregone conclusion. Further, they claim that the only hope for Hudson Bay polar bears is to keep warming below the 2°C limit set forth in the Paris Agreement, although they are dubious about that possibility.
“Limiting global warming to 2 °C above pre-industrial levels may prevent the ice-free period from exceeding 183 days in both western and southern Hudson Bay, providing some optimism for adult polar bear survival. However, with longer ice-free periods already substantially impacting recruitment, extirpation for polar bears in this region may already be inevitable,” the study claims.
“While it is difficult to provide a hard-limit of IFP (ice free periods) before extirpation of WHB or SHB polar bear populations occurs, confronted with these threats, proactive measures are imperative,” it continues. “Reducing the use of fossil fuels and advocating for sustainable development and climate adaptation initiatives could serve as initial steps in alleviating the pressure on marine mammals in the region.”
Crockford, who has written several books on polar bears, dismissed that notion.
“In other words, the authors can’t be sure when, or even if this catastrophe will happen, but they think we absolutely must rearrange society to reduce fossil fuel use just in case,” she explains.
“As I said, another utterly useless modelling paper. It’s certainly not science,” Crockford wrote.
For some reason, polar bears have been a mascot of climate-change fanatics since the beginning of the movement. Those photos of lone polar bears seemingly stranded on runaway ice floes are just too good to ignore.
But the truth is, the predator is doing just fine and completely unaware that academics are discussing its possible extinction.
