Oh God. What have we done.

99.999%? Really? Is that the official number?

He exaggerated but .2%.

Results show that overall, 90% of participants
answered “risen” to question 1
and 82% answered yes to question 2. In
general, as the level of active research
and specialization in climate science
increases, so does agreement with the two
primary questions (Figure 1). In our survey,
the most specialized and knowledgeable
respondents (with regard to climate
change) are those who listed climate science
as their area of expertise and who
also have published more than 50% of
their recent peer-reviewed
papers on the
subject of climate change (79 individuals
in total). Of these specialists, 96.2%
(76 of 79) answered “risen” to question 1
and 97.4% (75 of 77) answered yes to question
2.

http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf

Now while it's not the total of all Climatologist it does illustrate a trend and probably is fairly close to overall Climatologist.

Cycles to republicans = An astroid and human influence to Democrats

Actually, polar bear numbers have been increasing steadily: http://hotair.com/archives/2012/04/06/global-warming-wipes-out-all-polar-bears-except-the-increasing-number-of-them/

A hungry bear is an angry bear, and availability of food is pretty much the only thing that is holding them back right now.

SRS- why do you bring politics into the discussion. Hell, neither demos or repubs can change the climate. Just go back to the discussion of the starving polar bears. They are very beautiful animal, just to bad they have to die. It's sad that a human has to die, but it is going to happen like it or not!

so get on those planes to where the cruise ships are, and burn oil by the barrel and go look at them before they are extinct, burn those barrels of oil getting to vegas for a cheap thrill. Talked to a "greenie" recently who flew from Florida to San Francisco to ____— wait for it ______— attend an ecological conference on saving the planet ! I asked if they ever thought of using a Web conference instead of burning barrels of oil to get together and he said they "talked about that". I know an Exec for Coca Cola, goes to a couple sales meeting a month all over the US - burning oil by the barrel. Truth is, if you have an excuse to use, it is fun to go to resorts and party in the name of doing business. Just make your customers pay for it and you're good to go. There are many immigrants now after "moving" to the US fly home to visit the folks like the kids who moved to the suburbs used to visit the folks who still live in the city. Except now the commuting is 8,000 to 10,000 miles one way ! Many dozens of 747's and heavy Airbus's cross the oceans every day for this. Ecuador created a town on the Galapagos to service the eco-tourist industry and make money. Last year they announced one of the turtle species there went extinct. Of course there is no connection between development and throngs of people moving into the where the animals are trying to live. If you hire the right professor, and design the right beach community of course a mass of people can build on nesting sites and the animals will be alright. Steal yourself for more such stories of animals starving on camera and dying while you watch. 8 billion people on earth now and the 16 year olds and 18 year olds are getting pregnant like never before. 9 billion people are expected in just a couple of decades. The animals don't have a chance until the poeple burn the last gallon of oil and there just is no more carbon to put in the air.

Polar bears are extremely intelligent and adaptable. They certainly deserve protection, but we should be first looking at some solid statistics on their population growth or decline before we get really emotional about it.

Actually, polar bear numbers have been increasing steadily

Absolutely not accurate.

At the 2009 meeting of the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group, scientists reported that of the 19 subpopulations* of polar bears:

• 8 are declining.
• 3 are stable.
• 1 is increasing.

But the broader story here isn't polar bears - it's the effect that disappearing Arctic ice is already having on our own weather. The polar jet stream is slowing down, and it's ability to 'push' weather systems from west to east is decreasing.

Too much heat, cold, rain, or dry weather is bad news for everyone - and we're already seeing that happen. Remember this year's (and last year's) extended heat/drought in the US? The 2010 Russian heatwave? Last winter's extreme cold in eastern/southern Europe? Etc.

That's the result of a slower polar jet stream. Expect to see much more of it. This isn't about polar bears any more.

Arguesforsport...

Good point...too bad it falls on deaf ears!

It's called climate change, folks.

Until a liberal shouts just as loud that they are willing to proportionally reduce they're standard of living and quality of life to the amount necessary to reverse their perceived impact us humans have on the planet, then anything they say in these threads is hypocritical and lacks any shred of credibility.

I have not heard a single one in any thread of any article related to global warming mention that, and I won't say they never will because anything is possible. But it's been years and I'm still waiting for someone to respond rationally and speak out clearly about all the things they are doing that actually is of a level that comes even remotely close to countering their own negative impact on the environment.

maybe the boats that people use to do the research (in a place that used to be inaccessible) scare away the food source of the bears?

See, there COULD always be an alternate explanation. Science is a constantly evolving study, thoughts that have been 'accepted as true' for 500 years can be changed, often with dramatic results. i.e. theory of gravity. Using 150 years of data to show a worldwide trend is bad science. Using sea floor samples that have a 500 year per inch margin of error AND trying to match certain dates in history is just as bad. But seeing photos of more missing ice than in previous years might just be a tipoff something is up.

It is POSSIBLE this bear was sick. Even the researcher said it was the worst he had ever seen. This could be an isolated instance, or if you could produce a picture of 50 bears that looked like this, it might be a serious problem.

Either way the Global Warming believers are just as guilty for falling for what could be hype, as the deniers are of not seeing some of the trends. Or perhaps a volcano will blow tomorrow, cool the Earth, and we will never know who was right...

uglance -

1. Why does anything liberals say lack credibility just because they have not reduced their carbon footprint? 99.98% of scientist and geologists agree that global warming is a real thing. How do my actions take away from what their research indiciates?

2. why should liberals be the only ones cutting back to ensure another species survives? I recycle, ride my bike when i can, etc but it doesn't do enough unless EVERYONE regardless of political affiliation puts in some effort. The answer to everything can't always be "well look at what the other side is doing wrong." sometimes you just gotta accept some responsibility.

Max, the decline of the polar bear population in the North Pole is well documented.

But trusting that fact would mean putting trust in other agencies/institutions other than Fox News. Like these liberal "scientists" and these stupid government organizations

Here's NOAA for starters:

http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/images/polarbear/schliebe_03.gif

http://pbsg.npolar.no/en/status/status-table.html

Why are we not providing them with fresh kills? This is so sad that all we want to do is take ships and break up what little ice there is just so we can tell our grandchildren and children we went there and saw it happen. They would never tell their kids they where the reason or they helped break up the ice in these huge ships. If asked why we didn't feed them we will tell them because we didn't want them to be dependent on humans. What a crock of @!$%# that is. We are the ones destroying their habitat we should be the ones to clean it up and protect the animals we are endangering. Why are we not using Zero Point (free) Energy? If you don't know what it is Google it! I'm sick of the waste and destruction we are doing to this earth and I don't care if I end up in jail, I'm going to convert my home to free energy. If you just spend a couple of hours or a few minutes researching Zero Point Energy you will understand how little if no damage we could be doing. How's the rich going to go hunting polar bears if there is no ice to track them on? I suppose if no one was watching you could do it from a helicopter, wouldn't that be an excellent way to feed the bears also?

I say we send everyone who doesn't believe in global warming to the Artic.... if for nothing else it will give the bears something to feed on and we can be rid of the idiots once and for all!!!!!

I will be another sad day in the chapter of man when we let yet another species go extinct!!!!

No Skup, without human influence on the climate, temperatures would be dropping from natural cycles, and the Arctic sea ice would be growing. At least for the next 10 to 20 thousand years or so.

But Rick Santorum and his ilk insist global warming is a hoax! Uh...sure Ricky, whatever you say dude.

Honestly, even if, as the global warming nay-sayers insist, this is a cycle, that the climate is "normalizing" from the last ice age, regardless, doesn't it make sense for human kind to NOT exacerbate the situation by continuing to pollute the environment?

Scott, so if someone doesn't believe what you believe they should die?

I say we send everyone who doesn't believe in global warming to the Artic.... if for nothing else it will give the bears something to feed on and we can be rid of the idiots once and for all!!!!!

You have to love liberal tolerance.

Geez..........Here we go again............ We have gone through 34 MAJOR temperature swings in the last 4500 years with 7 MAJOR temperature swings in the last 100 years alone. In other words - the earth is always changing. We weren't significantly warmer in the 1300's because we drove too many SUV's. As recently as the 1970's scientists said we were going into a new ice age and didn't know if humans could survive.

So you find a picture of a skinny polar bear and all of a sudden we should live in caves and not use our air conditioning anymore. The sad part is we can't even have a discussion or adult conversation on this anymore. It is because of SUV's and fluorocarbons so that's it - no further discussion - close down the businesses, start walking to work, and build an outhouse out back.

The fact of the matter is temperature has fluctuated on earth for centuries and will fluctuate in the future. It called "nature"...............

@ Tom,

You are cherry picking what you want to believe.

That's like me citing any doctor I can find that proclaims smoking doesn't cause cancer.

Amen ScottW430.

The rampant stupidity and arrogance of man will eventually be the end of the human species. And I say we deserve exactly what we'll get.

It makes me sick that we are destroying this planet, and that we keep on reproducing - with no regard for any other living being. How sad...we should all be terribly ashamed.

Just where do all you nay-sayers suggest we live once we've made this Earth inhospitable? There aren't a lot of other "Earths" out there. In fact - we haven't found even one.

Max, I hope you're joking about quoting/using as a reference the Bozo Jazz Shaw (the "author" of the article you used)

Actually, polar bear numbers have been increasing steadily: http://hotair.com/archives/2012/04/06/global-warming-wipes-out-all-polar-bears-except-the-increasing-number-of-them/

Look at his profile and you'll see he ins't even a scientist:

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/jazz-shaw/20/963/b43

And then check out this interview he did (go past his picture to ):

http://glenlasbury.wordpress.com/2011/04/25/twitter-personality-of-the-week-35-10-questions-for-jazz-shaw-jazzshaw/

Here's a couple of questions he was ask (use the link to see his answers):

1. What exactly do you do for a living, beyond being a jack-of-all-trades commentator on Twitter, with a rich collection of anecdotes and observations?

2. When I see your positions on various issues, you seem to lean libertarian to me, but how would YOU describe your political philosophy and why?

Do you really believe that he's not a little bias? I think he's a lot bias? Let's use actual factual information.

Max^108

We all know your link to a right wing blog has to be fact!

Ag

Sorry I am late on this one.

Polar bears are destine to become hy-breds. ( for give the spelling ) They have already been spotted mating with Grizzly bears and have produced off spring. The natural world as we knew it is changing much to fast.

bob

Global warming or not? Was it "global warming" as the former ice age ended? Polar bears generally have a hard time with finding an adequate supply of food. It's not like they are hunting in a forest and can ambush their prey as maybe a grizzly would.

Nevertheless, on a millenium basis, this is akin to Mother Nature going thru her menstural cycle. Try reading a little about the National Center for Atmospheric Research and what they've found about the sun, its cycles and the resultant affect the earth's weather.

Mother Nature will run its course. Some bears will die and some will live as it has been and will continue to be as long as we are around to record it.

Pedestrian: "What have we done?"

Humans have carelessly and wantonly failed to use basic birth control, breeding into 7 billion useless, polluting bodies crowding out nearly every other species, causing many to become extinct.

Will someone look at the total population of polar bears over the last 50 years? Then tell me what the problem is. If you do not see it then you are the idoit.

How can we expect them to follow basic science when 46% of them believe Obama was not born in the US? They don't even except evolution--4 billion years of fossil records means nothing to them. They probably did not pay attention in school. They do not have the capacity or the inclination to independently research and process facts. The difference between long term climate changes and the type of fast paced warming occuring now is lost of them. The evidence of warming that keeps piling on is also lost on them. They give the same credence to a minority of scientists who deny global warming (and half of them who are probably funded by Exxon) the same credence a the 90%+ of scientists who idependently arrive at the same conclusion. They are deaf ears, closed minds except to self serving propaganda maskerading as science. They are going extinct without knowing it. And they are taking the rest of us down with them.

Here are the facts............polar bears are divided into around 5 major populations around the world. 4 of these populations are thriving, meaning they are growing and healthy. One population has dimisihed slightly.

Please stop listening to the loons out there and start using your minds to find out the truth. The truth is not convenient for environmentalism since they can't get your contributions if everything is fine.

Apparently a little knowledge is a dangerous thing for liberals. There is no way of knowing if that picture is pure propaganda or not, you can watch it and put any narrative to it you like.

Skepticism is good science, consensus is the antithesis of good science. Consensus was the earth was flat, consensus was the sun revolved around the earth, consensus was the earth was thousands of years old. All were disproved by skeptics, often under pain of torture.

Science does not progress from consensus, it progresses from skepticism.

That does not say consensus is wrong, just that it is bad science.

We are still coming out of the last ice age, we should be warming for a few thousand more years. If you feel better about consensus, there is consensus that this is true. The argument is over how much man is accelerating the process. This is a much more open question.

It is quite valid to challenge liberals over what they are doing and totally invalid for them to ask the skeptic to do the same. It's stupid beyond belief to think otherwise. If liberals really believed in all this doom and gloom they would move heaven and earth to fill their roofs with solar panels and have a Leaf on order. Just because your hands are raw from all that wringing, doesn't mean you can demand that skeptics do the same. So say otherwise is an act of fascism.

Most liberals I've met are complete hypocrites, they won't spend a dime on solar or an EV. You want skeptics to move off the dime? Great, lead by example! I doubt many will be holding their breath, everybody knows liberals only want to spend other peoples money, not their own.

here you go rgmoon

go to pbsg.npolar.no/en/status/status-table.html

Republicans/conservatives overpopulate and teach their children that Jesus is coming so it doesn't matter.

I hate republicans and anyone who in this day and age feels they need to have more than two children. Overpopulating is a form of narcissism. You are sick, selfish, twisted baby hoarders (I'm talking to you, Duggar family).

I think the tax structure needs to punish, not reward people for having more than two children. If you want to have more, adopt. If you have more than two children, you should have to pay full price for their schooling, medical care, etc. and NOT get ANY tax breaks for them. I am sick of paying for it and so is mother nature.

In the olden days you needed alot of children to work the farm. You also expected to lose half of them to disease or wars. That is not the case anymore and we need to legislate laws to protect the planet before we all end up like China or India.

How anyone can look at these poor bears and still keep popping out their snot nosed rug rats is beyond me. You are sick.

uglance -

1. Why does anything liberals say lack credibility just because they have not reduced their carbon footprint? 99.98% of scientist and geologists agree that global warming is a real thing. How do my actions take away from what their research indiciates?

2. why should liberals be the only ones cutting back to ensure another species survives? I recycle, ride my bike when i can, etc but it doesn't do enough unless EVERYONE regardless of political affiliation puts in some effort. The answer to everything can't always be "well look at what the other side is doing wrong." sometimes you just gotta accept some responsibility.

Thanks for proving my point Mindyabusiness. You failed miserably to prove that you're not being hypocritical. We already know that the human race generates a ridiculous amount of waste. That is not the issue. Why are you devoting all this energy to pointing out that we are destroying the planet? What is your goal? How is that going to lead to you changing your behavior beyond riding a bike and recycling and all the other little things so many of us do that, while helps, doesn't even scratch the surface in reversing the damage we do according to all the research you keep pointing out?

I do far more than the average person is even capable of doing because I have the ability to work from home, can afford the $1,500 commercial distiller I use so I no longer buy water bottles, and was fortunate enough to be raised by parents that instilled the self-discipline to never litter, always turn off lights, re-use everything (including shopping bags) and recycle like a maniac.

But no matter what I do, my middle class standard of living still produces light years more of a negative environmental impact and the only way we all can truly net a balance is if we live in Tee Pees in the woods, grow our own food and not use any electricity. This will drop our avg life expectancy (as a male in my case) from 79 to 30.

So all you know how to do, is what every liberal knows how to do when someone like me forces you to get past the BS rhetoric. All you guys do, like clockwork, as a predictable defense mechanism is to hide behind the justification for failing to own up to your own footprint by pointing out that everyone else who disagrees with your political ideology seems unwilling to recognize that we're hurting the planet. All you're doing is pointing to bad behavior to justify bad behavior. Except you're the one screaming that we all need to change. Hence the hypocrisy.

What I'm asking is that someone, it doesn't even have to be a liberal, but the liberals are the ones pointing the fingers at the conservatives painting their entire ideology as one that wants to destroy the planet for the all mighty dollar... someone to stop being hypocritical and say what they are going to do about it far beyond recycling a few cans and riding a bike. Because the math isn't even close.

Valhalla, by your reasoning, if we can find one scientist that still thinks the earth is flat, then we should believe them.

Some people still think the earth is only 6000 years old, regardless of all the evidence to the contrary. Should we go alogn with them too? What's the point of science if we refuse to accept it's conclusions?

JimCA - The current ice age began about 2.6 million years ago. 100 years, 1,000 years, 10,000 years on that scale is nothing more than the blink of an eye.

You know what they say about statistics.

So people who get paid to study climate change, say that their is climate change. Who would have guessed. I get a kick out of people who blindly believe in this global warming using only a century or so of data. Yes the Earth has warmed these past 100 years, by about 1 degree. Could we be a factor, we dont know because climatologists do not study the full cycling affect and use isolated areas to claim success. Liberals, if you want to insist on it so much, sell all your cars, stop flying, and build tree houses. Then we can laugh at you as mother nature continues her course, and realize we are a speck even compared to other humans like the chinese.

marinmom,

Please take a moment to read what you wrote. Where is all this anger coming from? What kind of torturous life have you been subjected to to cause you to be filled with so much hate? How could you possibly be so brainwashed as to cast such false stereotypes? Where are you getting your information from? It is no different than the toxic propaganda fed to children in the middle east that the west is the devil and blowing yourself up is a heroic act.

You honestly think republicans and conservatives are the only people who have more than 2 kids? My family is predominantly democratic. My mother's brother is an avid supporter of Obama and liberalism. Has three kids. Their kids are pumping out grandchildren like they have a conveyer belt at the end of their beds. I've already lost count how many nieces and nephews I have. It's insane.

Your hate, your tunnel vision to focus on the wrong people is so egregious, you need professional help. I'm dead serious, this is not an insult. You need serious help working out your problems.

While I am not a republican, I am a conservative. I am also an atheist. Your vile rhetoric about conservatives with respect to Jesus is offensive to me and millions of people in this country.

You are not alone Marinmom, there many other troubled souls in these threads like Feisty Redhead. I encourage you to take comfort in knowing that we all have our misconceptions of how the world works and we have all had to adjust our paradigm from time to time. The people who do not welcome tolerance and change the ways they perceive things are people who are the most dangerous not just to society, but to themselves.

There is simply not that much reliable and comprehensive data on polar bear numbers in the Arctic. Even the polarbearsinternational.org will admit that - they just don't have any solid data, but a number of recent studies are showing that the studied populations are increasing. More here: http://www.polarbearsinternational.org/polar-bears/what-the-experts-say/expert-q-and-a/are-polar-bear-populations-booming

Tom - Plymouth-3672298

I like how we are the intolerant ones because we want to send those who are either destroying the planet or are as equally complicit by their choosing to be ignorant because their party tells them so, to the Artic to be bear food!

Tell me, what will your grandchildren or great grandchildren do when the planet has heated to the point where crops won’t grow or that the bees die off, or that water and air are polluted, that the fish in the oceans die off, or the hundreds of other scenarios that are all extinction level events…..and the right worries about handing over debt to their kids or grand kids, why don't you worry about handing over a planet they can actually live on :) LOL

None of those bears looks skinny, not one bit. Just look at the belly on that big old Boar. How in the hell did the reporter determine that these are starving bears. Even the cub is chunky.

Just another day in the Liberal Lame Stream Media, and another perfect example of foolish liberals, (I know, I repeat myself) pretending to report on a subject they know nothing about.

There has never been, and will never be a condition when a Sow with offspring behalves passive or submissive when a male (larger or not) enters her territory. Particularly if there's no cover around. It's called protective instinct, and anyone who knows bears, understands exactly what it is that male bears do when they come across cubs... they kill them. Always have, always will, climatic change or not.

But I suppose if some forceful prick had an agenda, they could seize the opportunity to spin a deceitful web to suit their liking…. Some things never CHANGE,.... Go Lame Stream Media, spread the ignorance, Barry Soetoro & Co. are depending on you.

ScottW430

Answer my question then. Don't just ignore it. How old are you? What kind of home do you live in? What source of energy did you use to type in this thread? What car do you drive? Or if you don't own a car, what form of energy-consuming transportation do you use to travel outside walking/biking range? Where do you get your food? How is that food harvested without fuel-consuming machinery to feed you among hundreds of millions of other mouths? How do you benefit from a average life expectancy of 79 without the production of plastic which modern medicine would otherwise not exist? Etc. etc.

Why do you feel comfortable stopping short of getting to the real issue by pointing to the 'right' as the only people to blame here? Unless you prove that you yourself are a net zero on the impact of the environment, your singling out the 'right' as the source of the problem makes you a hypocrite.

It also makes you an enemy of the country because you are contributing to the forces that are dividing us. Anyone who uses rhetoric to paint one side against the other when in fact both are in the same boat is a terrorist.

I don't dispute global warming, but the truth is that they have no idea why the female bear challenged the male because they can not ask her. It's just another guess, as they usually do. Furthermore, polar bears have always been cannibals, that's not new behavior. Watch animal planet once in a while, it's been on there plenty as disturbing as it is.

Logic alone shows that 7 billion humans on the planet will cause harm.

Now, add all the fossil fuels we 7 billion have been burning and voila=--global warming.

Make complete sense.

Of course the naysayers also denied cigarettes caused cancer even though the evidence was clear.

This is really wild. I just saw an overfed woman with three chubby cubs fighting a skinny man for a box of vanilla ice cream at Walmart.

arguesforsport,

"Remind us...why are there no more Wooly Mammoths?"

Because it became unfashionable long ago for elephants to wear wool. Now they wear a new suit of thick skin instead. This is important for fashion minded elephants who want to keep up on the latest trends, you know.

And I thought they were going to write a story on the horrible economic numbers out again, but I see they went with the much bigger story of hungry polar bears!

so hard to decide. who are we to believe - the climatologists or the rightwing nitwits?

Logic alone shows that 7 billion humans on the planet will cause harm. There is about 17 quadrillion flies in the world, wouldn't logic tell you that is problem? Looks like a big number to me.

Now, add all the fossil fuels we 7 billion have been burning and voila=--global warming. Do we also count natural pollutants like volcano's and cow farts, or do we just use what humans contribute?

Make complete sense. Yes if you try to simplify this complicated and vast system and it's cycles, with all the elements that goes into our world.

Of course the naysayers also denied cigarettes caused cancer even though the evidence was clear. What? The people deny global warming are also the same people who denied cigarattes caused cancer? That doesn't even make sense!

so hard to decide. who are we to believe - the climatologists or the rightwing nitwits?

What if the rightwing nitwit happens to be a climatologist that doesn't believe in Global warming? Oh no what will we do????

uglance -

1. I agree with you that there is far too much attacking of both parties but you threw the first stone with the "dumb liberals" comment. I didn't attack conservatives or moderates or any group. I attacked YOUR position. Someone disagreeing with you does not mean they are trying to draw a divide in the parties.

2. Good for you on taking the initiative. The next step is getting large scale corporations on board.

3. Read the comments in this post. There's a good majority of the population that still believes global warming isn't a real thing. People feel like they have to scream and point it out to everyone because some part of the population is still in denial. So you asked me what my goal is. My goal is to educate people beyond what .02% scientists are saying and get everybody on board with what the majority of the scientists are saying so we can encourage corporations to start functioning a little bit more eco-friendly. I don't mean to be pushy or shove your nose in the dirt. I am just trying to get everyone on board and your first comment was offputting and a blatent attempt to discredit the article and the discourse that should have followed suit.

Max - do you ever actually read anything, or do you just post BS you hear on FOX?

Because if you actually READ that link you posted (claiming that polarbearsinternational supports your idiotic non-science), you'd have seen this:

Q: Why all the fuss about polar bears? Aren't their populations increasing: in fact, booming?

A: One of the most frequent myths we hear about polar bears is that their numbers are increasing and have, in fact, more than doubled over the past thirty years. Tales about how many polar bears there used to be (with claims as low as 5,000 in the 1960s) are undocumented, but cited over and over again. Yet no one I know can come up with a legitimate source for these numbers.*

LogicReguired What if the rightwing nitwit happens to be a climatologist that doesn't believe in Global warming? Oh no what will we do????

There are still RWNJ flat-earthers. And those who think we never went to the moon.

I don't believe them, either.

LogicReguired

What kind of "logic" do you need when it's the right is trying to dispell climate change as a myth by spending millions on scientists that are willing to sell out the planet for money and the left are called bleeding heart liberals because we believe in climate change?

Wasn't it Koch Brothers paid scientist Richard Muller who finally changed his position to now saying that climate change is a fact! guess the right didn't get his memo!

face facts right wingers...you're the party of no regulations, drill baby drill, clean coal (Obama has pissed me off on his saying that little falsehood) and anything goes in the name of Captitalism....

No one seems to worry about the seals. I think they are happy to see less bears. I heard bears eat one seal a week. that is 52 a year or X 25000 bears = 1,300,000 if my math is right. Poor seals and no one loves them.

It is truly disgusting that the Republican/Tea Party has recently stated: “global warming is a liberal myth”. Of course they also believe, the earth is flat, the moon landing was faked and the earth was created 6800 years ago…. With this kind of backward thinking it’s no wonder issues like global warming not being seriously addressed.

America should be leading the charge on global warming and so many other urgent problems facing mankind. Instead we’re being held back by a minority of political hacks that are stuck in a 19^th century mind set.

We are well beyond the point of no return. That sea ice is gone, and it's not coming back. Which means, of course, that the planet will be absorbing that light energy, rather than reflecting it back into space -- thus heating us up even faster than before.

We were mandated to be good caretakers of the planet, in our religious books. We have completely failed -- and we should not be surprised when God, or Mother Earth, or whatever, kicks us off this planet so He/She/It can bring things back into balance.

This is yet another example of the short-sightedness of Capitalism. We have no value that we can place on the system itself -- the planet which sustains life. So when we ship manufacturing jobs over to China, India, Mexico, etc., where the pollution rules are so lax as to not exist, we basically choose to pollute the planet more just to squeeze out a few more pennies of profit.

Besides the fact that this story gets top billing, multiple things wrong here:

1. There is sea ice clearly visible in the photo. Polar bears are supposed to be either on land or swimming. Record low sea ice, remember?

2. A cub is in the photo. Female polar bears will fight males to the death to defend the cubs. Male polar bears and cubs don't mix. I watch my NatGeo.

So next time, if MSNBC wants to portray starving polar bears, don't show a dead seal as a food source, a cub, or sea ice in the photo.

One sees a skinny bear and automatically says its global warming? What kind of science is that? Without studying the bear there is no way to know why the bear is skinny. It could be sick. Could be injured. Could be too many bears there and not enough food source. Could be the female had the food first. Could be she was just protecting her cub. Lots of things. It's crazy to draw a conclusion like that without the proper data from the bear itself.

"What scientific measure did you use sir?" ............. "I looked"

"So you think anyone will publish you with just .....i looked" ........."sure..... MSNBC"

ProBusiness (#1.29): Just to let you know, you got "fluorocarbons" (which is actually chlorofluorocarbons) mixed up with ozone depletion; it's not a part of global warming.

Cheetah (#1.56): That was the biggest laugh I've had all day! Woooooooo!

Skup, you can argue that the polar bears would go extinct anyway in a few million years without our influence, but then you might as well argue that everything we do is futile because eventually the earth will burn up as the sun expands.

Humans make meaningful decisions based on consequences over far shorter time scales -- millenia at most, and usually just decades at most. On that scale we are making massive detrimental changes to the environment we live in, so it behooves us to fix things on that time scale and not ponder our navels waiting for the heat death of the universe.

This is old news and not the first, polar bears have been starving in mass for years now WHERE THE F*** have you you all been? There is plenty on information out there and MANY hungry/starving polar bears. How many people does it take to ACTUALLY look up information on polar bears? How many morons can post inaccurate information about polar bear and global warming? We will be the polar bears if we keep going like we are going.

#1. Why has NO ONE mentioned industrial waste and emissions? I wonder what effect all those industrial plants have on pollution. I wonder why certain countries buy carbon credits, I wonder why corporations move factories there?

#2. Yes there is a seal in the picture WTF do you think they are fighting over? Both bears are skinny and under weight. Look up what a "normal" polar bear looks like and tell me they are not skinny.

#3. SEALS NEED THE ICE TOO. If there is no ice then there is no place for them to have their babies. There is also no place to hide them from predators like the polar bear. Putting them on the shore would suicide since a polar bear can smell a seal pup under several feet of ice and they are not the only ones that would like a tasty pup treat.

#4. Actually look up how far south polar bears have gone in search of food over the last couple years and you will find they have moved far inland instead of spending most of their life on the ice. Simply because they are adapting and finding new sources of food should not be a surprise for any that understand living creatures.

#5. Top gear actually drove a truck to the north pole a couple of years ago. Now that is no longer possible.

#6. Ships can actually sail around Canada to the north now without ice breakers.

#7. How may mountain top glaciers are melting around the world?

#8. According to science what happens when we add excess carbon to our atmosphere? We can replicate the results in an isolated test box, and scientifically PROVE over and over again that increasing carbon increases the amount of heat that our planet retains. HOW IS THIS A MYTH? Only a moron can see repeated tests with all variables accounted for, produce the exact same results repeatedly, and say it is a myth. What happens when you add 2+2? How many times do you get 4? How many times do you get 3 or 5? This is called PROOF, AND ADDING CARBON TO OUR ATMOSPHERE INCREASES THE AMOUNT OF HEAT RETAINED.

#9. You missed the whole part about how the ice sheet acts like a big mirror since that is also PROVEN.

#10. This is what happens when you cheat in school, do not pay attention, and cannot look up or process facts. Your brain cannot process logic or else you would not arrive at the conclusion you have. You are not entitled to a/your opinion when you think 2+2=5, WHICH IS WRONG. You should not have the right to vote or procreate...you should not have been allowed to live this long in the first place. Natural Selection should have done the job, but we humans think we are to good for that. The reason why the "greatest generation" was so great was because all the dumb a$$ people died and only the smart ones lived.

(The Higgs Boson (for those who know me) is an exception since the Standard Model is wrong and so is the idea of using mass. They also need to justify spending all that $, since they are upgrading it for more power. I do believe that they found a particle, it is just not what they are looking for. The particle will have nothing to do with the mass of other particles since gravity/mass is more like the "Cheerios Effect" and is an after effect of the system.)

@Real American - did you actually read the ENTIRE section from polarbearsinternational.org I linked? NOWHERE do they provide any bear NUMBERS from studies that support their claims. They merely say that the claims about bear population increases are false. And ZERO proof to the contrary. The site admits that here: "Many parts of the Arctic are so remote that scientists don't have a clue about how many polar bears are there. In fact, of the 19 polar bear populations, scientists don't have enough data on sevenof them to even make a census estimate!"

Here are some studies from the USGS: http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/special/polar_bears/

and a very readable and concise article from the Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1545036/Polar-bears-thriving-as-the-Arctic-warms-up.html

You can see the big bear's entire skeletal structure, too.

Skin and bones.

AN acclaimed Arctic photographer yesterday warned it is too late to stop global warming after witnessing this year’s record-breaking ice melt first hand.

Doug Allan, who helped make the BBC’s stunning Frozen Planet, spoke out days after Norwegian scientists released research revealing the polar ice cap is disappearing even faster than originally feared.

And Dunfermline-born Doug, 61, said he was frightened to the core by his most recent trip to the far north............................

“For the first time, I was seeing polar bear carcasses on the ice.

“They’d died from starvation, something unheard of when I first started out.

“But the melt means less ice and fewer hunting grounds for these magnificent creatures.

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/science-technology/arctic-veterans-disaster-fear-1314126

We can stand tall knowing we were the first species to knowingly assist in our own extinction.

Healthy polar bear count confounds doomsayers

The debate about climate change and its impact on polar bears has intensified with the release of a survey that shows the bear population in a key part of northern Canada is far larger than many scientists thought, and might be growing.

The number of bears along the western shore of Hudson Bay, believed to be among the most threatened bear subpopulations, stands at 1,013 and could be even higher, according to the results of an aerial survey released Wednesday by the Government of Nunavut. That’s 66 per cent higher than estimates by other researchers who forecasted the numbers would fall to as low as 610 because of warming temperatures that melt ice faster and ruin bears’ ability to hunt. The Hudson Bay region, which straddles Nunavut and Manitoba, is critical because it’s considered a bellwether for how polar bears are doing elsewhere in the Arctic.

Max,

You are literally cherry picking data from a subset group. Get a life.

And how many solar panels are on your roof Dman? What is in your drive way? Are you a player or a poser?

I'm guessing poser.

D man,

If you actually looked at research, you would see that they are doing the same thing. Using a few thousand years for the temperature of the Earth is quite stupid. Once climatologists use better methods, then I'll respect their findings.

I know what you mean man! I hate it when some boney chick and some punk come and try to steal my food man.

People, look this up on a non liberal site,I know that ishard to find. There is no global warming, even the guy that came up with the term says he was wrong. 2nd the polar Ice cap has been growing and 3rd there are many more polar bears than in the past few decades. If they are hungry then it means there are more bearsthan the area can support. Don't you guys remember about the Kolbe deer?

We can stand tall knowing we were the first species to knowingly assist in our own extinction.

And break our hands applauding our intelligence all the way there...

The Earth has been warming for a long, long time. And guess what! It will cool again and most of the Earth will be covered in ice once more.

Arguesforsport - I mean I get the name, so I don't know if you are trolling, but you do realize the ice age happened because an astroid hit the earth and a layer of dust blocked out the sun which prevented it from warming, correct? That was just as much of a "cycle" as humans destruction on this planet.

HAHAHA! Really? An ice age from a meteor strike? Try again. I'll help you a bit. The ARE cycles of the Earth's axis and orbit that are some of the causes of 40k - 100k long ice ages.

Bill, I'll lend you a hand too, ocean convection currents also play a role in the warming and cooling of the climate.

BillBodine have you never heard of a nuclear winter (aka solar energy deprivation event)? I don't know what on earth you are laughing about. If a large enough asteroid hits the earth or even if a supervolcano like Yellowstone blows, it can cause a nuclear winter. Just because there are cycles, doesn't mean a nuclear winter from volcanic eruption or meteor strike has never occurred in the earth's lifetime. Educate yourself before you laugh at someone elses response.

Yes, we're in the throes of a natural warming cycle. With only two sunspotless days in the last two years, more than the usual amount of heat is reaching the Earth. And yes, with the human produced blanket of extra greenhouse gasses, less of that heat is being radiated into space. It amazes me that people still argue over whether global warming is caused by humans or is natural. In the past it was just natural, this time, it's both.

As for those who continue to deny that there is any warming, I just classify them with those who still think the Earth is flat.

I'm not convinced that a warmer planet will be a bad thing for humans. It's obviously bad for polar bears, but they survived the natural warming periods that we've been through. The Middle Ages and the Bronze Age were both global warming periods during which, humans thrived. I've seen nothing so far, to prove we won't thrive during this one, provided we can refrain from murdering each other.

As I noted in an above post there have been 34 MAJOR temperature swings in the last 4500 years with 7 MAJOR temperature swings in the last 100 years alone. In the 1300's it was not warm (warmer than today) because of SUV's. In the late 1970's scientists believed we were entering into a new ice age and didn't know if humans could survive. There is a correlation between warming and cooling trends to:

1) Solar Flares from our sun

2) Volcanic eruptions

3) Earthquakes

4) Shifting of the Earth's Axis

5) Ocean Current shifts

And other natural, but rare, occurrences like meteor activity, etc. So this whole "humans caused global warming" is a farce. All scientists have been able to show is that the current trend is warming temperatures - the same cycles as has been occurring over the last 4500 years. Just because we are in a warming trend does not show humans caused it. In fact the ability for humans to even affect the climate is minimal. One volcanic eruption can have more impact than years and years worth of SUV's. One solar flare from our sun can affect our climate more than all the air conditioners combined. One shift of the earths axis, or earthquake, or ocean current shift, can have more impact than all the flatulating cows in the world.

So can we stop this nonsense? Didn't Al Gore say 10 years ago our children won't see snow but yet the last couple years have had increased snowfall? Then they said global warming caused the incredible hurricane activity in 2004 - 2006 and was told it was going to get worse but the last 5 years have had significantly LESS activity than average? Can't we stop with these "the sky is falling the sky is falling" nonsense?

In 20 years we will hear we are entering a new ice age and then the skinny polar bears will start getting fat and I guess we will be all worried because obesity in polar bears will be bad for their health?

Probiz,

In twenty years the Arctic sea ice will be history. So will the increased snowfall, which is caused by your #5 being fed by melting polar ice.

Den: But here is the thing - you don't know that. Temperatures fluctuate up and down and, generally, work in 20 to 40 year cycles. In 20 years it is quite possible that the Arctic will be frozen, crabs fishing is not possible, and the orange crop in Florida and California has been annihilated due to several freezes.

You see this is the problem with environmentalists, they can't tell you what WILL happen so they wait for something to happen then say "SEE SEE!!". Al Gore told us our kids would never see snow. Then 10 years later the largest snowfall in nearly 50 years. So what do environmentalists say? "It is snowing because of global warming" with some nonsense about as it gets hotter, there is moisture, which causes freezing and snow. WHAT?!??!

Now if they can tell me today what will happen 10 years from now MAYBE I will give environmentalists some credibility but they can't. They wait and whatever happens THAT was expected to happen. Floods. Drought. Freeze. No Freeze. Snow. No snow. Too much wheat. Not enough wheat.

You see you cannot tell me what will happen 20 years from now. Heck, you can't tell me what will happen next month!!

Probusiness, your post is just nonsense, as you would discover if you actually tried to look up scientific references to support your claims.

Just to pick some examples:

It was NOT warmer in the 1300's than it is today. Temperatures then maxed out at about the level of the early to mid 20th century. We are now well above that.

Volcanos emit less than 1% of the CO2 that humans are releasing. All the volcanos in the world combined emit about 0.2 gigatons of CO2 per year. In 2011, humans released 37.5 gigatons.

Massive volcanos can temporarily cool the earth for a year or two, but eruptions that large only happen about every 50 years.

Solar cycles are only loosely correlated with temperature trends. In fact, the warmest decade on record occurred during a exceptionally long COOLING period of the sun. Solar flares have zero effect.

Earthquakes have essentially zero effect on climate.

Shifts in the earths axis take thousands of years to have a noticeable effect. Not only that, the current orientation of the earth's axis has a cooling effect, yet the earth is warming.

Overall, all known natural effects combined (those you mention and all others that have been suggested) can account for no more than about 10% of the warming we see. Not only that, those natural effects are randomly distributed positive and negative, with an average effect of nearly zero. Beyond that, all those natural processes combined currently have a COOLING effect, yet the planet is warming at one of the fastest rates in millions of years.

And scientists know far, far more than you seem to realize. They know that CO2 levels are now higher than they have been in 14 million years. They also know that recent addition of CO2 came from burning fossil fuels. They know with great precision the immediate heating effect of adding that amount of CO2. They also have predicted quite well what the follow-on effects of that immediate heating would be: more heating at the poles than at the equator, more heating at night than during the day, more heating in the lower atmosphere than in the upper, etc. And on and on and on -- it would take literally thousands (perhaps millions) of pages to list in detail everything that is known. Just because you are ignorant of the science doesn't mean it isn't there for anyone to see.

If you want a good place to start, this site does a good job of debunking myths such as those you posted:

http:/ /www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php

Some of your myths are listed as myths number 1, 2, 32, 38, 44, 58, 59, 72, 116, 154, and 159.

Jim: Sorry, you can't find a site called "skeptical science" that simply lists "arguments" and says "they are wrong" without any factual information? For every one website you find called "skeptical science" I can find five that actually show scientific correlation between events like solar flares, volcanoes, etc.

Here is an example: http://www.longrangeweather.com/global_temperatures.htm

It shows clearly the correlation between solar activity and volcanoes. And, you are wrong, global temperatures in the early 1300's were hotter than today - and I doubt the Vikings had SUV's.

You have your beliefs and want to believe that my driving my truck this morning has more of an affect than the volcanic eruption that just took place in Guatemala yesterday? There are activities on our planet and in our solar system that dwarf any total impact we can do using hair spray and our air conditioners. Don't get me wrong - nothing wrong with trying to limit any impact we humans do but my point is human impact is such a small miniscule part of the actual deviations in temperature that we could entirely live in caves without air conditioning (and hair spray) and this planet will still go through hotter periods and colder periods. We know this because the earth already has gone through these deviations dozens and dozens of times.

To say the earth has gone through hotter and colder periods many times but THIS time it is not due to natural occurrences and must be because of hair spray, SUV's, and flatulating cows is naive.

ProBusiness, you didn't even bother to go to the site, did you?

Every single rebuttal cites the scientific literature.

And for each one there is a commentary section where people discuss the quality of the arguments.

I picked that site because it was easier than listing thousands of references in the scientific literature, and tends to provide explanations at three levels: simple, moderate, and expert.

And the site you linked to is absurd. The graph provided is riddled with factual errors, not surprising since it is based on two source: (1) writings from 40 years ago of a quirky climatologist (long dead now) who was prone to making outlandish claims that never came true, and (2) those of an astrologer(!).

As they say in the vernacular, are you @!$%#ing kidding me?

Rick, stop it man.You're killin' me!!!!

Stop it Rick, you're killin' me

so kill them...and quit b!tching about it.

800 - Understand Science?

Isn't science about being able to reproduce something over and over. You know like dropping a ball out of your hand and it always falls towards earth?

So far YOUR science (Global Warming) hasn't got one thing right yet. I am pretty sure that is the anti-definition of science.

"Evil Bitch of the North"? are you talking about the former senator from NY, or somebody that just disagrees with you?

Liberals don't seem to understand that there is hard science, and soft science. Hard science requires mathematical proof, soft science like GW relies on statistics and theory. Thus anyone who says GW is fact or proven is either a pathological liar or a political hack. A true scientist would give a probability, nothing more, nothing less.

Personally I do believe humans are impacting the climate, the problem with liberals are they are so pathetically outrageous in their fear mongering that they are actually creating deniers. The problem is, if you are willing to tell an obvious lie with a straight face, no one will believe anything you say.

Sorry but the world is NOT going to end, humans will NOT go extinct, the US does NOT have any impact on the future of this planet, (if it's mostly man made, China and India will dwarf anything we do).

Finally, it's time for libs to put up or shut up. As said earlier, if you don't even believe enough to buy solar panels and EV's, why should anyone else? Any hand-wringer that doesn't list how many solar panels he owns and what they drive is a hypocrite and no amount of simpering hyperbole will change that.

I agree with you Phil. To a person they seem to be holier than thou hypocrites, who don't know soft science from hard (real) science, and who actually think that something can be done to reverse climate change...if it were true.

They seem to be more concerned with ridiculing and belittling anyone who has a contrary or skeptical opinion than providing facts.

Meanwhile, here in Denver over the last couple days, we finally had a good weather system that left over an inch of rain over most of the metro area and dusted the tops of the high peaks with the first snows of the season. Nightly lows are dipping into the upper 40's. Been very dry here this year with only about 6 and a quarter inches of precipitation for the year so far.

More significant, last year we had greater than average precipitation for the year. Finally, El Nino is making a comeback for this coming winter season which should cause greater storminess and cold than average weather. It all averages out.

Yeah, it's just like that silly round Earth theory...

Phil, I was trained in the hard sciences and your post is just bogus.

All hard sciences are ultimately based on statistical data, not mathematical proofs. Mathematical proofs are typically used only to demonstrate internal consistency, or to deduce results from a model that can then be checked against reality.

But even if we were to buy your argument there, global warming is firmly rooted in thermodynamics and quantum mechanics, which are about as hard as you get in the sciences. Using the laws from those theories we can deduce with great accuracy and precision the direct heating effect of the CO2 we are adding to the atmosphere. We can also predict with great accuracy and precision for simplified systems the additional heating effect that would be caused by obvious feedbacks such as increased water vapor.

This is very much akin to predicting the trajectories of objects in idealized situations where we simplify the effects of wind resistance, frictional forces, etc.

In the real world of course, things get messy with additional complications, but accounting for those is basically a matter of determining appropriate tweaks to the basic computed values. We know from basic physics that the effective climate sensitivity of CO2 is about 3C of heating for each doubling of CO2 levels. The effects of feedbacks from clouds, etc. might add or subtract up to about 1C, and the uncertainty in that estimation decreases year by year as more sophisticated models are developed and more data is collected to calibrate them.

Yes, climate science is relatively new, and yes it is dealing with unusually messy and incomplete data, but that doesn't prevent it from getting exceptionally good basic results that are solidly grounded.

So JimCA, I'm not schooled in statistical science like you and Valhalla Phil, but I can deduce that solar activity has a greater effect on global conditions than G.W. believers give credit. Since it is difficult to determine and even more difficult to predict said effects, how do we know that this is not the cause of climate change? With that said, if the world's population ceased all activity today, with no more CO2 output caused by humans, when would we see a noticeable change in the climate?

Shifting Gears, scientists are not fools -- fluctuations in the sun are an obvious factor to consider, and this contribution to warming has been studied to death. All climate models take it into account. It is highly unlikely that you'll get a bright idea sitting in your living room with 10 minutes of thought that thousands of scientists could have missed after spending their entire careers studying precisely such issues.

Both temperatures and solar activity can be measured rather precisely. Not only that, their values going back several centuries can be determined rather well from proxy data (isotope ratios, etc.), so it is easy to look for statistical correlations.

It's relatively easy to see that the solar cycle adds and subtracts about 0.09C to baseline temperatures. It's also easy to see that this change up and down fluctuates in sync with solar cycles which are about 11 years long, but long term add zero on average.

Meanwhile, the temperature trend is a steady rise of about 0.3C per decade, which continues cycle after cycle.

And the past decade saw the hottest temperatures on record even as the sun went through one of the longest extended minimums on record. Now that the sun is approaching a maximum again, the odds are much higher that we'll see records shattered again over the next couple of years. Mitigating against that is the likelihood that this will be one of the lowest solar maximums of past few centuries. The next few decades may see solar activity comparably low to that of the Maunder Minimum, which could slightly reduce the global warming we see for the next 30 years or so.

And we're already seeing noticeable changes in climate from the CO2 we've already added.

If we stopped adding CO2 now, the effects would continue to increase for a few decades due to feedbacks that are now in the pipeline but haven't played out yet. Those effects would then fade away over a few centuries, but residual effects would linger for perhaps 100,000 years or more. Over the course of about 10 million years the effects would be effectively wiped out as plate tectonics and vulcanism returned things to long-term equilibrium.

We cannot control the climate, but we can, and have influenced it through our ignorance.

There was an ice age because an astroid hit the earth causing debri/dust to cover our atmosphere, not allowing any warmth from the sun to get in. That is why. It also killed those dinosaurs - unless you are sarah palin.

I know there were studies of deep cores of ice in greenland or iceland or somewhere up there that showed that there was more pollution and dirt, soot etc created by industry over the past 100 years than all previous ice-available time.

I suggest we feed Popo to the bears. It would make him useful.

One Palin, one asteriod. Do you know how many Ice Ages there were? How come Chicago was under 100 feet of ice and at other times the east coast cities were under a 100 feet of water. Ora Kansas being coastal property, or the Appalachian Mountains of the eastern US begining created by the continent of Africa slamming into the east coast not once, but twice. Or forests in Antartica or ice in the Sahara desert. All of this before MAN was even around to blame. For those of you who want to "stop" climate change, GOOD LUCK ! This is not a liberal or conservative issue, it is history...and history repeats itself.

Sorry bigpicture, it seems your asteroid theory is outdated. Also, how does your theory explain that Greenland was once plush as proven by fossils in the ice?

Scientists had suggested that their demise was caused by a comet or asteroid impact that left tiny traces in upper-level rock layers around the world, but new research gives this Ice Age-ending scenario a cold shoulder.

In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team of British and American scientists refuted the last remaining piece of evidence supporting this particular impact theory--nanodiamonds. If impacts led to the extinction of the Ice Age megafauna, the resulting heat would have turned some organic carbon into tiny diamonds.

Bigpicture, you seem confused. The last globally significant asteroid strike was 65 million years ago -- the one that killed off the non-avian dinosaurs.

After that episode, things retuned to a stable and very warm climate until about 40 million years ago. At that point, the Earth began to shift into a colder climate leading to the current ice age. (An ice age being any period with permanent ice caps.) Over the past several million years in our ice age, natural cycles have caused glaciation to expand and contract.

The most recent major glaciation ended about ten thousand years ago and the earth warmed significantly until about 6,000 years ago.

Since then, the earth was in a very gradual cooling trend that would have continued until a new major glaciation about ten thousand years in the future. All of human civilization developed in this relatively stable climate regime. In fact, early human influences from burning forests, etc. may have flattened the cooling a bit even before the industrial era, making the past 6,000 years even more stable than they would have been naturally.

Now human influences have overwhelmingly reversed that cooling trend and we are on track to rapidly return to the climate that existed 40 million years ago, at a rate of change that is already among the fastest seen in thousands of years and which will soon become one of the fastest seen in the past billion years, eclipsed only by things such as massive asteroid strikes, lava fields the size of India erupting, etc.

The climate we are headed for will be about 10C warmer than now, with virtually no permanent ice left anywhere on earth, even at the south pole or highest mountains.

@JimCA. Your sad attempts at alarmism do not make your silly claims true. There is no evidence of out of control warming. As a matter of fact, you can look at the past 13 years, post the largest El Nino event in 1998 and see the warming trend is Zero! But don't let the facts get in the way of a good bed time story.

Back on point of this Ridiculous Article and assertions.:

Polar bear numbers have been increasing steadily:

The population has been solid or increasing around the 25,000 Bear mark. Which is a huge number compared to just a few decades ago. So what of the impact on other animal poplution due to large number of Bears? Lets say we grow to 30,000 bears, is that enough? a 20% increase? Then we could see a 20% decrease in Seal Population, their major food source.

The sky is falling, the sky is falling. Global warming, um no, Global Climate change, um no, Climate Disruption... Get an education

Meanwhile Antarctic Ice Extent continues to GROW as the the MASS Balance of ICE in the Antarctic as reported by NASA GISS this July. So how does one pole Grow Ice to record High, while the other Shrinks to a Low? Please explain how ?

Dave, using 1998 as a starting point is an attempt to use the bogus escalator argument, where a long term temperature trend is interpreted as a series of short term coolings, each starting at much higher point than the previous such cooling period. You can see this graphically here: http:/ /www.skepticalscience.com/graphics.php?g=47

Not only that, but 2005 and 2010 were both hotter than 1998, which makes it hard to argue there was no cooling even during this period.

In general, the year-to-year noise factor for global temperature is much larger than the long term signal of global warming, so you need to look at periods of 30 years or so to spot reliable trends. On shorter scales random fluctuations from solar cycles, volcanos, El Nino, etc. can easily mask the long-term trend. But if you subtract out just those three known effects (all of which average to zero in the long term), the resulting adjusted temperatures show a very clear and steady upward trend, as can be seen in figure 8 of the following: http:/ /iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/6/4/044022/pdf/1748-9326_6_4_044022.pdf

Dave, regarding your comments on polar bears, you should read this debunking of global warming myth #36: http:/ /www.skepticalscience.com/polar-bears-global-warming.htm

Comment #18 in particular does a good job of demolishing your argument.

And on a meta-note, I'll probably not be following this thread any more since they make it really hard to track a conversation here and I'm tired of searching for comments.

Jim,

You're a very smart guy. But you should realize that there are people who will refused to be convinced no matter how much data is staring them in the face.

They will only believe in global warming after it is FAR to late to do anything about it. So it's up to the rest of us to do something without them.

But thanks for trying.

Do you know how many species go extinct every year...and has for years, before and after man came into being. Look it up! Do we contribute (as do all things) maybe. Are we the cause? Can we cause something that has been happening since the beginning of time. Lets be realistic and not emotional.

Well the U.S. did save the American Bald Eagle from extinction. Perhaps the Russian could do the Polar Bear the favor. With the eagles, DDT was banned. With the bears, it's cessation of CO2. Simple.

HistoricFacts:

Global warming is real. It is man made. These are FACTS. I know the GOP is AGAINST FACTS because they disagree with their preconceived notions, but PLEASE, if you are not going to help FIX IT, at least GET OUT OF THE WAY!

SRS, what you claim is fact is actually theory that cannot be proven.

@HistoricFacts - Natural selection is just that, natural. However, there has been a massive increase in the rate of extinctions over the past 100 years as it has increased 2000 to 5000 times the background rate of about 10 species per year. That is not natural.

@Bookem' Danno - You should take the time to learn about the difference between common theory and scientific theory. Google it.

Once you understand what scientific theory is, you will also understand the strength of the claims around global warming and climate change (i.e. they are very real and due, in part, to humans)

david 9000,

the eagle and the peregrine falcon.

i know, i know, facts are hard to swallow.
but one question, actually a statement and question.

i would go to any lake or river in america and jump in.

would you go to india or china and go to any lake or river and jump in?

look into the condition of the rivers in india, espically the ganges river.

i know its wiki, but it sums it up perfectly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollution_of_the_Ganges

so why is this strictly an american problem?

how about we share the blame!!!

and now for 3rd grade science!

our plants use ____— to make oxygen?

give you a hint, CO2!!

so we cut off the co2, we cut off our oxygen!!!

class dismissed!!

Historicfacts: the current rate of extinction has only been matched about five times in the past BILLION years.

Those previous disasters were caused by massive events such as extensive vulcanism (lava fields the size of India), mile-wide asteroids hitting the earth, etc. One of those events wiped out the predecessors to the dinosaurs and allowed them to flourish. Another wiped out most of the dinosaurs and allowed mammals to flourish.

That's the size of the impact we are having.

@OMG really people?!! - If you suggesting that excess CO2 is going to be a good thing, you'll need to look a bit further. A study released in 2002 by Stanford University found that excess carbon dioxide in the air actually reduced vegetation and plant growth.

CO2, AGW, and Climate change area global problems so your example of India and China is inane. It's an American problem (not just American) because America is on Earth... get it?

Did you know that China spends more than twice what the US does on green technology? And so does Europe. Yet, over time, the US has pumped more pollutants and CO2 into the atmosphere than China and Europe combined... even now, China produces only about 4% more CO2 than the US based on 2010 numbers. They have far more area and far more people.

Bookem Danno:

No. They are facts. There is still the FLAT EARTH society that says the earth is not round, but that does not make it so. Like the THEORY of GRAVITY, you go against it at your own peril.

If you deny GRAVITY EXISTS, you jump off a bridge and die.Unfortunately, if you deny global warming you will probably kill ALL HUMAN LIFE.

There is absolutely zero proof of that. As stated above, a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing to liberals.

SRS,

There is almost no credible evidence of man made global warming, or at the very least that it has a large effect. If you could please provide this proof, we would love to see it. Until then, keep your faith to yourself.

We've gotten out of your way SRS, now go get that nasty CO2 and bring it under control.

because at that point the record drought was an early warning? because it was a short term event and not a decades-long trend? yeah but a milennia is i suppose 100 years, there have been twenty since the year 0, and homo sapiens has only been around for 150 to 200 of them, so i would say so has probably the polar bear been here say 150 to 200 thousand years. So we are wiping out with corporate greed and pollution 150k years of evolution. Something is wrong...to say it's all ok, just a typical part of nature without concern is ridiculous. If the ground we stand on suddenly started covering with water 100 feet deep everywhere on the planet I'm sure some species would thrive also, but we'd be pretty concerned.

It is impossible for the entire planet to be covered with water.

If all the land ice melted, most is in Antarctica and Greenland it would raise the Oceans by 300 feet, so anything that is currently 300 feet or less above sea level would be in trouble. The elevation where I live is almost 600 feet above sea level.

The Antarctic ice caps are growing, which, of course, is just another sign of global warming.

Let's agree for a moment that there is global warming. So what? The models are predicting an average temp that is only a couple of degrees warmer in several years. The oceans would not rise but a few inches.

Global warming fear mongering is a way for people like Al Gore to get richer. Look at his investments in cap and trade stock companies. All you lefties who hate the rich should sure hate Al Gore, right???

Danno,

The Antarctic ice cap is not growing. It's spreading somewhat because the glaciers are flowing from land to sea faster. The depth of the ice on land is declining. Where the ice flows reach the ocean, they're melting not just from the top, but are melting even faster from the bottom, where the warmer water gets to them. The entire Eastern shelf is projected to break off, as a big iceberg, soon.

Polar bears survived the 30's because Arctic sea ice had, even at it's lowest extent then, more than double the area it has today.

Globally, the earth was much cooler in the 30's than it is today. The continental U.S. was close to current temperatures, but it was essentially the only place on earth to get that warm. Now the U.S. is warmer than the 30's, not as an isolated warm spot on the globe but as part of a planet-wide warming. If we had a recurrence of the local anomaly the U.S. saw in the 30's (which could happen again) temperatures here would be through the roof -- picture 110 degrees for weeks on end in the midwest, with other areas hitting 125 to 135.

Danno, Arctic sea ice is 2.5 million square kilometers below recent average levels for this time of year -- that's less than half of the area it had just 30 years ago. For a few years now, it has consistently been about 1 million km^2 below normal, plus or minus a million km^2. It hasn't been above the normal level even once since early 2003.

Arctic sea ice volume is down to less than 1/4 of what it was 30 years ago, and the rate of loss is accelerating each year now. If current trends continue, it will begin to vanish entirely each September within a decade, which probably has not happened in the past 800,000 years. In fact, if the current trends continue, it will vanish year round (even in the winter) within a century, which might not have happened in the past 14 million years.

Antarctic sea ice is currently about 0.9 million km^2 above normal, but fluctuates wildly and has also been about that far below normal a couple of times in the past two years. It is also currently subject to some large but temporary local perturbations (e.g., wind shifts induced by the ozone hole) that make it hard to discern long-term patterns.

Antarctic land-based ice is decreasing by about 250 cubic kilometers per year. Land-based Greenland ice is also disappearing at about that rate, as are the remaining glaciers in the world. Overall, about 1,000 km^3 of ice are melting each year -- about double the volume of the Mississippi river.

So...is this cause for concern? And...can anything be done about it?

Is this cause for concern?

Yes -- we are performing a massive uncontrolled experiment that will fundamentally alter an environment already exploited well beyond its long-term carrying capacity. Only a fool would not be alarmed. Among other things, we face the prospect of nuclear armed nations fighting for the survival of hundreds of millions of their citizens over increasingly erratic water supplies. We also face the prospect of hundreds of millions of refugees attempting to cross politically charged boundaries as their homelands are flooded. Just to point out two obvious problems among dozens.

Can anything be done about it?

Yes -- we can reduce the amounts of greenhouse gases we are emitting. We could recognize the currently extermalized long term costs we will be paying for added CO2 and internalize them. That would force markets to adapt to the real-world situation and not the fictional world they currently adapt to in which real costs are hidden.

It breaks my heart to see these beautiful majestic creatures suffering like this..........Isn't there something we can do...........Can we create fake/polar ice cap flotation devices that they could hunt from? I don't mean to be simple minded but with all the innovation and technology in the world I can't help think that there is SOMETHING that can be created, that would work as some kind of floating platform for the bears to hunt from, but yet would not pose a threat to traveling sea vessels in the area..................just wishing and thinking aloud I guess...............

I would imagine that humans bringing food to them would be a temporary measure. We need to find a way to create a world where they can survive in their own habitats.

Truly heart breaking.

Simple. Feed them global warming deniers. We can start with Mitt Romney and work our way down

Yeah Beach girl... Just an idea... Request an interview with the Koch Bros. Show up in a bikini, covered with a fur coat, with Romney's picture on one half of the top and Ryan's on the other. Socialist slurs optional. You should get a check relatively quickly. No limits after that so ask for alot ;)

Rob what's wrong with you? She's just concerned. Maybe there is something that could help.

Actually Daniel I'm attempting to make a sociological comment. The political right has benefitted greatly from the Kochs' ability to fund their philosophy. Much of the political right pooh-poohs human-caused global warming. Those of us who disagree with that, lack the financial wherewithall to counter that kind of economic clout. The Kochs are such blind & rabid antiliberals they may fund anything that agrees with their agenda. Are you with me yet? I don't want to reveal EVERYTHING.

It's called humor ;) Maybe I need to work on my delivery. Sorry if I offended you

Using the older incandescent light bulbs will dramatically INCREASE the mercury released into the environment if your electricity comes from burning coal.

The excess mercury released by burning coal for the extra energy needed is about 5 times the amount of mercury in a CFL. Plus, the mercury released by burning coal goes directly into the environment, while the mercury in a CFL is normally recycled.

Not only that, the extra coal burned to run an old-style light bulb also releases a host of other toxic chemicals, including radioactive materials such as thorium and uranium.

If you wish to reduce environmental pollution, CFL's win hands-down over incandescent bulbs -- it's not even close.

But yes -- don't break fluorescent bulbs. And if they break by accident, air out your house for a few hours after cleaning them up.

that's an excuse. We've all been causing this for decades. Whatever happened to the environmental movement, the concert for the rainforest? They were bought out by customers of ikea and exxon and the like.

Well, just look at America, we mowed down most of our forests, don't really have to look at the rain-forests do we? While I agree cutting down the rain-forests is a terrible thing, we already did that here, but we tend to look outside ourselves. Trees help sequester carbon dioxide helping to re-balance what we are contributing to.

It's terrible to be part of this global warming problem and heartbreaking to see other sentient beings suffer. We should all start looking to do our part to reverse global warming, each doing many small things every day such as turning off lights, driving less, growing our own gardens, plant a tree, donating what we can for environmental causes, etc. all this will make a big difference.

We could sequester most of this excess CO2 by putting it into the soil. This is being studied. I will let you research it on your own. Clearing of land by cutting down trees and starting fires have been going on for thousands of years and continues to this day.

The things you mention may give you warm feelings of personal virtue, but really don't have much of an effect.

Koodos TVAR but why cant't we help the homeless as well/? Why does it have to be about Obama or the rep candidate? Why do these discussions always turn to politics? What do you want Obama to do? Go out and rescue Polar Bears? Why the politics? He has enough to handle with our awful repub candidate and give it a breadk. I love polar bears and so does my daughter.

TVAR,

It's not just lack of food. The Polar Bears have to learn to eat on land, because they're not going to have any ice to live on.

Unless of course they go extinct along with the thousands of other species disappearing now.

Polar bears don't eat fish , and seals need the pack ice to make dens. The bear & seals share the same fate.

Polar bears will eat anything edible, and seals don't need pack ice to make dens....I've seen them do this quite nicely under rock outcropings.

Don't fret. We have their DNA in storage. One day we'll find a nice icy planet for them.

you too.

Den Osynn - that's about the sweetest thing i've ever read on msnbc.

Reminds me of a book titled "Collapse", by Jared Diamond,

Diamond proposes in the book that when the leadership of a culture removes its self from the rest of their people . "Collapse" soon follows.

Good point. Ice cores show prior warming periods were thousands of times longer than this one. We've never experienced accelerated climate change like this.

And just what do you suggest be done? Take up a collection? Let them pander on the street corner?

LOL, really Liza? As good natured as your post was, its not very well thought out. The point is this will happen to all the polar bears. Throwing this one a few morsels solves nothing. Did you want a ref to come flying off the ship and break up the fight?

I did. I suggested Mitt Romney be sent to discuss face to face with the bear why Global Warming doesn't exist.

It would be the most USEFUL thing Mittens has EVER done!

I thought an architect would be educated. Being educated does not always conform to your political beliefs, but they are true anyway. After many Ice Ages, followed by many Global Warmings, you have the answer, Republicans did it, even 100's of thousands of years ago. Yes, you are from Seattle, obviously.

HistoricFacts, your logic is completely bogus.

Just because there were natural warm periods in the past does NOT mean we can't also cause one now artificially.

Otherwise we couldn't artificially start fires with matches, because lightning did that naturally in the past.

Its a reach, but you got there. How do you artificially start a fire? And lightning also killed people in the past. So, are all other methods of killing people . . . artificial?

Think of it this way. We are not causing the earth to warm, but, we may be or may not be contributing to it. Not even the scientist can all agree on either position.

How do you artificially start a fire? Matches.

Artificial simply means "man made" -- it's an antonym to natural.

So not all other methods of killing people besides lightning are artificial, just those initiated by human action. Floods, volcanos, etc. would all be natural (non-artificial) methods of killing people. Guns, arrows, poisoned cakes, etc. would all be artificial methods of killing people.

And scientists overwhelming agree we are warming the planet by adding CO2. Basic physics irrefutably shows that extra CO2 has an immediate warming effect and that positive feedbacks from enhanced water evaporation add to the warming. The only way to show that we're not warming the planet is to come up with negative feedbacks large enough to counter those. One by one, contrarians have tried to come with such arguments, and one by one every single such argument has been demolished. That's how science works. By now, the arguments against it are pretty much absurd, and the rapidly dwindling number of scientists making them are pretty much paid liars, senile octogenarians, or grossly incompetent bunglers. There is basically just one(!) half-way credible scientist still holding out, but he has made a career out of being a devil's advocate, and even he agrees the planet is warming due to our influence -- he just questions the extent and the mechanisms.

No. You missed the point. The GOP is denying global warming exists. The Progressives want to do something about it.

If you want the bears to starve, vote GOP.

It brought tears to my eyes too. And I never bring up political statements in articles, and hate that so many do. But SRS is right, in this case the Republicans feel that Global warming is a scam being pulled by Democrats, and thus plan on doing nothing about it. In this case, politics matters in the long run.

Yes I know, that sounds completely dumb and outrageous. But unfortunately it's true.

Polls show that over half of Republicans are birthers; therefore, I don't have much respect for their other opinions, although I do thank them for helping to keep the Reynolds Aluminum factories running 24/7.

I couldn't finish the article, I was in tears halfway through, I was so disturbed by it all. I couldn't even click on the video clip. However, I still believe that it is the human race that is responsible for the decline in the polar bear population not because of whether global warming is real or not (I don't understand it enough to give an informed opinion either way), it's because SOMETHING that's happening to the climate and it's the human race's fault.

people who are paying attention care. maybe you should try paying attention if you do.

Yup. The TRUTH will set you free.

But it will make you ANGRY first.

reaj, past politics is exactly the cause of this. And a change in politics is the only way this will change.

Everything short of coordinated national efforts is just noise.

Really, reaj? You didn't watch the video and yet the content of the article alone moved you to tears to the point you couldn't finish it? Really??? Wow. Did you get to the really exciting part when an "expert" stepped out on the deck and declared "It's surprisingly warm out." That one had me blubbering. I mean, what more proof do we need than that?